QPR are still searching for their first Premier League win of the season as West Ham heaped more misery on their London rivals with a narrow win at Loftus Road.
The R’s, who had Samba Diakite sent off in the second half, remain at the foot of the table after losing their fourth game of the campaign as the pressure continues to build on Mark Hughes’ shoulders.
In the opposite dugout Sam Allardyce will be delighted that his side managed to cling on to record their first away win victory and send them up into the heady heights of seventh and just a point outside of a Champions League place.
Allardyce was boosted by the return of on-loan striker Andy Carroll to the substitutes bench following his injury lay-off and also handed record signing Matt Jarvis a second start following his £10.5 million move from Wolves and it was the winger that opened the scoring.
Just three minutes had elapsed when Ricardo Vaz Te skipped past a weak Clint Hill challenge on the right and cut the ball back for Kevin Nolan to cross for Jarvis who headed in at the far post. Bobby Zamora then fired over for the home side and Djibril Cisse drew a superb save from Jussi Jaaskelainen as they chased an equaliser.
But West Ham were by far the better team and doubled their advantage through Vaz Te as he fired home from close range 10 minutes before half time following a goalmouth scramble. Whatever Hughes said at half time had a marked effect as substitute Adel Taarabt halved the deficit just a minute after coming on, smashing a stunning long range drive into the top corner past the despairing Jaaskelainen.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
However Diakite’s red card with 15 minutes left ended any hope of a comeback for QPR as West Ham held on.
The Manchester United striking duo Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie combined to secure a 2-1 win against FC Cluj, despite a struggling defensive display by Sir Alex Ferguson’s side.
Van Persie bagged both goals to take his tally to 7 goals in 8 games for United. The Dutchman hailed his second finish and the delightful pass he received from Wayne Rooney to score it, admitting that “not many players can make pass like that” according to the Daily Mirror.
Having illustrated his goalscoring pedigree during his short stay, the new star striker was quick to say that he wanted to play provider too.
“I have seven goals now but I need more assists,” he added.
The win has made it 2 wins from 2 games for Manchester United in stark contrast to their last start to their Champions League campaign.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Van Persie will be hoping to continue his good form in United’s next game against Newcastle this Sunday.
Liverpool FC are targeting Schalke’s Lewis Holtby who admits he has designs on a move to England’s top flight.
Arsenal and Everton have also shown an interest in the 22-year-old who put in another fine performance this week in the Champions League against the Gunners.
Holtby is son to an English father and happens to be an Everton fan. Despite his allegiances to the Toffees, Liverpool are believed to be in the driving seat for acquiring Holtby’s signature.
Liverpool are desperate to secure more attacking wingers to add depth to their squad to make the Rodgers style of quick attacking football work.
Speaking to the press before Tuesday’s Champions League clash against Arsenal, the German international said: “Of course a move interests me. But now I’m at Schalke – I love the colours here, I love the team, I love the club.
“My contract runs out next season but you never know. I always said that my dream is to play in England, and it’ll happen one day, I can tell you that, because my hunger is really big for the Premier League.
“But I love the Bundesliga so much and I’m happy to be here.”
When the January transfer window opens it will be no surprise if there’s a buzz generated around the exciting winger.
There are many teams who are in need of a quality wide man and Holtby certainly fits the bill.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
It is believed however, that Schalke do not want to sell and it will take a large sum to prize him away from the German club.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the idea, a ‘European Super-League’ is a proposed alternative to the current UEFA Champions League. Instead of grouping top European teams into an elimination tournament, Europe’s finest would instead form a “super league” where top teams from each league would compete against each other on a weekly basis throughout the course of the season.
Mirroring the standard domestic league format, the team with the most points at the end of the season would win the league. The bottom three or perhaps four teams would be relegated.
While several other managers and numerous sports journalists have discussed the idea for the past several years, I’ve not yet seen anyone develop the framework for such a league. With this thought in mind, here’s my idea for how the European Super League would work.
Entirely replacing the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Super League would initially feature the top three clubs from the English Premier League (EPL), the Bundesliga and Serie A and the top two teams from La Liga and Ligue 1. One club from each of Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Ukraine and Russia would combine for five more members, and an additional two vacancies would be awarded to two clubs from smaller leagues which advanced through a qualification process.
Altogether, the league would feature 20 member teams which would play every opponent twice (home and away) for a total of 38 games. In order to avoid forcing players to the point of physical exhaustion or requiring clubs to build a full-strength second team, clubs would not compete in their domestic leagues while playing in the UEFA Super League. However, all member clubs would continue competing in their domestic cup competitions.
