Didn’t win.
Actually unlucky to lose.
Tactically very sound.
Defended well.
And a couple of… let’s say… “convenient” decisions for the opposition:
Lol. Diplomacy with sarcasm. I love it.
Someone doesn’t want to get himself into trouble on his first day back.
But he’s right, because, for example, while we all love a good tackle, that Darwin Nunez scissor action on Jayden Bogle was clearly a foul in the modern era. And by “the modern era”, I mean last night.
On a muddy pitch with jumpers for goalposts and clodhopper Mitre boots back in 1986? Sure. Fantastic.
But there are a lot of things you could do then that you simply can’t do now. And that was certainly one of them.
That said, we were playing a good side with some quality players. And Joe Gomez. It’s always a bit of a wake-up call to the reality of the other world in the Premier League when the opposition bring on a €45m Dutch signing to replace their other €45m Dutch signing because they needed some extra cover for their defence for the last five minutes, but for once this season, we punched above our weight and there were plenty of positives too. It was good to see a return of some passion and some drive. The confidence was clearly still missing: when you have young strikers who have proven that they can score goals and they’re not shooting, well, we know why that is. But a few more of those performances, a goal or two, and maybe it’ll return.
We move away from football for a short while now, ahead of the next round of fixtures which are [checks notes] a whole 48 hours away. I do so hope that everyone is happy with that situation.