The Irishman reportedly feels he will be high on the list to replace Pep Guardiola in 2023 and that kind of talk could hurt his struggling squad

It’s never a good sign when your manager is among the favourites to jump ship for another Premier League club. It’s even more ominous when he reportedly isn’t interested because he’s holding out for a better offer.

According to the Daily Mail, Brendan Rodgers expects to be high on the shortlist for the Manchester City job if it comes up in the summer of 2023, which is a potentially explosive story inside Leicester City. It is the sort of rumour that could undermine a project that already looks to be on the wane.

Where is there left for Leicester to go? Missing out on the Champions League on the final day in successive seasons must take a huge emotional – and existential – toll, especially with a ‘Big Four’ having been firmly re-established over the summer.

Their FA Cup win in May felt like the pinnacle and if there are no mountains left to climb, it would hardly be surprising if Rodgers is thinking about his next move.

However, at Premier League level, that fractional loss of motivation, likely felt by the players too, is often the difference between success and failure.

Leicester are certainly badly out of sorts right now: 13th in the table, without a win in four, and closer in points to the bottom three than the top six.

So, here’s what’s gone wrong in 2021-22, and how Rodgers can start to fix it...

Injuries and poor signings have caused a leaky defence

Rodgers has had to cope with injuries to Wesley Fofana, Jonny Evans, and James Justin, leading to a central defensive partnership of Caglar Soyuncu and Jannick Vestergaard – which is just too immobile for Leicester’s hard-pressing and fluid game.

Vestergaard was a strange signing. He lacks the agility required to help the Foxes build from the back or close down the opposition successfully, which is why the team are conceding more shots (14.28 per game) than any other team in the division, when last year they conceded the fourth fewest (8.22 per game).

Worse still, they’ve made four errors leading to shots this season already, having made just nine in the whole of last term.