BRENDAN RODGERS’ name is never far from the conversation in Scottish football.

The Northern Irishman’s work at Celtic was transformative, bringing an invincible season, seven trophies to the club and providing a springboard for the subsequent haul accrued by his successor Neil Lennon.

He has surfaced again in the Scottish conversation. John McGlynn revealed yesterday that Rodgers has been the inspiration behind the Championship promotion push being enjoyed by his Raith Rovers team.

And with talk of Eddie Howe set to be anointed as Celtic manager, there is a sense that the appointment is evidence of the club attempting to catch lightning in a bottle once more with the former Bournemouth man exhibiting some of the similarities in playing style that Rodgers possesses.

For Howe himself, it might also represent the opportunity to burnish his reputation with one eye on a Premier League return at some undefined point in the future.

It is a strategy that certainly worked for Rodgers. His Leicester City are perfectly poised for Champions League qualification this season – having overcome the vertigo that they suffered in the previous campaign – not least because of Chelsea falling flat on their faces at home to relegation-bound West Brom.

There are still asterisks beside Rodgers’ team. It was no great shame to lose to this Manchester City outfit yesterday, but Leicester have easily the worst home record of teams in the top six, whereas on their travels, they have the best record in the league, winning 10 of their 15 games and losing just a solitary match.

One of those victories came against City at the Etihad Stadium last September when Leicester looked to Jamie Vardy to turn on the jet-burners. The former England striker duly obliged scoring a hat-trick in a 5-2 win.

They asked him to do the same here but this was an altogether cagier affair despite Fernandinho appearing to give City an early lead only for his 25-yard strike to be ruled out for off-side.

Sergio Aguero volleyed over when well placed after 18 minutes, then Kevin de Bruyne blazed into the empty stands with 20 on the clock. He claimed he had been fouled as he struck his shot and referee Anthony Taylor agreed despite there appearing to be little or no contact by the retreating Wilfred Ndidi.

From the resulting free-kick, the Belgian clattered the ball off the top of the bar and Leicester cleared the danger.

Rodgers built a reputation in Scotland for Celtic dominating the ball and running over the top of teams but it was City who did all of that here – at one point the statistics for a five-minute spell showed the visitors with 100 per cent possession as Leicester struggled to find the on button to their counter-attacking game. It was barely a shock.

Rodgers was also tagged as naïve over the course of his Celtic tenure during games against superior opponents, but there was a Mourinho-like pragmatism to the fore as Leicester shape-shifted from 4-3-3 to 5-3-2 intermittently in an effort to clog up passing lanes when Pep Guardiola’s side had the ball.

It took another 20 minutes for City to threaten seriously. The left of Leicester’s three-man defence was suckered by Kyle Walker’s long throw-in to Gabriel Jesus and the Brazilian’s cushioned ball around the corner was perfectly into the stride of Riyad Mahrez. But the former Leicester winger could only find Kasper Schmeichel’s feet when the corner of his goal was gaping, and then de Bruyne sent the follow-up flashing wide from distance.

Despite their lack of ambition, Leicester did venture out as the first half neared its end. Youri Tielemans picked out Vardy’s run in behind and the striker rounded Ederson in the City goal and rolled the ball over the line. Again, the linesman’s flag ruled out the effort but it was an indication of where Rodgers felt his side could win the game.

That became more apparent as the second half got underway. Twice Leicester almost caught City out on breaks – but on both occasions Tielemans could not find the finish. When the visitors tried to capitalise on failed attacks by their hosts by flooding forward Leicester killed their transition by encircling de Bruyne.

It felt as if it was only a matter of time before a goal would come – and so it proved with City finally breaking Leicester resistance after Mahrez’s thumping shot was fisted away by Schmeichel; the ball eventually arrived at the feet of left-back Benjamin Mendy, who danced past one challenge then opened his foot up to plant a shot in the bottom corner.

Leicester stuck to their strategy, knowing full well that any attempt to adopt a cavalier approach in search of an equaliser could lead to them being sliced and diced with City forced to continue their probing as before.

The pattern was set and it was just a question of which tactic would yield the next goal.

The answer became apparent when de Bruyne slid the ball in between Johnny Evans and Wesley Fofana to Jesus, who exchanged passes with substitute Raheem Sterling, before stabbing the ball into the empty net for his fifth goal in six games against Leicester.

A fitting goalscorer for Easter weekend.