Brendan Rodgers claims he does not know what the Europa Conference League is after Leicester City were dumped into the competition following their defeat to Napoli on Thursday night.
The Foxes lost 3-2 in Naples as Spartak Moscow progressed to the knockout stages of the Europa League as runners-up, with Legia Warsaw missing a 96th-minute penalty that would have kept Leicester in the tournament.
Rodgers’ side will now face a play-off tie in February to add to their busy schedule, though have quickly been installed as one of the favourites behind Rennes, Roma and Tottenham – though the north Londoners are at risk of exiting the competition.
The Conference League could well represent Leicester’s best route into Europe next season, with the side currently 11th in the Premier League table, but Rodgers will have to familiarise himself with the competition very quickly.
Asked if Leicester can win the Conference League, Rodgers told BT Sport: ‘Well I’m not even thinking [about that]. I’ve got to be honest, I don’t even know what the competition is, in all fairness.
‘I was focused on the Europa League, winning this group or at the very least finishing second.
‘So with all due respect to the competition, I’m not sure what it is. But I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.’
Expanding on what went wrong against Napoli, Rodgers continued: ‘I think there’s a lot of naivety in our team and we’ve got a lot of young players.
‘There’s been a bigger demand from them this season, and we’ve played a number of different systems and shapes. Individually it then comes down to having that mentality to track our runner or to stop a cross.
‘That can be in whatever shape it is, but it’s my responsibility to find that solution. Tonight, we were good offensively but we were nowhere good enough defensively. I said to the players [at half-time] if we could just tighten up the gaps, and do the dirty side of the game.
‘We’ve got to do more to block the shot for their first goal from their first attack. We needed to be more aggressive, the second goal we jump at the wrong time and that opens up the space and for the third goal, you’ve got to track the runner and stop the cross. These are the basics of the game we aren’t doing so well.’
