Frustration makes every decision look bad, every booking look biased, every penalty claim a stone wall denial...
but the truth is, we weren't good enough tonight.
We are a good team, we have great players, but we lack confidence, composure and tactics in CL.
CSKA did a perfect job on us. Entirely set up to counter, and we had plenty of warnings about it, but we still continued to press high up the pitch leaving an acre of space behind us. It was clear they had lightning pace, but we did nothing to counter it.
No excuses, we don't deserve to get out of the group. The table isn't lying, nobody is 'fixing' results. WE are the masters of our own downfall.
I'm no fan of UEFA, I loathe some of their actions, but watching that tonight, was very poor.
I'll admit it, I was all too eager to blame the ref too. But doing well in the CL means winning regardless of poor decisions.
For most of out PL games, we've been allowed to take things nice and easy and usually outplay teams. In the CL, we are playing quality teams. We cannot afford to be playing casual balls across midfield that are being intercepted time and time again, and priming teams for a perfect counter attack. Nor can we keep trying to thread a ball through the eye of a needle... essentially between 4 or 5 defenders. It's costing us possession time and again. In the PL, one in twenty attempts at this might result in a goal. In the CL 19 out of 20 attempts at that result in a counter attack.
Generally speaking, I can't fault the work rate of most of our players tonight. That wasn't a problem in my eyes, but we lacked intelligence and variation in our play.
A very disappointing night, but we got what we deserved. Well played CSKA.