Post Match Reaction - Round 11

[Nick@ManCity]

Missing Sheets
N/A

Errors

 Lazio - Fabinho named twice 
Rangers - A_Elustondo named twice

Error Points
Lazio = 2
Rangers = 2

[JasonH@Wolfsburg]

Real Madrid 1-3 Leverkusen

The unlikeliest of wins to hopefully kick start our season. And it was a pretty even game, but Madrid probably edged it slightly.

Hopton: “we came into this match with a plan, not to sit back and let Madrid try and break down the door for most of the game, but to take the game to them. This worked tremendously with Silva having a stormer in goal.

I’m proud of these boys and we can build on this from here, we have ac Milan up next and look to drag ourselves firmly into those European spots”

good game Steve

[Steve@Chelsea]

Real Madrid 1 - 3 Leverkusen

"Really disapointing result, especially considering the way the rest of the results went for a few of the top teams. One of them games. Can't really explain that one but credit to Jason for coming at us and at the end of the day the away side was more clinical than we was today. One bad result doesn't make a season and we will dust ourselfs off and come again. Well played Leverkusen."

[Ray@Wolves]

Bayern Munich 2
L_Hernandez (12), T_Werner (66)
Booked: A_Davies (71), A_Tchouameni (83)

Eintracht Frankfurt 4
S_Reguilon (6), C_Kouame (7), J_Henderson (58), S_Gimenez (71)
Booked: J_Henderson (45), B_Davies (92)

MotM: J_Henderson (Eintracht Frankfurt)
HT: 1-2

This is a massive win for us and although we are still rooted to the bottom that makes it two wins in a row to get us back to within touching distance of the teams above us. Another brilliant performance from all the players and great debuts by our three new boys, but especially for 21 year old Santiago Gimenez who replaced other new boy Juanmi late on and grabbed his first goal in Frankfurt colours. As a group I think we are still quite stunned at taking all three points against a top side and top manager on their home turf. Overall the stats showed there wasn't much between the two teams, but we certainly had our fair share of the luck by scoring 4 goals from our 5 shots on target! The scoreline definitely flattered us but we need to get back a lot of goals to compensate for the awful goal difference and points tally we inherited from the last managerial regime.

Good game JB.

[Derek]

Lazio 4 4 Roma

The big Rome derby saw one club come to play attacking, entertaining football. And the other play a mixture of defensive and the weakened counter attacking football.

In truth Roma battered their lesser Roman rivals - with more than double the number of shots but were behind for 81 minutes of this match and had to rely on a last minute equaliser to even get a point.

Szczesny poor peformance again proving costly for us. Managers can expect more private messages this week as we attempt to sell him.

gg Drum.

[Gary@Millwall]

Napoli 1 Sporting Lisbon 3

Following the dismantling of Sporting Lisbon by Inter Milan in week 10 of the FFO 2 season all eyes turned to San Paulo stadium for game 11 with the EFL big boys intrigued to see if Sporting Lisbon's confidence had been smashed to pieces and a result rot was about to set in. Sporting Lisbon had dropped to 2nd on goal difference and Inter Milan were the pacesetters going into week 11.

Napoli set up with the recently used 4-4-1-1 formation with Sporting Lisbon being less gun ho moving to a 5-1-0-2-2 formation with both teams playing European tactics.

The game was pretty even for the opening 20 minutes but again despite creating plenty of chances Sporting Lisbon's efforts were mainly off target.

In the 20th minute Manchester City loanee Devyne Rensch was taken off injured with Vallci coming on to replace him.

With Napoli starting to command more of the ball Windebank conceded tactical advantage by switching to the counter attacking tactic as he looked for his team to hit the Italians on the break after absorbing the pressure.

In the 54th minute a defensive error by Gianluca Mancini saw Napoli win a corner that Aranguiz delivered with precision to Cunha who made no mistake with his shot to give the Italian side a 1-0 lead.

The big question was were Sporting Lisbon going to fold like the previous game or show the steely resolve they have in eight of the the first ten League games as Windebank barked to his players to go on the attack as he pushed De Jong and Hazard up front alongside Politino and Lewandowski.

Three minutes after Napoli had hit the side netting Vallci found stalwart Boateng who's shot hit the post and the back of the net to bring the scores level in the 66th minute.

Sporting Lisbon were getting on top and both sides saw their efforts hitting the woodwork a couple of times and Napoli players were blocking most shots that Sporting Lisbon were trying.

With the clock running down Frenkie de Jong saw yet another shot blocked by a Napoli defender and from the resulting corner Gianluca Mancini delivered a great to Juan Mata, who had come on for Eden Hazard, who dispatched a great half volley past the Napoli keeper to give Sporting Lisbon the lead in the 80th minute. Windebank could not control himself through the excitement of turning this game around and he run down the touchline sliding on his knees onto the pitch.

