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I enjoyed that, but…..


Harry

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1 minute ago, TBW said:

I get where you're coming from but at 2-0 up, how did the game end?

Yep. We won. And I’m happy about that. I’m just not convinced about how that actually happened and how that wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. 

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2 minutes ago, Harry said:

Yep. We won. And I’m happy about that. I’m just not convinced about how that actually happened and how that wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. 

 

Sort of agree, H. Although we were a man short, I thought we still looked most likely to score until the double substitution. 

That said, it was going to have to be made at some time. Why we made Luton look mugs was we were so high-tempo.  32-year-old Nakhi Wells wouldn't have been able to keep that going - and been required to cover more ground - for much longer. Weimann was clearly tired before he was taken off as well. 

Personally, I might have been tempted to continue to push for that third until, say, the 85th minute, then shut up shop. 

That's hardly an indictment of what happened though, as it's only 9 minutes longer of Conway/Wells than we got, and Nigel's policy worked perfectly decently. 

Luton were pretty abject, but what really undid them was the speed of our forward line, the tight-control dribbling from Massengo, and some superb passes-to-distance from Scott.  We wouldn't be able to maintain that speed for 95 minutes and I guess NP had always planned to take a more cautious route as our older players tired.

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16 minutes ago, Harry said:

You’re coming from the school of thought that says “you must defend for 28 minutes after you’re down to 10”. 
I’m coming from the school of thought that says “we’re dominating against a very fragile defence, keep them under pressure by doing the same thing that’s scared them all game”. 
By starting to play in to the feet/head of a target man just played into their hands and allowed them to win the ball back quickly and prevented us from establishing any possession or territory. 

But I think you are missing the point Harry, we didn't immediately drop into a completely defensive mode, we kept them on their toes for a good 10 minutes after the sending off by looking to break on them. It was a gradual move into total defence and I think it demoralised them more than anything.

As the game played out they looked, less and less convinced they could get anything out of the game. Fair enough, you would have done things differently, but the professionals got it right 

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18 minutes ago, Harry said:

You’re coming from the school of thought that says “you must defend for 28 minutes after you’re down to 10”. 
I’m coming from the school of thought that says “we’re dominating against a very fragile defence, keep them under pressure by doing the same thing that’s scared them all game”. 
By starting to play in to the feet/head of a target man just played into their hands and allowed them to win the ball back quickly and prevented us from establishing any possession or territory. 

I'm with you on your thoughts Harry. 

I also thought at the time the substitutions were negative.

Luton were a poor side with no apparent strengths.

Our substitutions sent out a message that we were going to eventually defend...invite them onto us. We know we concede when we do this late in games! Why play to our weakness?

Why do that against this team. A poor team. Maybe against another team in different circumstances...but we were constantly causing them problems with our pace, movement and angles. Why not still cause them problems?

Game management when down to ten isn't always about protecting a lead. The opposition become more offensive, more open, looking for goals. Therefore space behind happens. Conway, Wells and Weimann would still have caused them nightmares. 

Imo...we could have kept our shape and energy...gone 351 in defence and 342 in offence. 

Keeping that energy and pace up front...

Why invite them onto you?

We played very well yesterday, and saw it out to the end. 

However like you ..I can see how it could have ended up differently.

 

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25 minutes ago, Harry said:

Yep. We won. And I’m happy about that. I’m just not convinced about how that actually happened and how that wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. 

So nige gets battered when he makes substitutions and we surrender a win/draw and now gets criticised / critiqued when he makes subs and we successfully see the game out.

he made the subs based on the games status and opponents. If we were playing a more ‘competent’ side, those substitution’s would no doubt have been different. 
 

 

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Nope. Having been a past critic of our subs, I thought Pearson got it right last night.

Infact, I think that was the best performance from our team, on and off the pitch, since the Man U match. I just hope we don’t have to wait for the next comparable performance for another 3/4 seasons.

Hats off. I thought we were tremendous and had everything I look for in a successful team. 

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6 minutes ago, RedRaw said:

So nige gets battered when he makes substitutions and we surrender a win/draw and now gets criticised / critiqued when he makes subs and we successfully see the game out.

he made the subs based on the games status and opponents. If we were playing a more ‘competent’ side, those substitution’s would no doubt have been different. 
 

 

What makes you think the substitutions would have been different against another side. There is no evidence of that!

So you think against a more ' competent' side he would have stayed more offensive?

Even when we have had 11 on the pitch, we go deep later in games. It's been a fault for seasons.

Why invite that scenario again, when we found a formula of pace, movement and angles so affective.

Bringing defensive minded players on, to defend...defend. Inviting the team onto you. 

