Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers encouraged his team to ‘punish’ a dreadful Southampton side en route to their record breaking 9-0 win at St Mary’s on Friday night.
The Foxes stormed into a 5-0 lead at half-time and instead of taking their foot off the pedal in the second half, the visitors banged in four more goals after the break.
The mauling was the biggest ever away victory in top flight history and matched the biggest ever Premier League win on a terrible night for the Saints.
Rodgers was thrilled with his team’s incredible display and was insistent at half-time that they were unmerciful to their hosts.
‘In terms of the intensity in our pressing and circulating the ball in the way we did, I’m very proud of the team,’ Rodgers told Sky Sports.
‘It’s a mentality that we’ve been trying to impose, to keep going and keep going so to finish with nine is a remarkable effort away from home.
‘We said to them at half-time, don’t play young, and come off, be soft and be loose on your passing, keep your tactical discipline, keep the speed in the game, we have to punish them.
‘It’s obviously tough on Ralph [Hasenhuttl, Southampton manager] because when you’re on the other end of that it’s difficult, but we have to do our jobs, score as many as we can and keep a clean sheet.
‘The game’s 0-0 at half time and when you’ve got a lot of young players, they’ve got a bit of personality, this is part of their education, they’ve got to get out of boy mode and play like a man and do the right things. Respect the game, and they did that.
‘They’re hugely talented and they;re leaning to manage and be ruthless in games.’
Ayoze Perez and Jamie Vardy both scored twice in the absolute demolition of the Saints, with Youri Tielemans, Ben Chilwell and James Maddison all also finding the back of the net.
Rodgers is delighted with the confidence and the ‘lovely arrogance’ of his side, with the Northern Irishman continuing: ‘There’s a lot of confidence, which is great, but they’re good boys as well, they’re honest fellas, boys like Ben and James there’s a lovely arrogance, but you can see they can produce it on the field.’
MORE: Leicester make Premier League history with 9-0 walloping of Southampton
