Atletico (A) - Post-Match Thread

We did have a decent warm up for the match by playing against the thugs from Miseryside. Everything can be carried on again on Saturday with Fabinho, Thiago and Robertson taking over from where Savic and Felipe left off, aided and abetted by The Bottler.
 
I think that’s a bit of an old fashioned way of thinking. Rugby league is played by absolute nutcases, but they still respect the refs (on the whole).
And, for the most part, their opponents. In RL they'll smash the shit out of each other for 80 minutes then all shake hands at the end. The indiscipline is out in the open too, so fists will fly and melees do happen, but there's none of the hair-pulling, spitting or feigning injury. Stefan Savic wouldn't last 5 minutes on a rugby pitch if he behaved like he did last night.
 
I really enjoyed the game, it was almost the exact opposite to the Liverpool game. Yes Atleti employed the dark arts, but so we did we and Ferna coming on gave us a level of shithousery to match theirs. I have no issue with the way Atleti play, if every team played the same it would be boring.

It was a tough game though and we were magnificent at what we are normally never given any credit for, that is being resolute, defending properly and keeping calm under pressure. I loved when Phil was assaulted near the end, Zincho was straight into protect him, that showed the togetherness of the squad. Stones was magnificent, special mention for Ake who shored things up superbly when called upon. The workrate of all the lads was superb, you would never see Mahrez tracking back for Leicester how he did last night for us.

I believe last night was one of our great European performances, it was mature and we showed we could compete and overcome adversity

Just hope Kyle and Kev are OK for the Semi, the other lads will be battered and bruised as well, but we have Semi's coming up and we need the character we showed last night to keep at it.
You have no issues with the way Madrid play. Are you kidding mate. That’s not football in the slightest and if city played like that over the two legs I’d be embarrassed.
What those pricks resorted to last night was way beyond anything that should be seen in an elite football match.

And to compare Fernandinho to that mob and what they get up to is far removed from reality as it gets.
 
I just absolutly adored Fernandinhos introduction to the game, he must have been salivating watching that. As soon as he was introduced he smashes into a couple of hard, but fair tackles then takes a soft one and rolls around for a little while but wins us possession higher up the pitch. His introduction seemed to be the instigator for us to up our shithouse tactics to the next level, we then had Phil get involved (let's face it the 'afters' in that tackle was soft) by rolling back onto the pitch leading to the red card, and even Eddie go down for a little while after making a good save from the FK on our right. Loved the fact we out shithoused them and also loved the fact that everyone of our players kept their head in the upmost professional way with a special shout out to Zin for protecting Phil on the ground, Ake for the most complete and composed cameo I've seen from a sub in a long time, Grealish for telling Savic what we would all like to say to him and Stones for having a Dias/Kompany type of performance he really has pushed on this year and is playing tremendously well.
 
I don't understand why we panicked so badly in that 2nd half, our first half composure went out of the window and we resorted to aimless long balls up the pitch then invited wave after wave of attacks from Atletico.
Maybe we were intimidated by them I don't know but it's the first time in ages I've seen us rattled like that
 
None of us could foresee a defensive performance like that without Dias, even just a couple of months ago

We need to sort our second half performance drop off sharpish

They disrupted us like no-one else has. The greatest shame about them is they could actually be a great side. It obviously all starts with the manager.

The semi and final should be against teams who come to play us, on the face of it - perfect

Prayers for Savic’s dog
 

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