Rodgers Believes Maddison Has His Mojo Back

Maddison has been in and out of the Leicester City team following a frustrating start to the season but has started to show his undoubted quality in recent weeks.

The one-cap England international impressed in the recent 4-2 victory over Manchester United in the Premier League and provided a crucial assist as the Foxes won 4-3 away at Spartak Moscow in the Europa League last Thursday.

Maddison then scored his first Premier League goal in eight months as Leicester defeated Brentford 2-1 on Sunday.

“I thought the other night he was starting to get that swagger back,” said Rodgers, ahead of Sunday’s trip to Brentford.

“How he moved, how he takes the ball, the pressing side and he got his first assist. That is James’ job to create and score goals.

“It’s about understanding players, sometimes you have to break the cycle. That was my thing with James, we needed to take him out and break the cycle of playing and worrying about performance.

“Let’s strip it back, let’s take a look, where can we be better, what do we need to do, how hard do we need to work? Then we can piece it back together.

“This boy is a top player but even a top player’s confidence goes at times and they are not at the same level. How do you manage that? For me, it’s take him out, analyse his game and how we can improve it.

“Coming on in Warsaw (against Legia Warsaw last month) I thought he started to show that confidence again, coming on at Palace and then we had a good couple of weeks in the international break.

“I told him quite a way out he would start against Manchester United and he worked really hard and gave a really good performance. It’s like anything, time, patience, commitment and you’ll see him get better and better as the season progresses.”