Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins was approached by the Irish Football Association (IFA) over Rodgers' availability. The 38-year-old had previously stated he would like the chance to manage his country later in his career and believes the successor to Nigel Worthington, who stepped down at the end of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, needs to be a full-time appointment. He said: "The story was simple, a couple of weeks ago Northern Ireland approached the chairman and asked for permission to speak to me with regards to doing the job part time, and my stance was the same as it was a number of weeks ago. "The job is a big job, something that is very important going forward for the development of football in the country and for me it's a full-time post. "I didn't have to think about it for a long time, my concentration and focus is always with Swansea. "The chairman and I have a great relationship. He was very honest and asked if I wanted to take it forward. "I would love to do it at some point in my career but at the moment with the respect I have for Swansea my concentration can only be on Swansea." While the Swans have confounded pre-season expectations by making a competitive start to the season, particularly at home where they have suffered just one defeat, the 4-2 loss at Blackburn last weekend has seen them drop to 15th in the table and they are just four points clear of the relegation zone ahead of Saturday's Liberty Stadium meeting with Fulham. Rodgers admitted he was disappointed with some of the errors made at Ewood Park, which left his side with just one win from seven games, but insists there is no sense of panic or negativity at the club ahead of the visit of the Cottagers, which precedes away games against Newcastle and Everton. He said: "I will tell players where we are going wrong but you can't put aside their great work, if you look at how we have competed in all aspects of our defending it has been good. "We didn't concede a goal from a corner against Manchester City, Stoke and Chelsea, teams with big, strong players, and up until last week we had defended set-pieces really well. "We have conceded only two at home, which is incredible, and away from home it's about concentration, it's not about this group not having resilience, because they have shown they do. "It's about taking care of the smaller details in the game and if you do that you get results and we have shown we can do that, so the message is to reinforce what good players they are. "If we had won last week we would have gone eighth and I'm not sure how much higher we can go than that and I am not going to get suckered into any negativity as the league is so tight and we are doing all right." Fulham's win over Liverpool on Monday moved them above Swansea, and if the Welsh side are to reverse that situation on Saturday, Rodgers says they will need to handle midfielder Danny Murphy, who he sees as a key figure in Martin Jol's side. He said: "Danny Murphy is a real reference point for them, he gets them to play, he is a wonderful technician, is a great passer and is very clever with the ball and he is also very good from dead-ball situations." Rodgers will be without midfielder Joe Allen following the Wales international's red card at Blackburn, but striker Danny Graham is available following his Achilles problem along with defender Steven Caulker. One man who could be joining them at Swansea in January is Cliftonville striker Rory Donnelly. The Swans have been heavily linked with the 19-year-old striker, and Rodgers confirmed a bid, believed to be around £100,000, had been made. "The club have made an offer and we are waiting to find out," he said. "We can only do what we always do, try and get an agreement with them and once we get that it gives us a chance to speak to the player. "He is a talented boy and Cliftonville have been fantastic recently, they won 13 games in a row and won the County Antrim Shield which I saw the other week. "There are a lot of talented players in Northern Ireland and he is another one of them."
