In the end, i'm happy enough with a point, because it was beginning to look like one of those 'just not your night' games where they would knick a goal at the end, or var would give them a stoppage time pen or something.
Sometimes, things just go against you, the own goal from a free kick that was never a foul, multiple missed chances and top top saves that on another night would have gone in. The game itself, out of context, these ones happen.
Again, we are hugely underestimating the effect fans in the stands would have had in that game, the extra pressure it would put on their defence in those last 20 minutes, the bit of belief it would give our forwards. Enough to get that winner. Let's not bullshit ourselves, we have had these games every time we won the league, we found ways to win them and it was marginal. We also had suckerpunch losses too.
The problem is has been happening a few times.
The bigger issue for me is the narrative this creates. We've already rewritten the last season, and a fair few now seem to be going into kickoff with a low expectation, and then watching the game to try confirm it.
We Are slower than we have been, we are less 'frightening'. But we still keep the posession and we still create the chances. What seems to be missing is belief and confidence. You can see it, from half an hour in, players are in despair and disbelief at missing chances as if it is the 90th minute. It almost looks as if they have convinced thenselves the goals aren't coming.
The narrative around pep will start to build too, can't hack it more than 3 years, anywhere else he'd be sacked, and that will feed into the cycle.
We need a big scoring dominant game to shed the weight, and to follow it up with a basic win. Then it might kick a bit of self belief off.
I think pep should be using torres way more, and regularly, because he is the one player currently not bogged down with this mentality. He is new to the team and league, has that fresh naivity but also that pure hope, has confidence and belief in himself, and the hunger to prove himself and justify his big move. And that will produce goals where a currently fragile sterling or mahrez will miss them.
