The Foxes were knocked out by Chelsea in last season’s quarter-finals and Rodgers wants to go further this time.

He said: “I believe we have improved, the mentality in the team has grown over the last year. Let’s see if we can make the next step, let’s see who we get.

“Everyone was delighted it wasn’t half hour more for extra time. The game was a bit broken and there weren’t so many chances.

“You have to keep going and keep fighting. It’s another clean sheet, a great win, players getting minutes and getting through to the quarter-finals again.”

The Foxes’ celebrations were tempered, though, after James Justin was carried off with a knee injury having landed awkwardly.

Rodgers added: “Hopefully it’s not as bad as what it first seemed. He said he could have walked off and after five minutes in the changing room it eased up. On first look there’s nothing major which is good news.”

Brighton were the better side for long spells and Andi Zeqiri had a goal disallowed for offside in the second half before Cengiz Under also saw his strike chalked off soon after.

Neither side were able to create clear chances until the fourth minute of stoppage time when Iheanacho won it with his sixth goal of the season.

Under and Youri Tielemans took a quick short corner and Iheanacho met Tielemans’ cross to power in a header from six yards.

Seagulls boss Graham Potter said: “We’re disappointed, we put such a lot into the game. There were some tired minds on the pitch and we switched off a little bit.

“Our performance was really good, we more than matched them. We’re happy about that but disappointed with the result.

“Both sides would say there wasn’t too much on either goal and it was a tight game, both sides defended well. We didn’t have enough in the final third to be really satisfied but our performance up until that point was good.

“In extra time maybe we could have influenced it a bit more but it wasn’t to be.

“The overall performance was strong against a good Leicester team. We were the better team over the 90 minutes. We did a lot of things well but it’s hard to think about that because we’re so disappointed to lose.”