At the end of the season, the club with the most points would be crowned the UEFA Champion and the bottom four teams would be relegated to their domestic leagues.
At the domestic leagues level, since top clubs could no longer qualify for the Champions League, they would instead qualify for the Europa League where the four semi-finalists would replace the four relegated sides in the following season’s UEFA Super League.
In order to ensure sides relegated from the Super League would have the opportunity to earn immediate promotion the following season, they would be awarded automatic Europa League qualification.
While many of you probably consider this suggestion utterly preposterous, I encourage you to at least consider the idea.
Firstly, the plan would shrink the huge talent gap between top teams and their typical opponents. So, instead of Manchester United facing Newcastle, Stoke and Sunderland in a random three-week period of the season, they could instead face the likes of Porto, Juventus and Ajax.
Sure, we might miss out on some exciting two-leg series, but I would much rather watch the Red Devils play an entire season of meaningful contests than wait until the Champions League quarter-finals for them to feature against a world-class opponent.
Opponents argue that while strengthening the competition at the highest levels, such an exclusive league would destroy domestic competition. Conversely, I suspect the UEFA Super League would have the exact opposite effect on competition.
For example, with English Premier League sides Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal likely to spend most seasons in the Super League, teams such as Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle and Everton would have a legitimate chance of actually winning the league.
With a top-three finish promising a place in the Europa League and an eventual shot at cracking into the Super League, the fans of mid-table teams throughout Europe could actually get excited about their club’s future prospects.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Furthermore, domestic cup competitions would become increasingly intense. With Super League teams not regularly facing domestic competition, they would be eager to prove their worth by winning a domestic championship.
Realising a unique opportunity to compete against the top clubs in the country, emergent league sides, perhaps vying to complete a domestic double, would be intensely motivated to shock their supposedly superior opponent.
Two games played and two games drawn is probably the best start for a new manager.
Nobody gets unreasonably high expectations and nobody gets on your back either. So after a last minute equaliser at Bristol City, Michael Appleton can get back on the training pitch again knowing that things are going just fine.
After a frantic start as Blackpool manager, coming in so soon after Holloway’s departure and just days before his first game, Appleton seems to have settled well and we saw his first tweaks to the side on Saturday.
Two changes were forced due to injuries to Taylor-Fletcher and Matty Phillips, but another change was not forced and was perhaps the most telling. Neal Eardley made way for Ian Evatt, with Baptiste moving to right back. For many, Eardley is a scapegoat at Blackpool so his absence wasn’t too surprising. But bringing Evatt back and moving Baptiste out wide was a shock. Baptiste has been considered Blackpool’s best centre half for the last few years, even picking up the North West Championship Player of The Year last week, but Appleton either likes what he has seen of Evatt, or has marked the right back slot as a problem area and trusts Baptiste to fill in there.
Either way, it seemed to work as Blackpool limited the home side’s chances to almost none and would have kept a clean sheet but for a much disputed penalty award. For what it’s worth, I thought that although it was a soft penalty to give, it is one you see given as the player goes down easily under an unneccesary challenge from the keeper.
Thankfully, things were evened up in the 90th minute as the referee then awarded Blackpool a soft penalty of their own as a Bristol City defender was adjudged to have handled a cross, and Tom Ince converted to bring a point back to the seaside.
With both penalties cancelling each other out, we could call this a 0-0 rather than a score draw. And I think that is exactly what Appleton was looking for. A clean sheet. A base to build on and give the defence some confidence. That was the first and most important thing that the new manager had to do.
In truth, although he has taken charge of a great bunch of talented players, aside from that Appleton has been left with a bit of a mess really. Ian Holloway obviously wasn’t committed to the job this year and has left behind a strange work ethic and a lot of players who are unhappy to be left in the shadows.
Ian Evatt has had a few things to say this week which shed some light on just what was going on at Blackpool recently. He has stated how the club had ‘become stale’ under Holloway and highlighted how little defensive work was done in training. In fact, how little actual training was done. He said “We hadn’t really done much training in the last couple of months. We had numerous days off, anything from two to five or six at a time. We are an honest bunch of lads who just want to work hard. At times we weren’t doing that. That’s probably why we had the bad spell.”
That’s a pretty revealing interview and goes some way to explaining why things went from fantastic to average so quickly under Holloway. As fans, we knew about the repeated days off, and during a bad spell it became a source of frustration, but nobody knew that the situation was as bad as it was. Six days off at a time is utterly ridiculous for a set of professional players. Initially, I thought Holloway was being a nice, understanding manager by allowing players to recharge, but as it went on and the holiday days multiplied, it became obvious that the manager was actually giving himself time off to visit his family or, as it appeared, other clubs.