Keep the ball with movement and angles, pace. We had that. 

We invited them into our box. 

You can defend a lead by being offensive and on the front foot and keeping the ball. 

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2 minutes ago, spudski said:

What makes you think the substitutions would have been different against another side. There is no evidence of that!

So you think against a more ' competent' side he would have stayed more offensive?

Even when we have had 11 on the pitch, we go deep later in games. It's been a fault for seasons.

Why invite that scenario again, when we found a formula of pace, movement and angles so affective.

Bringing defensive minded players on, to defend...defend. Inviting the team onto you. 

Keep the ball with movement and angles, pace. We had that. 

We invited them into our box. 

You can defend a lead by being offensive and on the front foot and keeping the ball. 

So if he would have made 3 offensive changes, continued on the front foot and then went onto to draw/lose, you would have said ‘fair play, that’s the best way to play’

he can’t win either way

Just to remind you we were down to 10 men  so clearly would have had an impact on his decision making as regardless of trying to be offensive, Luton we’re always going to get more of the ball/get at us.

the fact they didn’t really get at us or have many clear cut chances would suggest the substitutions ‘in this scenario’ worked well. 

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11 hours ago, Harry said:

Wasn’t sure whether to stick this on the Pearson thread or the match thread but I thought I’d add a new one with a focus purely on the tactical substitutions after the red card. 
It was the most baffling set of substitutes I think I’ve ever witnessed. 
In the end; we got the win, but it was more because Luton were absolute dog-mess rather than our post-red card performance. 
 

2 main points. 
1) We have 2 specialist right backs sat on the bench. 
2) Luton’s back like were all over the place due to the fantastic runs and movement of Wells and Conway. 
 

After the red, the first thing we did was stick Scott to right wing back. That immediately surrendered the midfield. 
5 minutes later, Pearson realised this and changed it, putting Scott back in the middle and bringing Weimann to right wing back. 
 

So that was 2 changes, before any sub was made, meanwhile you still have 2 specialist right backs sat on the bench. 
 

Now the subs begin. Martin & Williams. For Wells & Conway. 
Still no sign of any of the 2 specialist right backs. We decide to take our front 3, who had been dangerous all night and had Luton soiling their pants, and we remove 2 of them from the pitch, stick the 3rd one at right back and bring on Martin. 
 

This surrendered the whole game. Our threat all night was the movement up front and getting their defence turned. What the game didn’t need was a target man. If we were to be conceding more possession and territory due to the numerical disadvantage then the one thing that would keep their defence on their toes would be the continued threat of a striker making runs behind them. They were scared all night. As soon as Martin came on their eyes lit up. Bradley knew that was much more his game, and he needn’t worry about running toward his own goal again all night. 
All it would take was a ball forward into the channel, one of Wells/Conway/Weimann to pressure the corner, win throws/corners/free kicks in the opposition half to relieve the pressure of the numerical disadvantage. 
We didn’t have anything going forward for the rest of the match. 
 

Next, another sub. Klose in, Scott off. 
Still no sign of either of the specialist right backs sat on the bench. And now, he sticks Vyner out there instead and puts Weimann back into midfield! 

Finally King comes on for Weimann. 
 

We went from threatening their back line with pace, movement, passing, with 3 willing runners up front and 2 youngsters with energy, legs and passing ability in the midfield, to a central 3 of Martin, Williams & King. Poor old Williams - we were supposed to be resting him in midweek games. He finds himself as the one expected to chase and press in the midfield, having to make a number of lengthy sprints, and at one point I thought he’d injured himself again. 
 

We took away the one thing that was threatening them all night and gave their defence an easy ride in the last half hour. We didn’t need to surrender the game like that. We could have kept at least 1 of Wells, Conway or Weimann up top to keep them on their toes and still pose a threat in behind. 
Yes it’s hard with 10. Instinct is to defend. But we didn’t need to do that. Luton were terrible. A better team comes back and draws that game tonight. 

If I’m Tanner or Wilson I’d be majorly pissed. We played 3 different right backs and used all of the subs bar those 2. The right back was sent off and we had 2 on the bench, yet somehow played 3 other players in that position within 20 minutes! 
 

I was really really enjoying that game up until the red. And then I was incredibly pissed off. First at Sykes for being an absolute dick and losing his head, and then for how we contrived to offer the game up to them with the odd substitutions. 

I’m glad Luton were so poor. And I hope they go down. A better team comes back tonight after that red. 

