It's still hard to wake up this morning and realise we lost a game we had in the bag with minutes to go. It's baffling. How? A lack of leadership on the field? Big name players freezing on the biggest stage? Individual errors? Fear? The absolute bloody minded determination to win at all costs by going down, feigning injury disrupting another teams momentum when they are on top? A bit of all those points I fear.
The warning signs have been there a fair few times this season in all honesty. The Leeds game set alarm bells ringing for me, coming just before Madrid.. The result looks easy, 4-0 away from home. However time and time again they got behind our defence and only poor finishing, luck and last ditch defending stopped them scoring two or three themselve. This was Leeds, a team near the bottom and possibly getting relegated. Another easy win looking at the result, Watford at home, 5-1 but they again breached our defence easily a few times too and we let in a soft goal.
Against better quality they do score. Spurs, Liverpool, now Madrid. We get punished. Now of course that will happen against better teams but some of their goals were preventable with better defending and goalkeeping. Which leads on to a couple of unpopular opinions that evoke strong reactions when mentioned.
Cancelo. Great going forward with some world class passing but often a liability verging on a disaster at times when defending. Ederson. A cult figure who's ability with his feet and passing is central to our game, no doubts there. He does however let some soft preventable goals in and doesn't command his box. When under pressure he gives me the jitters. Laporte. Fetches the ball out well, great vision in his passing but in big games against better opposition he costs us time and time again.
We need some steel in this side, a mean horrible streak, some leadership and balls when we are up against it to go with all the fine football. We need a world class left back, a rugged hard leader at centre half and one in central midfield. We need our modern day Andy Morrison, possibly two, to calm the younger heads and look after them a bit. The opposition needs to look at them in the tunnel and know if they want it they're fucking having it.
Last night Madrid and Ancelotti had learnt from the first leg. They marked our main man KDB out of the game and smothered Rodri from fetching the ball out. They knew they'd get chances and pre game needed just one goal. The Mahrez goal 15 minutes from time should have been game over but due to some of the points raised above and a bit of desperation and luck it wasn't and we lost. Big decisions need to be made in the summer as this squad needs refreshing to keep us competing at the top level.
