Having played 8 games already, Dukla Prague certainly had the edge in both fitness and sharpness in the final third. This is how AN saw it: “Really disappointed to lose any game,” said Neil. “In the first half, perhaps they did look ahead of us in terms of fitness with the tempo they wanted to play. In the second half up until their goal we dominated in what was our best spell and they hit us on the break a little bit. The goal knocked us back a bit. We didn’t really recover for five minutes and the game opened up again. Listen, there were some good bits and the creative side of it is always something that comes last. The play in the final third was not as good as we had liked. I didn’t know they had played eight games but looking at them they look up to speed. I thought both teams put it in and we will take a lot from it.” There is also the fact that this was a team without, Jerome, Hoolahan, Naismith, Brady, Olsson, Pinto, Klose and Ruddy, all of whom are likely to start against Blackburn, if they are still here.
