So a whole week be fore our next televised game...4 consecutive games on TV...unbelievable. Let's make it 4 wins.
Elia's my MOTM for his running and his two goals. But massive credit to Pelle. He only misses out on my MOTM because of Elia. Everything stuck to him.
Haidara caught easily have been off today for two bookings. He caught Tadic three times from behind with the ball on the ground, Long once on the ground and once in the air from behind. The ref was letting him get away with everything.
Europa League starts up again sometime in February and one of our challengers, Tottenham will have their work cut out in the coming weeks as they play COC semi-final, FA 4th round, try to maintain their challenge in the league and will want to go far in the Europa. Looking at their results after a Europa match and they are rather indifferent. I believe they are a good team but will have their work cut out maintaining an interest in 4 competitions. From a selfish point of view I hope Tottenham play Liverpool in the COC final thus enabling us to increase the gap and mount the pressure on those two sides.
Don't believe it was his fault. if he didn't get a call he had to clear it. It was just unlucky it hit the Newcastle player and bounced into the goal. After seeing it again on Sky Forster appears to hesitate just enough for the confusion.
He was immense, I was really impressed by his performance. Harry Reed is rapidly becoming one of my favorite players. Where does he get that endless energy from?
Performance wasn't helped by his constant smirking, either. Only thing worse than a bad ref is a smug, bad ref.
But importantly it affected both sides equally and didn't, (apart from the dubious penalty shout, I have seen them given, but how are you supposed to get out of the way of a ball hit at you with that much velocity is beyond me) affect the result. No guarantee they would have scored it anyhow, so hypothetical now. I give him high marks, but only because we won!
I would like to say a huge well done to Shane - played well on Weds in FA cup, then put back on the bench - no fuss, then on as a sub and helps create the crucial goal. I know a lot has been said of his price tag - same as Danny and Gaston, but I think we know who is better for team spirit, the fans and for the team. Well done Shane
Yes,he was as bad for each side, but Don that doesn't make it right. They need to improve. Too much goes wrong.
Someone criticised Clyne, I reckon he was a tad weary from recent events! There was one occasion when he had run the length of the pitch to link up an attack, when the ball was lost, he turned round, took a couple of deep breaths, then ran half the length of the pitch overtaking Harry in the procees to put in a telling tackle to curtail a dangerous move. Even when he is tired he is fast, don't knock the odd error, he is a human being after all.
Koeman sad that couple of months ago Reed was running too much, and now he's more calm. Never until now have I heard of a player who ran too much.
