• 10 months ago
Transcript
00:00 How do you feel about losing 9-0 and then going 1-0 down after 40 seconds?
00:07 Losing your number nine and then going 1-0 down after 40 seconds is not an ideal way
00:10 to start against Manchester United, of course. I think it probably wobbled us and rocked
00:15 us for a little bit. 1-0 turned to 2-0 after about six minutes and you're a little bit
00:21 fearing the worst and thinking, 'OK, how are we going to respond to this?' But I've
00:25 got to give the players a lot of credit. It showed an air of calmness and belief, commitment
00:31 to the game plan and dragged themselves onto a really good performance. We got back into
00:36 the game and then pushed and pushed, couldn't find the second one. But, yes, in the end
00:44 there's lots to like about the performance but you can't give a team like Manchester
00:47 United a two-goal head start that early in the game. We got punished with a couple of
00:51 errors and it was hard to recover from that.
00:55 How was Eli Jolicoe?
00:56 Feeling his hamstring.
00:57 So, obviously, Corley then came on and it was a good show for the outfield.
01:00 Corley was very good. It was an opportunity for him and that's why you have a squad and
01:05 a group of players. We'll have to see how Eli is, I don't know, at the moment with regards
01:09 to Wednesday. But, like I said, it gave Corley an opportunity and I thought he stepped up
01:15 very, very well.
01:16 What are your thoughts on the first goal?
01:22 No, but again, my job is to, all right, there's areas that we can work on. First goal is obviously
01:26 human error. It won't happen again. Just one of those things. Second one, just on the second
01:34 phase from the corner we just step away from Hoyland, who's on fire at the moment and a
01:39 big, big threat. So, that one we can fix. And then I thought we stepped onto a really
01:47 good performance, a really good game. We're playing against Manchester United, we've got
01:52 to remember that. And remember that I'm feeling really disappointed because we fully believed
01:57 in this, going into this game, that we could win today. We really did. I think we showed
02:02 that then in the performance after that first eight to ten minutes where we were a little
02:06 bit rocked with what had happened.
02:07 Was Chongi the one who was instrumental in the goal?
02:12 Yes, Chongi was industrious, worked hard, busy, lively, all the things we wanted him
02:16 to do. He caused some problems down at left side with his forward runs and that allowed
02:21 us to try and get some overloads against Dalot. He was involved in that. That goal for us
02:27 did everything that we wanted him to do. Ran himself into the ground.
02:30 Brave on it?
02:32 Yes, brave on it. In the right spot at the right time. That's what we need our strikers
02:38 to do, to continue to score. Yes, pleased for him. Just couldn't find a way to get that
02:46 second one unfortunately.
02:47 Is it just in Casemiro that it was a clean set-off?
02:51 Yes, I think the fact that it came off at half-time probably tells you that. I think
02:57 they're saying the first one wasn't, but just because the first one wasn't doesn't mean
03:00 the second one isn't or shouldn't. Maybe they got away with one there.
03:08 Is Manchester United going to have a chance?
03:11 Yes, obviously we're trying to be brave. We're going to take some risks. We have to manage
03:15 a counter-attack better and we need to. It's an area for us to focus on again. They have
03:21 some moments with their quality and their speed. I think you look at Manchester United
03:24 over the last God knows how many years, they've always been a fast counter-attacking team
03:28 with a lot of quality. They've done it to bigger and better teams than us. It's Marcus
03:34 Rashford and Garnaccio and Hoyland. These are big players, top players who are very
03:38 good and very quick. But there are certainly areas that we can be better at in stopping
03:42 those counter-attacking moments. Thomas did well, some scrambling. Sambi's block as well,
03:46 big. So some brilliant emergency defending, which you're going to have to do when you
03:49 take risks and you want to try and get back in the game against a team like that. So yes,
03:54 credit to the boys there for keeping the ball out of the net by hook or by crook.
03:59 Is the performance added?
04:01 Yes, it's like back to last season, that one. I don't know where that one came from. Man
04:05 United are winning 2-1, so it's four minutes.
04:07 How do you feel about the fact that Samir Abdel-Bakr is now on top of the UCC?
04:18 I can't do anything about it now. It happens, mistakes can happen. Things can go
04:24 against us. It's all right, we've got to deal with it. We shot ourselves in the foot,
04:27 we caused ourselves one or two problems tonight early on and we had to recover. So I'm not
04:32 going to blame any officiating or for them not going 9-10 men.
04:35 I thought it was a really entertaining game, I thought both teams went for it. I thought
04:40 we showed really good stuff tonight. We looked like a really good team, I thought. I really
04:47 did and I'm proud of many aspects of that performance tonight, especially in a lot of
04:52 adversity early on. 2-0 down with what had gone against us, you think this could be a
04:59 difficult night and we've seen what's happened this weekend with teams. It can happen at
05:03 this level. Again, better teams than us can get hit hard in this league and that didn't
05:10 happen to us. We want to always try and get the last goal in the game. We always want
05:17 to try and be pushing and we were. Ross hit the bar right at the end, we were pushing
05:22 and that's what I want from my teams.
05:26 Some things went against us tonight, some things were our fault and maybe one or two
05:30 bits but I'm not going to complain about that.
05:37 (chewing)
05:40 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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