Could Sporting Lisbon hold onto the lead?

Not only did they hold onto the lead they put the game out of sight in the 93rd minute when man of the match Rick Karsdorp delivered an a beautiful through ball to fans favourite Frenkie de Jong who hit a crisp shot with the outside of his right boot to make the score 3-1 in the last action of the game.

Sporting Lisbon put in a great display at the San Paulo stadium and possession was even at 50% with the away side creating slightly move chances with 19 to 18, but Napoli had 11 shots on target to Sporting Lisbon's 7.

Inter Milan on the back of destroying Sporting Lisbon and going top of the League at week 10 were held to a draw by Sevilla and following yet another win for Barcelona drop to 3rd with Sporting Lisbon rising to the unlikely summit yet again following their 9th League victory of the season.

This will only last to Thursday night though as the superior manager and team in Real Madrid visit the Estadio Jose Alvalade who will be eager to get their usual victory especially after losing at home to Jason Hopton's Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 tonight.

The Estadio Jose Alvalade will be bouncing with no one in attendance or in FFO expecting much from the home side and the pressure will all be with Steve Talbot who will not want to fall 10 points behind a team he continually disrespects and does not rate.

Windebank's Post Match Comments

All credit goes to the lads today and they will be getting a rest day tomorrow. To bounce back from Thursday's home defeat and come to Napoli and secure a 3-1 victory is something special.

The knives were out from certain sections of the EFL community but we keep defying logic and bounce back from disappointment with a victory, long may it continue.....

We travel to the South Coast on Tuesday where we need a victory to try and wrap up qualification from the DPT group as quickly as possible.

Then Thursday we face Real Madrid who have slipped behind Roma following their shock defeat to Jason Hopton's side. Steve T will be hurting as he was very happy to be leading the so called big three despite being 4th I think it was.

There is no pressure on us and we need to play exactly that way. Lose to Real Madrid and FFO expects that, beat Real Madrid my oh my that would send shockwaves through the Real Madrid Boardroom with difficult questions for Steve T to answer.

For the moment we will enjoy a great victory today and try and contain our nosebleed as we sit proudly at the top of the table again even if it is just temporary it feels bloody good.

Good game as always Chris best of luck for the season mate

[Ed@PSG]

Dortmund 3 PSG 3
Yet again we let a 2 goal margin slip away from home, and ended upneeding an equaliser to get a point. The hosts even played the first hour with their best forward on the bench. With the better shot count, better GK, and far better attacking players, we should be winning games like these. But that is 4 draws and 1 defeat in our last 5 away game. Still within 4 points of the other 2 big teams, who also seem to be floundering. Is the new tactical matrix the new levelller?
GG Niall

[Marshy@Atletico]

Juventus 8 (eight) Atletico Madrid 0

GG Andy

Marsh quits FFO
Its not fair
My teams better than yours
The engine hates me

Are all things you will NOT hear from Atletico after a good humping. Every now again football throws something unexpectedly up and I dont think either manager expected this. A 14-8 shot count suggests maybe a 2-1 home victory but it was one of those ridiculous days when everything goes in, well 8 on-target shots from 11. All we can do is pull up our pants, apply some cream and carry on to the next game.

The season feels like it has imploded. Domestic cup exit, champions league performances yielding very little and now we drop to 08th place without a league win in 6 games.

[Guest]

Inter Milan 1 - 1 Sevilla

50% more shots on target away at the league leaders .. we can feel unlucky we didnt' snatch a victory ..

Used C to line up against a predicted P ... but an early goal from Son put us up against it ..

Add to it that Toby went off inured early with squaddie Karadabek playing most of the game

We kept our shape tho and Blas equalised shortly after coming on!

Blas and Jose with a couple of late chances but it wasnt to be ...

[Dazzler]

Rangers 1 - 0 Celtic

The Old Firm derby in only my second game in charge was a big ask. We went the game plan of keeping it tight and hope to nick one on the break. It almost worked but just when we thought a point was in our grasp, Rangers scored the only goal with the last kick of the game.

Disappointing, yes, but we were in it until the end and shows we can compete against statistically better teams.

Well played Aaron

[Livi@Liverpool]

Valencia 1 Barcelona 2

This was a really tough game and Matt can feel hard done by as his side performed really well.

We scored early but Valencia deservedly equalised straight after half time and it looked to be anyone's game at that point. We switched to attacking later in the game and soon after that Jesus fired in the winner to give us a really hard fought 3 points.

