Fuckin Gutted!
I had a feeling of foreboding because of the way we started with an uncharateristic brand of old man walking football.
I thought we'd go at em from the opening whistle, & that allowed Real to score early & put us under pressure to respond. It must have been an instruction to take the sting out of the game by Pep, which subdued the crowd from the outset.
We dominated the game, but Real came with a game plan to defend deep & hit us on the counter & it worked.
Grealish was our best player by a mile & it shocked me when Pep pulled him off.
Foden started on the right, but was quiet all match, so when the subs were warming up, I honestly thought Phil might get pulled, but I suppose he poses more of a goal threat than Grealish, hence he stayed on & Jack got pulled.
From 70 mins on, you could see Real were playing for penalties & so it proved.
The pivotal moment was KDB missing an absolute sitter. If there was anyone you'd want a ball like that to fall to, it was King Kev, but he fluffed his lines at the crucial moment.
From then on my gut was telling me that was our chance of victory gone. KDB took his equaliser well, but in games like this it's all about small margins & his miss proved the ultimate difference in normal time.
In retrospect, we'd have been better pulling off Foden, moving Bernardo centrally & putting Doku on the right, with Grealish left, but hindsight's a wonderful thing.
Kudos to Walker who had a great game, alongside Akanji who was immense too.
Haaland was better tonight, but Rudiger proved yet again he's got Erling's number.
Real got the penalty shootout they wanted after our equaliser, & I just knew they'd get through if we got to that stage.
Bernardo went straight down the middle with his penalty which looks great when it comes off, but stupid when it doesn't.
Kovacic's penalty was a combination of a weak shot & well saved, but Real took their chances when it mattered most.
The more gutting aspect was that we went through extra time, rinsed ourselves dry, & now we face a buoyant Chelsea in 3 days time.
I'm still proud of our boys. The season's not over, but our main focus now must be the league over the FA Cup, & not repeating the transfer errors of last summer.
Now we better brace ourselves for the Bellingham wankathon! I seriously dislike the bastard!
Again... Fuckin GUTTED!!
