Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has lauded “outstanding” Ademola Lookman for his display in Sunday’s 2-1 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion, claiming his “cleverness and brightness” was good.
With the reigning English FA Cup champions trailing by a lone goal at the Falmer Stadium, the former England youth international of Nigerian descent was introduced for James Maddison before the commencement of the second half.
His presence brought life into the Foxes’ attack as they created several scoring opportunities.
Although Leicester crumbled to their third league defeat of the 2021-22 campaign, the Northern Irishman was keen to praise the contribution of the former Everton star.
"Lookman was outstanding. He gave us exactly what we needed,” Rodgers told Leicester City website.
“He was playing inside, but coming wide and combining with Ricky. Just his cleverness and brightness in the game was so good. I was pleased with that.
"It’s just the case of Ade coming in and getting used to how we play and you can see, day on day, game on game, he’s starting to make an impact. He’s certainly one we’ll consider to start during the week."
Regardless of the loss, Rodgers picked some positives – especially the improved second-half performance and the impact made by the substitutes.
"I thought we actually started the game well, in terms of control," he continued.
"We had good positions on the field, without ever really threatening the goal, but I think we arrived into good areas and pushed them back.
"That was the first 20-25 minutes, then I felt we started playing into areas where they would want us to go. We started to go central too early and they were able to break away from that. In the second half, we needed a little more penetration.
"We went back to putting an actual winger on Ade, who I thought was outstanding when he came into the game. Obviously, we gave away a free-kick, which we could defend better.
"That was early on in the second half, but from that moment on, we played with that personality that we need to see in the team and, by the end of the game, we were so unlucky to not pick up at least a point from it.
"The first goal knocked us. We didn’t quite find a rhythm so we addressed it at half-time and I felt, in the second half, we were so much better in the speed of our game, the balance of the team, and we should have got something.”
Leicester City are guests of Millwall in Wednesday’s League Cup fixture.