Brendan Rodgers says Leicester players are aware of the standard he demands

Brendan Rodgers insists his demands are clear and Leicester’s players must expect a blast if they drop their standards.

The manager criticised their lack of quality and care after the 2-2 draw with Brighton last weekend.

The Foxes are yet to win in the Premier League since they returned following the World Cup break and go to Walsall in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday.

“The players know exactly where they’re at and they know I’m with them. I’m close with them on the pitch,” said Rodgers.

“I’ve been here long enough and they’ve been here long enough and they’ve improved their contracts, they’ve improved their lives.

“They know I’m here with them and supporting them. Sometimes you have to be harsh to be clear. When I’m talking about technical quality, I’m not saying you cannot improve it but there are certain aspects of it.

“I demand that every single day in training they come in to improve. There’s not a case here where I say that and the players are flat and they’re not confident.

“It’s a demand, it’s a standard. You have to improve every single day. We’re at the elite level of sport. It’s not all rosy in the garden all the time.

“They won’t read anything from you that they don’t hear from me. It’s something I constantly go on about and talk about.

“I felt if we were a little bit better in the Brighton game, we could have won the game but the responsibility of that is on me.

“If you want to criticise, don’t criticise them, criticise me.”

But Rodgers insisted he was not sending any messages to the players after their difficult run of form.

“It’s not a tactic, it’s not a strategy, nothing clever,” he said. “I’m not doing it so that someone else can hear. It was just my feeling of where the game was at.

“I’m not that clever to be strategically positioning things and you writing about it. I don’t have to get the players to read something – I can tell them to their face.

“I’m always going to be supportive of my players.”