But with a new manager comes a fresh start and the players seem to be enjoying having a new man around. A new training regime that consists of, well, training to start with, but also defending. This new way of work includes higher-intensity training to work on fitness and also keeping an eye on what the players eat afterwards. Although these things sound pretty standard, they were obviously lacking and hopefully the new manager can help bring a bit of discipline back to the camp and start an upturn in fortunes.
After just one full week in training his side managed to go a full game without conceding from open play, so it obviously had an effect. And he has a rare second full week in a row to work with the players some more and find the right balance between a solid defence and the attacking flair that this side is known for.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
It’s not yet known what Appleton’s remit is yet. Would we be happy with a steady top half finish, or does he pick up where we started the campaign harbouring dreams of automatic promotion?
We will find out soon enough but the first win or loss will be crucial as it will shape the views of the fans. For example, a win on Saturday will mean we are unbeaten under Appleton, yet a loss would mean we are without a win. Two very different sounding options resting on the first non-draw of Appleton’s reign.
But that is all for the future. For now, Michael Appleton has started to turn things around at Blackpool and has made a good start on his first objective of fixing a leaky defence and bringing back some hard work to the training pitch.
We can all agree that the job of refereeing a football match is a difficult one; a task that will only get trickier the higher up the football ladder you climb, while coping with all of the external pressures must take a very thick skin. It is not an enviable task in the slightest, yet there have been several big Premier League games this season which have been ruined by poor officiating, with many match officials choosing to rule by the letter of the law rather than taking into account the mitigating factors which had led to the incident.
Having sympathy for the nearly impossible job that referees up and down the country have each and every weekend and slamming them for the poor decisions they make would seem to be a contradictory stance to take, but it’s one that the vast majority of us fall into. Obviously, you get plenty of former players in the studio on TV with an even looser grasp of the laws than most fans, with Jamie Redknapp in particular only believing it counts as a deliberate handball if you happen to be looking at the ball at the exact time of the infringement, which is baffling to say the least.
The benefit of hindsight is often being used as a stick to beat officials with, as if after Graeme Souness has seen a touch and go decision from eight different angles can confidently claim that the referee has ‘had a shocker there’. This retrospective school of thinking has quickly altered and distorted the way we view incidents, but the men in black out on the pitch get just one chance to view an issue and split-seconds to make a judgement call. By its very nature, simply due to the pace of the game, mistakes will be made, and often. Calls of bias or ‘unfair treatment’ are commonplace among the managing fraternity as a tool to distract attention elsewhere rather than focus on their own deficiencies.
Nevertheless, aside from the sort of close calls which it often takes several angles and umpteenth viewings to come to any sort of definitive decision, there are those which are so obvious that even in real time, from a stand a considerable distance away from the pitch, look simple to adjudge, but are given a baffling decision.
For example, Gareth Bale has already been booked three times this season for diving. Of the three incidents, two of them were perhaps fouls on the Tottenham winger, with one just a flat-out poor decision which saw the call go against him simply down to his theatrics. He has a reputation as a diver now, and rightly so after his swan lake impression for a penalty against Arsenal last season, but some officials appear to be letting that influence their judgements.
[cat_link cat=”premiership” type=”list”]
There are several grey areas with this, because ‘simulation’ does not just take into account diving. For example, during the dull 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge between Chelsea and Manchester City last month, Mario Balotelli was cautioned for diving by Chris Foy after he grabbed the ball 30 yards from goal and charged towards the edge of the box, before seemingly flinging himself into David Luiz’s elbow to try and earn a free kick in a dangerous position.
What exactly was Luiz supposed to do differently in that situation? Balotelli had already made his mind up to make a deliberate attempt to ‘earn’ the free kick. Nevertheless, the outcry that the Italian was then booked was hysterical to say the last. According to the Laws of the Game: “A player must be cautioned for unsporting behaviour if (he) attempts to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to be fouled.” While a booking may have been harsh, the decision was correct. The context was that the situation was pre-judged, therefore can be considered cheating as such and under the bracket of simulation.
However, turn your attentions back to a different encounter at Stamford Bridge just a few weeks previously, the 3-2 game between the hosts and Manchester United, and Mark Clattenburg came to a very different conclusion. There was contact on Torres, and while the Spaniard went down easily under Jonny Evans’ challenge, the decision to similarly award him a second yellow card for simulation, completely ignoring the pace and tempo at which the match was being played, let alone the context of the scoreline, magnitude of the teams involved and what impact it would have on a huge game and he was clearly wrong. Surely it would have been better to award the free kick but not the yellow for the sake of the rest of the match as a spectacle?