Surely it was all about containment and seeing the game out from 70 mins or so onwards. We needed to plug the gaps in midfield so a striker off and midfielder on made sense. We didn't need a wing back to come on and bomb forward as that would leave us exposed, particularly with a man less. I thought the subs were largely spot on.

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3 hours ago, headhunter said:

It's Ian's birthday today and you can listen to him later on the match review pod.?

Excellent.

Presumably he’ll be mentioning then the team he selected for this game had Klose in it, Andy King in midfield, no Nakhi Wells & Weimann playing in a different position?

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1 hour ago, Harry said:

But that’s not what I’ve said is it. 
I’ve said quite clearly (in fact so clearly that it’s in the thread title) that I really enjoyed the performance. 
I’ve not said that it was a lucky win. We completely outplayed Luton for 65 minutes and we thoroughly deserved the win and we played excellent football. 
I’m talking specifically after the red card and how I didn’t agree with how the management handled that. Not the players - the players handled it brilliantly. Just the management and how they reacted tactically, and that if we’d have done the same against a better opponent we wouldn’t necessarily have come out of that last half hour with 3 points. 

 

1 hour ago, Harry said:

Yep. We won. And I’m happy about that. I’m just not convinced about how that actually happened and how that wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. 

That's the point though.... Against Luton it made complete sense.  Against Norwich would he have made the same changes? That is something that hopefully we don't have to find out, but ultimately right now we don't know.  What we do know is that the changes he made last night countered any rally from Luton and therefore it worked well.

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6 minutes ago, RedRaw said:

So if he would have made 3 offensive changes, continued on the front foot and then went onto to draw/lose, you would have said ‘fair play, that’s the best way to play’

he can’t win either way

Just to remind you we were down to 10 men  so clearly would have had an impact on his decision making as regardless of trying to be offensive, Luton we’re always going to get more of the ball/get at us.

the fact they didn’t really get at us or have many clear cut chances would suggest the substitutions ‘in this scenario’ worked well. 

I gave the reasons to my thinking in my previous posts. As to why being offensive works. Especially when our Achilles heal is letting teams onto us later in games.

I wouldn't have subbed Wells, Conway , Scott or Weimann.

I would have brought one of our RBs on and dropped Scott deeper. 

Yes we won...but like your Scenario...if we had conceded two...fans would be questioning why we let them onto us again.

I believe in playing to our strengths not weaknesses.

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3 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Excellent.

Presumably he’ll be mentioning then the team he selected for this game had Klose in it, Andy King in midfield, no Nakhi Wells & Weimann playing in a different position?

He did correctly say “Nige won’t pick my eleven”….there’s a good reason why…ones a pro manager, the other is an agenda-based wannabe…who unfortunately thinks he knows more than pros.

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20 minutes ago, spudski said:

I gave the reasons to my thinking in my previous posts. As to why being offensive works. Especially when our Achilles heal is letting teams onto us later in games.

I wouldn't have subbed Wells, Conway , Scott or Weimann.

I would have brought one of our RBs on and dropped Scott deeper. 

Yes we won...but like your Scenario...if we had conceded two...fans would be questioning why we let them onto us again.

I believe in playing to our strengths not weaknesses.

He obviously believed tightening up with 10 men against a pretty toothless Luton was the right call. Considering the last 20 we surrendered some possession (as you would with 10 men) but they didn’t create any real chances would suggest it’s the right call.

I agree that we should play to our strengths when you can and 11v11 he may well have been more offensive but this front foot / pressing / passing game we have witnessed more this season is only in its infancy and maybe with 10 men and a 2-0 lead with 20 to go, discretion was the better part of valour 

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19 minutes ago, spudski said:

I gave the reasons to my thinking in my previous posts. As to why being offensive works. Especially when our Achilles heal is letting teams onto us later in games.

I wouldn't have subbed Wells, Conway , Scott or Weimann.

I would have brought one of our RBs on and dropped Scott deeper. 

Yes we won...but like your Scenario...if we had conceded two...fans would be questioning why we let them onto us again.

I believe in playing to our strengths not weaknesses.

No-one can know what the same or different changes would impact the same scenario against a Watford or Norwich and it's all conjecture.

But for your "if we had conceded two" scenario we have the benefit of seeing how those changes did affect a game we were leading 2-0 against Luton and they worked. That's a fact.

A bonus for me is that I feel a lot of us losing leads late on and not being able to see games out is mental. This has been happening now for years under a vareity of Head Coaches and Managers and I can only think the playing squads transfer that mental fragility to new players when they are brought in. Don't underestimate the benefit of seeing out half an hour with 10 men against last season's play-off semi-finalists may have on breaking this cycle. Do it 2 or 3 more times in the coming weeks and we may just form a new habit of not throwing away leads :D 

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1 hour ago, Harry said:

Yep. We won. And I’m happy about that. I’m just not convinced about how that actually happened and how that wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. 