On paper it's probably a game we should win but it just shows you how tough it is when a manager sets his team up well.

Unlucky Matt, without a doubt you deserved at least a point.

[AB@Juventus]

Juventus 8 - 0 Atletico Madrid

This game baffles me at times....We lose to the likes of Napoli and Celtic but smash a very good team & manager in Atletico Madrid......totally random.

Anyway, we started out with TA as Atletico looked to break down our 5 man defence but just 6 minutes in, R_Leao's header gave us the lead and the visitors shuffled a couple of players further forwards looking for an answer, however Leao's AM partner M_Odegaard doubled our advantage on 13 minutes and we looked to be in control.

3 minutes later and Odegaard had doubled his tally for the day and put us into a shock 3-0 lead. This is something we've not done much this season so the fans were able to drink it in.

The points were wrapped up with 6 minutes left of the first half when A_Isak started to make up for his 88th minute OG in the previous game with his 10th of the season and we entered the break with a 4-0 lead.

Gvardiol made it 5-0 shortly before the hour mark and Atletico were surely done for and hanging onto whatever dignity they had left....We let them have the ball for a little bit but on 72 minutes the scoring continued with Isak getting his brace, before finishing off his hat trick on 86 minutes.

We even had time to get Odegaard his hat trick with a 89th minute goal to round off the beating of Atletico and somehow, we'd scored 8.

Statistically we were the better team, by a maximum of 2 goals but after how our season has been going, I'll take 8-0 any day.

Good game Marshy.

[Drum@Villa]

Lazio 4 4 Roma

The big Rome derby saw one club come to play attacking, entertaining football. And the other play a mixture of defensive and the weakened counter attacking football.

In truth Roma battered their lesser Roman rivals - with more than double the number of shots but were behind for 81 minutes of this match and had to rely on a last minute equaliser to even get a point.

Szczesny poor peformance again proving costly for us. Managers can expect more private messages this week as we attempt to sell him.

gg Drum.

not sure delboy was watching but we tried to match up as much with Roma, but ultimately the better team wasn’t lazio, however we were about 2/3 minutes away from beating the famous Roma way, if it hadn’t been for the quality of neymar,

lazio started C expecting the A but it took a blatant penalty for the expected to come.

8 minutes in and Osimhen converted, 1-0,
on 17 mins, Osimhen again, 2-0, and this is our mistake. Should have stayed at C, but I went D and it was way to early. This unleashed the romans.

Firmino 7 minutes before the break was crucial to delboy, 2-1.

on 53, upamecano fired in for 3-1 and that normally is game over but Roma don’t stop ever.

on 65 and 66, Roma got level. Although under fire keeper DDG should have stopped 1. But game level and I feared the worst.


On 70 minutes though, Osimhen fed trippier to bury a crisp volley and restore the lead for the lazio team,

but and there is a but,,,,,.

89 minutes, heartbreak for lazio, neymar, too good. And then last kick of the game, the Brazilian star could have won it if the bar wasn’t in the way,,,,

we lost in all areas, possession passing shots everything,,,,,,, so did we do better as we had less shots but scored 4 and got a draw….. you decide delboy,,,,,

gg,

[Sanchez@Cardiff]

Valencia 1 Barcelona 2

This was a really tough game and Matt can feel hard done by as his side performed really well.

We scored early but Valencia deservedly equalised straight after half time and it looked to be anyone's game at that point. We switched to attacking later in the game and soon after that Jesus fired in the winner to give us a really hard fought 3 points.

On paper it's probably a game we should win but it just shows you how tough it is when a manager sets his team up well.

Unlucky Matt, without a doubt you deserved at least a point.

Valencia 1 Barcelona 2

Games like this are hard to take. As a manager you sit there for a week before the game analysing each and every aspect of the opposition game knowing that they simply are just a better team than you. However, it’s through that analysis that you can find just that glimmer of hope, that edge that makes a difference. Valenica have been on a poor run of results recently and see ourselves facing relegation if we don’t do something drastically. So back to the opening statement, this was a tough game to take, we did everything right and ultimately I didn’t feel we deserved the loss. Flip side is that we played Barcelona who are and excellent team and the result was a huge difference compared to the mauling we had off Roma in our last outing.

We keep plugging on.

GG Livi.


...

[JB@Norwich]

Bayern 2-4 Franfurt
"Awful, just awful. I am sick of this goalkeeper. He isnt getting back on the bus with us tonight. 1 save he has made and it was an easy one. It was straight at him and people will say hes a good shot stopper. Thats his job!!

We have to lick our wounds here, I am furious that last weeks good work has now been undermined by that tonight. The fans booing was correct and I almost joined in!!"

GG Ray