Emile Heskey believes Brendan Rodgers will go down as one of Leicester’s greatest-ever managers if he can guide them to Emirates FA Cup glory and into next season’s Champions League.
The Foxes can complete a historic season in the next 10 days with Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup final against Chelsea offering the club’s first chance to lift silverware since the Premier League in 2016.
Leicester can then secure a top-four finish in the Premier League with Rodgers’ side currently boasting an eight-point gap to fifth-placed West Ham after a dramatic collapse saw them miss out on the Champions League last season.
Emile Heskey believes Brendan Rodgers will go down as one of Leicester’s greatest managers if he can guide them to FA Cup glory and a top-four finish
Rodgers’ Leicester side take on Chelsea in the Emirates FA Cup final on Saturday at Wembley
Heskey, who scored 34 goals in 140 appearances for the Foxes and won the League Cup twice, believes Rodgers will stand among the club’s most iconic bosses, such as Martin O’Neill, Matt Gillies and Jimmy Bloomfield, if he can deliver both prizes in the coming weeks.
The former England striker told Sportsmail: ‘It would be massive. Absolutely huge.
‘If you look at what Brendan Rodgers has done, we’ve got to praise him. Look what he did at Swansea, making household names out of key players and then coming to Liverpool and working with a young Raheem Sterling and shaping him to what he’s going to become in the future.
‘Look at Steven Gerrard, key players who were good before but really took to the way Rodgers managed. It didn’t quite work out there (at Liverpool) but then he went to Celtic and honed his skills up there and now he’s doing the same here.
‘If he can manage to pull this off (winning the Emirates FA Cup) and get them into the top four then he’d be up there with the best Leicester mangers.’
Heskey is also adamant that defeat by Thomas Tuchel’s in-form Chelsea side at Wembley will not knock Leicester off course in their pursuit of a top-four finish.
Heskey believes cup glory and Champions League football will see Rodgers join the likes of Martin O’Neill (above) in club folklore
Heskey also thinks Rodgers will not let FA Cup final disappointment affect their league form
He added: ‘I think Brendan is astute in the way he approaches games and mentally prepares his teams. We’re moving away from those times where players are over thinking their previous games.
‘Leicester have a knack of just contextualising the games that they play in, looking at what went right and what went wrong and then moving on because we’ve got to focus on another game.
‘That’s one thing in football that is really difficult because a lot of players will be thinking about their last game, overthinking it at times.
‘Brendan has been able to get them so they’re just focusing on that game, then moving on whether it be good or bad because they’ve got another. He’s been doing it all season and I think that’ll be key to getting over the line into the top four.’
Heskey also heaped praise on Leicester’s owner, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, and the impact the Thai family have had on the club.
The Srivaddhanaprabha family took control of Leicester in 2010 and are hugely popular owners, overseeing the club’s remarkable march to the Premier League title in 2016.
Khun Top’s father Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha – known as Khun Vichai – tragically died – along with four other people – in a helicopter crash at the King Power Stadium in October 2018.
Heskey praised the Srivaddhanaprabha family for their impact on the club’s recent fortunes – pictured owner Aiyawatt (left) and his father, Vichai (centre), who tragically died along with four other people in a helicopter crash at the King Power Stadium in October 2018
Heskey says it is refreshing for a club’s owners and fans to be unified amid the ongoing unrest around the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’
As Sportsmail exclusively revealed last week, Khun Top will attend the Emirates FA Cup final after being cleared to fly from Thailand.
At a time when some Premier League clubs are facing backlash from supporters over plans to join the doomed European Super League, Heskey was full of praise for Leicester’s owners.
He said: ‘I’ve only got good things to say about them. Since coming in they’ve put their money where their mouth is.
‘Not just the money, they’ve understood what it means to the local community and fans to have them here and to have Leicester City Football Club.
‘They’ve endeared themselves to the fans. That’s why I think Leicester is everyone’s second club because of the way the owners run the club and do things and how they look after fans and interact with supporters.
‘Nothing but brilliant things to say about them. They’ve been fantastic since day one to be honest. They think about the fans first and foremost before anything.
‘It’s wonderful to see while we’re going through difficult times with owners and fans. We’re all in unison.’
It is 20 years since Heskey won the only Emirates FA Cup title of his career, lining up for Liverpool as Michael Owen scored a sublime second-half brace to beat Arsenal 2-1 in Cardiff in 2001.
Heskey admits Liverpool were fortunate to beat Arsenal in the 2001 FA Cup final, 20 years on
Leicester and Chelsea will have their eyes on the prize when they clash at Wembley tomorrow
The Reds completed a memorable treble that season, also winning the League Cup and UEFA Cup, but Heskey concedes Gerard Houllier’s side were fortunate to leave Wales as champions.
He added: ‘The Michael Owen final! Who did I speak to recently about that? It was Ashley Cole! He played in that final and we were just lucky to win that.
‘They were a fantastic team and if we had VAR that day we’d have probably been down to nine men and lost it. It was great.
‘We knew as long as we could stay in the game then we’d have a chance. If you’ve got a talisman and such a wonderful player like Michael Owen, who can sniff out half chances and put it away then yes, it was an amazing day for us.’
‘People ask me this all the time (which trophy was most special in that treble-winning season) and I always say it’s the Emirates FA Cup because growing up that was the only game you could watch on TV.
‘It was the game that was always billed as the smaller teams against the bigger teams, the giant killers.
‘I jut love to see that sort of stuff. It was an important part of my living and upbringing when it comes to football.’
Football legend Emile Heskey was speaking ahead of the Emirates FA Cup Final at Wembley stadium on Saturday 15th May 2021.
To celebrate this year’s final showdown between Chelsea v Leicester City and to help reconnect fans with live sport, Emirates has created the ultimate ‘Fly Better’ moment by giving away 50 tickets to the biggest live event in the UK since the start of the pandemic.
