That was the best first forty-five minutes that we've played for, like, months. I think we have to go back to August and early September to see that discipline. We were a bit shakier in the second half, albeit still basically in control, and started letting them see too much of the ball.
I know that a lot on here will have praised Otamendi, and rightly so, he did play a good match, with much better positioning than he's been showing lately, and some superb tackles. But the guy does seem to have one horrendous mistake in him in nearly every match. And by horrendous I mean a mistake that often costs us a goal and sometimes costs us the match. And I'm not talking about the deflection, which no defender can legislate for. If he could only get that out of his game I think he really would be something like the price we paid for him.
Yaya. It's exactly the opposite, for me. I'll probably get a ton of shit for saying this, but I don't think he had a particularly good game, apart from two moments that everybody will remember. The intelligent nod to Kun (who read it superbly), and of course, the goal, which, ok, was trademark Yaya. The curling ball right into the corner that leaves the keeper with no chance whatsoever. Otherwise, I felt he kept making short passes backwards or square to players who already had a man on them, putting them under unnecessary pressure, or even more riskily, trying to dribble with it in parts of the pitch where if he lost possession — and he did, a couple of times — a counter was immediately launched against a stretched back line. A better team would have punished us for that. As I say, I know I'll get shit, because everyone wants to celebrate after a victory like this (me too!), but that's the match I saw, and those are my two quibbles in an otherwise brilliant team performance. Interesting to see Fernando getting praised on here, by the way…