Two broadly similar incidents of a player anticipating contact and using it to their advantage, both players were handed a yellow card, yet for some reason it just feels wrong. It’s contradictory to complain about the inconsistency in refereeing when tribalism and partisanship is at the very heart of the game, leading observers such as myself to complain about the very consistency we so crave.
It’s idealistic to think that games of importance will not be marred by poor decision-making in the future, with Liverpool on the receiving end of some truly terrible calls with concerns to penalties awarded for and against them this season. These things do not balance themselves out over the course of a season, that is little more than a well-worn and quite frankly tired cliche.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
The argument often put forward is that ex-professionals need to get more involved with refereeing the game, but for anyone that’s watched Soccer Saturday or Match of the Day will tell you, they rarely ever know the rules themselves (I’m looking at you here, Paul Merson). They confuse experience with knowledge. Plenty of them aren’t fit to be pundits, let alone match officials. The current system has its flaws, and idealists will always crave consistency or cry wolf when it doesn’t benefit them.
Decisions will always go against your side and sometimes the problem is the rule itself rather than the official in question (red card for every last-man offence, yellow card for removing your shirt during a goal celebration, the lack of definition over two-footed challenges). With that in mind, while following the Laws of the Game to the letter is important for the vast majority of incidents, like the two mentioned above, sometimes coming to the same conclusion is not necessarily the right result. It’s a tricky job pleasing us all, eh?
Players who join clubs on free transfers and go on to be successful is something of a rare sight in the Premier League these days, as we now usually see the players signing for big fees being the ones who get all the limelight.
But Mohamed Diame’s outstanding game-changing substitute appearance in West Ham’s 3-1 win over Chelsea at the weekend got me thinking of the most successful free transfers we have seen in the Premier League.
The only player to feature twice is Brad Friedel, because it still amazes me how the consistent American stopper hasn’t been the subject of a huge transfer fee throughout his career.
Click on Jay-Jay ‘so good they named him twice’ Okocha to see the 15 most successful free transfers in Premier League history
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Swansea travel to North London looking for their first ever victory at White Hart Lane. They have never won a Premier League match against Tottenham and never won in 12 outings in the League against them.
They have only managed to pick up a dismal 2 points in total but with have renewed faith that this Sunday will be their lucky day having reached the Capital One Cup semi-final midweek.
Spurs will be looking to bounce back from their disastrous collapse at Goodison Park last weekend conceding two goals at the death. AVB’s men still remain firmly within touching distance of the top four so won’t be unduly concerned about their prospects just yet.
They should take note of the Welsh club as they look to secure back to back North London victories this season having despatched Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates not so long ago.
AVB will be without Gareth Bale (Hamstring) as Clint Dempsey looks to continue his impressive display of form deputising in the midfielder’s absence.
The Premier League clash may have come just too soon for Scott Parker who is on the verge of a return to the Spurs set up, adding much needed steel to the midfield, though he could make the bench.
Dawson and Benoit Assou Ekotto look doubts for the fixture with the latter only recently returning to light training. Younes Kaboul (knee) is also set to be out until next year.
Michael Laudrup will continue on with 34 year old Gerhard Tremmel as the impressive Michel Vorm remains on the sidelines.
Ashley Williams served a one-match ban for accumulating five yellow cards in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday, so will return to the starting XI on Sunday. Neil Taylor remains a long term injury yet is expected to put pen to paper to a new deal to keep him at the club when he returns.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Tottenham have only failed to hit the back of the net in the League once this season and only Everton have matched this impressive record. So Spurs will be looking to get in amongst the goals again on Sunday.
With less than 48 hours before the close of the January transfer window, there is still plenty of work at Liverpool left to do with both comings and goings within the squad, with a couple of moves still up in the air and a bit of deadwood to shift on.
The 40-year-old spoke of his desire to add a few fresh faces before the end of deadline day, telling reporters last week: “We hope to do some business between now and the end of the month. We know we still need one or two additions more and the club are doing everything they can to assist me in that.” With that in mind, what are the five things above all else that manager Brendan Rodgers needs to do before deadline day?
Decide what to do with Tom Ince – The club have taken a tough stance in transfer negotiations with Blackpool over the future of the England U-21 international winger, with Rodgers et al refusing to kowtow to Karl Oyston’s demands, the rather shady Seasiders chairman. Liverpool, somewhat understandably, believe that with the player out of contract in the summer and due to the fact that they retain a 35% sell-on clause from Ince’s move between the two clubs 18 months ago, an offer of between £4-6m is about right, but Blackpool look to be holding out for £8m with their own 30% sell-on clause attached.
