James Maddison getting ‘special advice’ after returning from World Cup injured

Despite managing his knee injury out in Qatar, Rodgers told a pre-match press conference that Maddison would be unavailable for Friday’s game with Liverpool

Maddison will be unavailable for Friday’s game with Liverpool (PA)

Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that James Maddison would miss their clash with Liverpool on Friday.

The 26-year-old midfielder recently returned from World Cup duty with England, but did not feature in Qatar and was absent for the Foxes’ 3-0 defeat to Newcastle on Boxing Day.

Despite managing his knee injury out in Qatar, Rodgers told a pre-match press conference that Maddison would be unavailable and was in London seeing a specialist.

“(Maddison) won’t be available for the game, he was with Mark (Waller) our doctor, getting some special advice in London today so I’ll wait to hear from them later on,” Rodgers said.

“He hasn’t trained with the squad. He was clearly getting treatment out (in Qatar) and he and the medical team deemed him OK to train.

“He was available for games (for England). He’s come back here, looked to do some work and then felt a pain in a different part of his knee.

“The medical team have assessed that. He tried to go out and do some multidirectional work and he was getting a pain from that.

“The medical team and the club have gone down to London to get another opinion on it and to see where he’s at. That’s where we’re up to at this moment in time.”

Maddison’s absence is a big blow for the Foxes as they look to bounce back from the loss to Newcastle.

Despite being in good form before the winter break with four wins from five games, Rodgers’ side were on the receiving end of a destructive period from the Magpies.

Newcastle scored three goals in the opening 32 minutes that left no way back for Leicester, but Rodgers insisted it was a game his team need to learn from.

He added: “We were very disappointed with the performance against Newcastle, it’s unlike how we’d been for a few months. It’s a game we have to learn from.

“We were due to have the day off yesterday but we came in and talked about (the Newcastle game) and assessed it - and used that as a lever to move on.

“These guys have got so much heart and mentality to have turned this season around.”