Brendan Rodgers explains why Ricardo Pereira was marking Tammy Abraham for Roma corners

Ricardo Pereira had to mark Tammy Abraham at Roma corners because Leicester City had run out of tall players, manager Brendan Rodgers explained.

The City right-back was beaten comfortably to the header by Abraham for the decisive goal at the Stadio Olimpico, the England international scoring in the 11th minute to send Roma to the Europa Conference League final. They will face Feyenoord at the end of May.

City were well aware that Roma were one of the best in Europe at set-pieces, but did not have the physical attributes to cope, Rodgers said. With three big centre-backs in Chris Smalling, Gianluca Mancini, and Roger Ibanez, and another tall striker in Nicolo Zaniolo, it meant Ricardo had to watch Abraham, despite a six-inch height difference.

“It’s clearly physicality,” Rodgers said on his team’s set-piece woes. “We’re a team that have done everything to try to change the momentum with the set-pieces, we’ve gone man-to-man, we’ve gone zonal, but it clearly doesn’t work consistently enough.

“We have given away too many cheap goals and too many times it’s put us on the back foot and it’s cost us. It’s not the effort of the players. Set-pieces are about organisation, so lots of work goes into that side of it, but it's also about determination and physicality, and clearly we lack physicality in those moments.

“They’ve got five big threats. When you think of the three centre-halves and then Zaniolo up front and then with Tammy, that mismatch was going to be somewhere and unfortunately that’s where it came to (with Ricardo).”

Centre-back Jonny Evans backed his manager’s assessment, that Roma had too many big players for City to cope with. But he did recognise that it was an issue for the side, something that has not been