Brendan Rodgers 'frustrated' over Leicester City squad decision

Papy Mendy has an important role to play as Leicester City look to make a late charge up the Premier League table but manager Brendan Rodgers has shared his “frustration” that the Senegalese midfielder won’t be able to help the club's bid for Europa Conference League glory.

Mendy made just his second start of the campaign on Sunday, impressing at the base of the midfield as City beat Brentford 2-1 to move back into the top half. He had replaced Wilfred Ndidi in the line-up after the Nigerian limped off at Rennes, with Rodgers revealing in his post-match press conference that he may miss the rest of the season because of a knee problem.

For the final 11 games domestically, Mendy will be available for selection because he was re-registered with the squad after the January window. But, he was not included in City’s European player list, and so Rodgers will have to find a different solution for the quarter-final legs against PSV Eindhoven next month.

Asked how important Mendy would be in light of the Ndidi news, Rodgers said: “Very. It’s just really unfortunate he’s not in the European squad. That’s the frustration there.

“I thought he was excellent today. He’s a player with experience, and he can take the ball. I thought he did great to get through it because he hasn’t played a lot of football since the Africa Cup of Nations. But he’ll be very important for us.”

There are different rules for the Premier League and European squads, and so for Mendy to be registered with Uefa, City would have had to drop one of his team-mates. While a 25-man squad is allowed, City can only name a maximum of 24 because they just have three club-trained players in their senior ranks: Harvey Barnes, Hamza Choudhury, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.