Rodgers urges Leicester not to get carried away

Published on

Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers urged caution over the Foxes’ fast start after their impressive 4-2 win over Burnley.

Dennis Praet’s stunner wrapped up the points to send them top of the early Premier League table on goal difference.

Harvey Barnes and James Justin also scored for the Foxes, who have won their opening two top-flight games for the first time in five years.

Erik Pieters’ own goal had put the hosts 2-1 ahead following Chris Wood’s early opener.

Jimmy Dunne’s header, on his Premier League debut, briefly gave the Clarets hope but Praet smashed in from 18 yards.

Leicester have recovered after missing out on Champions League qualification on the final day of last season but Rodgers, who claimed his 100th top-flight win as a manager, has remained calm.

He said: “It’s only two games. After 10 games you start to get an idea of where the league is at.

“We’re not even thinking about that [a sustained challenge]. We’re looking to develop the team and the experiences of last season, both in the league and the cup, will really enrich us.

“Whatever way it finished last season we still had a fantastic season to finish where we did.

“It [starting well] was always going to be important because there can be a hangover, if you don’t address it, but we spoke about it in our short pre-season period and felt ready to move on.

“The players have good motivation, they’ve scored seven goals in two games and it shows we’re ready to attack the season again.”

Wood opened the scoring 10 minutes in when he outmuscled Justin at the far post.

Barnes levelled soon after when he found the corner after Praet’s cutback and Pieters deflected in Timothy Castagne’s cross to put the Foxes ahead.

Justin netted from close range to make it 3-1 only for Dunne to pull a goal back, heading in Dwight McNeil’s free kick with 17 minutes remaining.

Praet, though, sealed the win when he blasted into the top corner from the edge of the area after 79 minutes.

Wood hit the post late on but Burnley, missing a host of injured players including James Tarkowski, ultimately fell short.

Boss Sean Dyche said: “There are certainly positives there, we are stretched at the moment but the mentality was excellent.

“Some of the chances we created were really good at this level and on another day Woody could have had a hat-trick.

“The deflected goal was a killer for us, I thought we had a good grip of the game at that stage.

“That’s every player we have got currently. It makes the job slightly harder when you haven’t got the bodies. We work with what we’ve got, we’ve done that before.

“With Tarky’s toe [injury], we’re expecting him to have every chance to play against Millwall in the cup game.

“We’ve got a great mentality which we’ve shown here and we’ll take it onto the next game and see where we go with it.”

Post by

Dean Workman