Which is what they did through the good, bad (gamesmanship) and ugly (the nasty tackle which resulted in the sending off) and the crafty elbow into the face or midriff. This game was a learning curve. Every game in fact is a learning curve.
I'm not overly sure a pre-injury Jay would have done as well in recent formations (Koeman or Puel) as he was that dangerous because he was the left of 3 in a fluid 4-2-3-1 We haven't played that kind of forward line for a long time and he isn't good enough as one of 2 up front at this level, even before. Wish he was but he wasn;t. What I will say is that strangely I don't feel that bad after this game. A bit disappointed maybe but not in the team, just the result. We would have won this with a full team out and I guess that is one of the problems with being in the PL. No easy games. I'm sure Man U and Arsenal always seemed to use to get a nice easy game before and after their key Euro games where they would rest their whole first 11. Seems over the past couple of years that even the top teams don't get those easy fixtures pre and post euro games anymore. One thought that crossed my mind is that I felt worse when we lost the ZDS. So I suppose that means that we are still doing well. Shows how far we have come. The ZDS at the time was a "once in a lifetime" chance whereas this europa is (seemingly) the first of many. I still think we can do it though. Need to put out the first 11 in the return and Austin for all his faults is by far our best option up front. He just know where the goal is and is the type to get into the right place at the right time. Not getting the Cuco criticisms. Apart from that very very dodgy backpass in the first half he had a great game and it could have been worse........he could have been injured and Cedric been there. Cuco and Tadic work very well together. Chuffed to bits for McQueen as well. I want to see the "pathway to the first team" working even if it costs us a league position or 2. It is very important to my belief in Saints not just being another big money club. As for the ref.....I'm not criticising him....this is European football, what do we expect? We knew what we would get before the game started without researching him.
13 attempts 4 on target, just an invisible force field in the goal mouth kept them out. No one so far can explain why JRods goal was disallowed, no doubt it was something off the ball but it isn't easy to spot it.
Actually we've had competent refs more often than not. West Ham, Moss was excellent, Leicester Atkinson was good. The ref was excellent against Sparta Prague by all accounts. Tonight and Arsenal were he only two times we've been ****ed over if I remember right. And as we've got the Champions League and Euro 2016 Final referee on Sunday we can't complain about ref quality then!
At this level of professional football you expect consistently good refs. The amount of money involved is sickening so these off games should be once a season, not twice in a month. I know they are human, but in the Europa league there are so many officials, so many people getting it barbarically wrong.
He's a legend. Will leave for bigger and better things I'm sure, but for me he wears the shirt with pride.
