Brendan Rodgers has been heavily linked with the vacancy at Spurs since Jose Mourinho was sacked; Leicester have secured their place in FA Cup final and Monday's victory over Crystal Palace means they are now closing in on Champions League qualification
Wednesday 28 April 2021 06:07, UK
Brendan Rodgers has no interest in talking to Tottenham about their managerial vacancy, and instead he believes Leicester have the potential to regularly challenge for European places, Sky Sports News has been told.
Rodgers has been heavily linked with the vacancy at Spurs since Jose Mourinho was sacked last week, with Ryan Mason having taken temporary charge until the end of the season.
Those links have strengthened since Julian Nagelsmann, who was thought to be top of Spurs' list of candidates, decided to join Bayern Munich in the summer, leaving the north London club to look at other options.
Leicester have already secured their place in next month's FA Cup final and Monday's victory over Crystal Palace means they are now closing in on Champions League qualification, having moved seven points clear of fifth-placed West Ham with five Premier League games remaining.
In addition to this season's success, Rodgers has real optimism for how his young squad will develop over the coming years as they gain more big-match experience.
Rodgers is second-favourite with most bookmakers to take over at Spurs.
Spurs, who lost to Manchester City in Sunday's Carabao Cup final, are seventh in the table - five points behind fourth-placed Chelsea.
When asked last week about speculation linking him to Spurs, Rodgers said: "Tottenham is a fantastic club, it's one of the big clubs in this country, it's a huge club. My focus is purely here.
"I'm at a world-class training facility, the project we're in here, we still want to develop, we still have a lot of work to do here.
"I have a great connection with the players and the board, and we have plans to keep progressing."
Leicester looked set to finish in the Premier League top four last season but just three wins from their final 14 games saw Rodgers' side miss out on the final day of the campaign.
Back-to-back defeats - against Manchester City and West Ham - at the start of April threatened to push Leicester into a congested top-four battle this season, but home wins over West Brom and Crystal Palace have given them a significant cushion going into their final five fixtures.
Wins in their next two fixtures - both live on Friday Night Football on Sky Sports - away to Southampton and at home to Newcastle, could be enough to secure a top-four place if the likes of West Ham and Liverpool drop points.
Kasper Schmeichel said Rodgers has "restored Leicester's identity" after the Foxes closed in on a top-four finish with a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace.
When Rodgers took over at the King Power Stadium in February 2019, the Foxes sat 11th in the Premier League, 18 points off the top four and had scored only 34 goals in 28 games.
The ex-Liverpool and Celtic manager's side missed out on the Champions League on the final day of last season but now will guarantee themselves a top-four finish - only Leicester's second in Premier League history - if they win three of their final five games, although less than nine points may well be sufficient.
Schmeichel, one of few players still turning out for the Foxes who played a part in their title-winning side five years ago, told Sky Sports after their late turnaround victory how Rodgers restored a spark that had been missing in the East Midlands before his arrival.
"Brendan's come in and done wonders for us, I think he's the absolute perfect manager for us at the perfect time. He came in when we needed an identity, we needed to find our feet. Who were we after this amazing title win?" he said.
"We'd kind of been in-between a counter-attacking team and a possession team. We didn't quite know exactly what we were, and he's just given us a clear identity. He's been so clear in his messages and how he wants us to play.
"And it was exactly what we needed, so I can't praise him enough for the job he's done and is doing and hopefully for many years to come."