To be honest, given he can leave for nothing at the end of the season, the Championship club are really in no sort of position to be making demands like that and after they reportedly turned down a £7m offer from Reading, who then subsequently withdrew from the race for his signature, Liverpool look like the only interested party again and they need to weigh up whether forking out £8m for him now or waiting until the summer is the best approach; you suspect it’s the latter.
Scout about for a second-choice goalkeeper – The standard of reserve goalkeepers in the Premier League has dropped all across the board these past five years horrendously, with the systemic dearth of talent effecting the entire global game, Brad Jones’ performance during the FA Cup defeat away at Oldham just cast further doubt on whether he’s quite good enough for the club. With Pepe Reina’s future somewhat up in the air amid likely interest from Barcelona, in search of a shot-stopper of their own after Victor Valdes’ decision to move to a new club at the end of the season when his contract expires, the 30-year-old Australian has already featured 12 times this season in the league and in Europe to due the Spaniard’s patchy injury record this term.
To say he’s failed to impress would be an understatement and the search for someone actually capable of stepping in to Reina’s shoes needs to become a priority. This also means addressing the future of Brazilian goalkeeper Doni, who appears to be at the club in spirit but increasingly homesick for a return home.
Click here to see the final three things that Liverpool need to do before transfer deadline day
Utilise the loan market – Manchester United have proven in recent times that the rewards for sending out promising players on loan are huge if the right playing environment conducive to their talent is found, with both Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley prime examples and Liverpool need to do more in this area. With West Ham so short at the back, particularly at left-back, would it have been the worst idea in the world to offer them Jack Robinson for the rest of the campaign and allow the raw 19-year-old some top flight experience? With Michael Ngoo and Danny Wilson already being packed off to Hearts in Scotland, players like Connor Coady, Jon Flanagan and Samed Yesil would seriously benefit from a short-term loan spell in the Championship or even lower.
What to do with Coates – Speaking of loan spells away, the club need to bring in a new centre-back to truly put pressure on the comfortable but ropey pairing of Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel, who have both been far from their best this season. The 22-year-old Uruguayan looks to be seriously struggling to adapt to English football and could do with a spell away from Anfield playing more regularly. This explains the club offering Vegard Forren a trial before he completed his move to Southampton and at the moment, Coates looks too slow to be trusted and rather worryingly for a 6ft 5′ centre-back, he looks vulnerable in the air with no great leap on him whatsoever. If Rodgers can secure the permanent signing of a new defender, as has been mooted, then a temporary home needs to be found for Coates.
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Move for another central midfielder – You may be forgiven for thinking that with Joe Allen, Lucas Leiva, Jonjo Shelvey, Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson that the club is already reasonably well stocked in the middle of the park, but the squad are still a body light than at the start of the transfer window, with Nuri Sahin having his loan spell cut short early, and with the Europa League still to contend with, they could perhaps do with another fresh face capable of playing through the middle. Philippe Coutinho could be that man, but he’s most likely to be tried out wide first as he accommodates to English football, so while it’s not a more pressing need than say a new centre-back, it should still feature on the agenda if the club have the resources available at their disposal.
Manchester United striker Robin van Persie believes that his side’s 1-1 draw away to Real Madrid in the Champions League has given them the edge in the tie.
The Red Devils took the lead in at the Bernabeu through Danny Welbeck, but were pegged back by former hero Cristiano Ronaldo.
After netting what could be a vital away goal, van Persie feels that United have moved ahead in the race for a spot in the quarter-finals, but he also insisted that there is plenty of work left to do:
“Slightly.” He responded when asked by Sky Sports if the result has put them on top in the tie:
“But at this level I don’t think these kinds of teams really care whether they are home or away.
“We don’t really care and they don’t really care. It’s just half-time now and we’ll be ready for the second half.
“There were chances for both sides and it was a great game to watch,”
The Dutchman had a few opportunities to hand the Premier League leaders a shock win in Spain, but was unable to convert.
He admitted that he was frustrated at being incapable of giving his side a shock aggregate lead, but that the result is still a positive one:
FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
“We had a couple of good chances but if you had said before the game we would draw 1-1 then most of us would have taken it.”
Welbeck headed a Wayne Rooney corner past Diego Lopez to give United the lead on 20 minutes, but Ronaldo netted shortly after to level the scores.