Why complicate things?

You may not have agreed with Nige’s substitutions or tactics and he obviously got them right by managing the 2-0 lead very well.

You then say that it wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. So…….why were Luton so poor? do you suppose that City sniffled them so well that they could barely put three consecutive passes? 

If City can produce a similar performance against Cardiff then there’ll be three points in the bag on 90mins.

Give some praise when it’s deserved and it definitely was last night.

Edited by Robbored
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@HarryTotally agree with your opening post. We saw out the game but could have been out of sight. If they had scored it would have been a nervy last few minutes. If they had scored and the equalised all that work and confidence building would have been wiped out and the forum a very different place.

 

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10 minutes ago, RedM said:

@HarryTotally agree with your opening post. We saw out the game but could have been out of sight. If they had scored it would have been a nervy last few minutes. If they had scored and the equalised all that work and confidence building would have been wiped out and the forum a very different place.

 

But they didn't did they.

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1 hour ago, Harry said:

Yep. We won. And I’m happy about that. I’m just not convinced about how that actually happened and how that wouldn’t have worked against a competent opponent. 

It is absolutely right to analyse successes just as much as one might analyse failure. You're right to consider whether the success of seeing the game out with 10 men is repeatable, and also to look at ways that we might have seen out in an even more successful manner.

For my money yes perhaps putting on a specialist RWB/RB would have been smarter, but I can only assume there is a reason that this was not done. 

I felt the substitutions made sense, or at least could be rationalised as one option. We only made 4 of our permitted 5 substitutions (and one was in the 89th minute) I wonder if Pearson may reflect on whether making all 5 could have allowed some of the tired 10 men to rest a little more ahead of our next matches. Again, there's a balance there between resting people and changing half the team that is already doing a good job.

In general I think we responded well to the red card, and crucially responded better than I expected us to. Personally I was at no point concerned that we would lose our lead last night.

Still right to critique and challenge the decisions that were made though.

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10 hours ago, Cityboy1954 said:

Good post was hoping to see callum pring given a chance for dasilva but maybe hes still in the naughty book .

It was a very good performance and great win but I struggle with the decision to have 2 RB/RWB's on the bench. Who goes LWB if Dasilva gets injured or runs out of steam? I assume either Tanner or Wilson (Square peg round hole) or we move Naismith but that requires reshuffling the deck. None of which makes any sense to me when you have Pring available. Obviously no idea why he isn't making the bench but surely you have him as an option even if in your head you are only going to use him if absolutely necessary. Alternately have Bell or Owers on the bench and give yourself another midfield option. Two RB/RWB's feels like a complete waste of a spot on the bench - particularly if you aren't going to use either of them.

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45 minutes ago, KentRed said:

It was a very good performance and great win but I struggle with the decision to have 2 RB/RWB's on the bench. Who goes LWB if Dasilva gets injured or runs out of steam? I assume either Tanner or Wilson (Square peg round hole) or we move Naismith but that requires reshuffling the deck. None of which makes any sense to me when you have Pring available. Obviously no idea why he isn't making the bench but surely you have him as an option even if in your head you are only going to use him if absolutely necessary. Alternately have Bell or Owers on the bench and give yourself another midfield option. Two RB/RWB's feels like a complete waste of a spot on the bench - particularly if you aren't going to use either of them.

Quite agree i know these lads have stepped up a league or two and are waiting their chance but pring had one bad game last year offers more going forward aswell.

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1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

It is absolutely right to analyse successes just as much as one might analyse failure. You're right to consider whether the success of seeing the game out with 10 men is repeatable, and also to look at ways that we might have seen out in an even more successful manner.

For my money yes perhaps putting on a specialist RWB/RB would have been smarter, but I can only assume there is a reason that this was not done. 

I felt the substitutions made sense, or at least could be rationalised as one option. We only made 4 of our permitted 5 substitutions (and one was in the 89th minute) I wonder if Pearson may reflect on whether making all 5 could have allowed some of the tired 10 men to rest a little more ahead of our next matches. Again, there's a balance there between resting people and changing half the team that is already doing a good job.

In general I think we responded well to the red card, and crucially responded better than I expected us to. Personally I was at no point concerned that we would lose our lead last night.

Still right to critique and challenge the decisions that were made though.

Quite right to analyse…but I also think to suggest it only worked because Luton were shit is very churlish.

