Thought it was a very entertaining game - concede that we were not at our best, but some credit must be given to the Swiss for that; and the referee who was an absolute tool throughout - waving play on when Michu nearly got his head kicked off and then not letting him back on for 8 minutes!!!! Really hope he go's for a drink in Wind Street tonight! St Gallen looked like a very decent team and most of our errors were forced by them. They were very physical and closed us down all over the pitch like eleven demented terriers! But we won 'ugly' and think just about deserved the three points; although I really couldn't have argued the case if Gallen had claimed 1 point or 3! I think we expected them to be more defensive, but they attacked from the off and nearly caught us out a few times; let's remember that they also would have gone top of the table if they had won so it was all to play for! This is another chapter in our football education and I firmly believe we will learn from it; this game was a battle from beginning to end and tomorrow morning our guys will really know they have been in a game! A lot have given MotM to Britton, but I would give it to Michu for his sheer passion and refusal to give an inch - even after the nasty kick to the head he didn't back off from an aerial challenge and worked tirelessly to the end! The boy is a total warrior - think he would have played on even if his head had been kicked clean off of his shoulders!!! Have nothing but admiration for all the players who took part in that war of attrition - yep, we didn't play as well as we can but 3 points on the board is the best we could have hoped for and we got 'em!!! So don't judge the team too harshly; they played against 11 terriers and a moron in black tonight and earned an excellent victory - deserved or not is open to interpretation but all the record books will show is that we got 3 points and St Gallen got nought!!!
I'd be worried if I was them. They played to the best of their ability, we didn't, they had a bent ref giving them everything and they still couldn't beat us.
You orrible bastards Valley, I'm gonna remember this when I start work on the match thread for the game at Legoland. You'll have your hands full because the red tits are going to be sooooo annoyed
Funny you should say that - when we won the League Cup under Martin O'Neil we played Athletico Madrid in the old format two-legged knock-out - we lost the away leg 2-1 but were still optimistic about our chances at a packed Filbert Street - the ref that night denied us four stonewall penalties and even sent Garry Parker off for taking a free kick (shot at goal) too quickly - we ended up losing both the leg and the tie - many of us convinced the ref had been on the take ... last night straight after the kick to the head and the lunging tackle on Ben Davies I turned to my missus and commented that this was the first time since that night at Filbo that I'd had the same feeling that a ref had a pre-arranged 'agenda' ...