Why not give credit to Pearson for keeping his starters, who were up to the pace of the game, on for a big longer whilst he assessed how the game / state of game changed.  Imagine making subs straight off, we concede and the game changes.

There are more than one way to skin a cat…but we only got to observe one cat last night, and we generally coped fine.

58 minutes ago, KentRed said:

It was a very good performance and great win but I struggle with the decision to have 2 RB/RWB's on the bench. Who goes LWB if Dasilva gets injured or runs out of steam? I assume either Tanner or Wilson (Square peg round hole) or we move Naismith but that requires reshuffling the deck. None of which makes any sense to me when you have Pring available. Obviously no idea why he isn't making the bench but surely you have him as an option even if in your head you are only going to use him if absolutely necessary. Alternately have Bell or Owers on the bench and give yourself another midfield option. Two RB/RWB's feels like a complete waste of a spot on the bench - particularly if you aren't going to use either of them.

Wilson can play LWB.

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1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

It is absolutely right to analyse successes just as much as one might analyse failure. You're right to consider whether the success of seeing the game out with 10 men is repeatable, and also to look at ways that we might have seen out in an even more successful manner.

For my money yes perhaps putting on a specialist RWB/RB would have been smarter, but I can only assume there is a reason that this was not done. 

I felt the substitutions made sense, or at least could be rationalised as one option. We only made 4 of our permitted 5 substitutions (and one was in the 89th minute) I wonder if Pearson may reflect on whether making all 5 could have allowed some of the tired 10 men to rest a little more ahead of our next matches. Again, there's a balance there between resting people and changing half the team that is already doing a good job.

In general I think we responded well to the red card, and crucially responded better than I expected us to. Personally I was at no point concerned that we would lose our lead last night.

Still right to critique and challenge the decisions that were made though.

You can't really challenge it as we saw the game out with ease with the subs that were made. NP got it spot on.

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3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Quite right to analyse…but I also think to suggest it only worked because Luton were shit is very churlish.

Why not give credit to Pearson for keeping his starters, who were up to the pace of the game, on for a big longer whilst he assessed how the game / state of game changed.  Imagine making subs straight off, we concede and the game changes.

There are more than one way to skin a cat…but we only got to observe one cat last night, and we generally coped fine.

Come now Dave, you know I'd agree with all of that. I didn't say I agreed with @Harry's particular analysis. I'll admit I read the OP last night and did immediately find it a little churlish, so I left it and slept on it. However the principle behind it is sound and I wanted to comment to make that point, as many people were doing the classic "well we won so why even analyse it?" kind of thing. You know I don't subscribe to that. Remember Rasmus and his Nokia story.

Just now, Super said:

You can't really challenge it as we saw the game out with ease with the subs that were made. NP got it spot on.

You can look at what happened and ask "could we have done that better?". The answer can be no, yes, or somewhere in-between. You can also do all of that whilst congratulating those involved for that success. No part of that exercise is contradictory.

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Just now, ExiledAjax said:

Come now Dave, you know I'd agree with all of that. I didn't say I agreed with @Harry's particular analysis. I'll admit I read the OP last night and did immediately find it a little churlish, so I left it and slept on it. However the principle behind it is sound and I wanted to comment to make that point, as many people were doing the classic "well we won so why even analyse it?" kind of thing. You know I don't subscribe to that. Remember Rasmus and his Nokia story.

yeah, was really replying to Harry…who’s getting it in the neck on our a WhatsApp group for not being sure about Conway yet! ???

You can look at what happened and ask "could we have done that better?". The answer can be no, yes, or somewhere in-between. You can also do all of that whilst congratulating those involved for that success. No part of that exercise is contradictory.

 

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Just now, ExiledAjax said:

Come now Dave, you know I'd agree with all of that. I didn't say I agreed with @Harry's particular analysis. I'll admit I read the OP last night and did immediately find it a little churlish, so I left it and slept on it. However the principle behind it is sound and I wanted to comment to make that point, as many people were doing the classic "well we won so why even analyse it?" kind of thing. You know I don't subscribe to that. Remember Rasmus and his Nokia story.

You can look at what happened and ask "could we have done that better?". The answer can be no, yes, or somewhere in-between. You can also do all of that whilst congratulating those involved for that success. No part of that exercise is contradictory.

Not sure how we could have done better. 

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1 minute ago, Super said:

Not sure how we could have done better. 

I guarantee you that the question will be asked at the training centre today. They may come to the same conclusion as you have, or they might just think a little tweak here or there could have meant we were even more controlled or perhaps had an extra shot, or scored a third goal, or just saved a little energy in the legs of the players. You can say that would all just be icing on an already delicious victory cake...but I for one bloody love icing.

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