Post Match Reaction - Round 12

[Nick@ManCity]

Missing Sheets
N/A

Errors

 Rangers - A_Elustondo named twice

Error Points
Lazio = 2
Rangers = 4 T SHEET IF ERROR IN NEXT SHEET

[Derek]

Roma 3 1 Inter

Another footballing lesson for young Hamza.

We were pretty dominant here and it was plain sailing until Inter got a goal back on 77 minutes to make it 2-1 and make the last few minutes a nervous affair until we scored in the 91st minute.

Lisbon & Inter both crumbling (expect the Lisbon manager to get busy with work very soon). Barca continue to fly high. Wouldn't bet against another title win for Mr Edwards though.

Neymar out for the next match - but we have plenty of depth so should be ok.

gg Hamza

[JasonH@Wolfsburg]

Leverkusen 2-3 AC Milan

Disappointed to lose this one, get an injury and a sending off in the 1st 20 minutes which puts us on an uphill battle, but actually take the lead and go two up. But switching to C sent the game into deterioration and Milan fought back to win it.

Good game Mati, a tough one for my boys to handle

[Johnboy]

Monaco 1 - Celtic 0

After a truly shocking run of form we welcomed Celtic to the Stafe Louis II with 3 key players missing through suspension or injury and as a result we had to change things around a bit.

There were 2 key incidents in the fist half as Ciro Immobile thought he'd put Monaco ahead only for the referee to rule it out for reasons that I still don't understand and then almost on the halftime whistle the referee awarded Celtic a penalty following a foul from Hradecky in the Monaco goal, unfortunately for Celtic and Boadu the penalty was struck poorly and dribbled wide.

The second half saw a couple of changes for Monaco including Aubameyang coming on to replace Immobile and with the last kick of the game he scored the winner lobbing Lafont in the Celtic goal which didn't give Celtic a chance to fight back.

A welcome win, just about deserved on the balance of play, next up we face Atletico with a full squad to choose from.

Good game Darren, good luck for the rest of the season.

[Drum@Villa]

Lazio 3-0 Valencia

opted for C again, Valencia have struggled this season, and they seem to be chopping and changing to find the right formula,

10 minutes in, Pulisic converted his effort to give us the lead, and on 42 he doubled his tally from the spot, After Aouar was hauled down inside the area.

half time 2-0.

a subdued second half was only lit up on 78 when Osimhen rounded of good work from de Paul.

Pulisic Mom.

GG

[Ray@Wolves]

Eintracht Frankfurt 3
J_Vallejo (14,83), F_Dimarco (70)
Booked: Juanmi (58), H_Ziyech (62)

Juventus 2
Y_Adli (24), A_Isak (48)
Booked: Nuno_Mendes (20)

MotM: A_Isak (Juventus)
HT: 1-1

We had home advantage and we managed to retain tactical advantage for most of the game which just about gave us the edge against a far better side managed by a top manager. This game swung back and forth and was certainly a great game for the neutral, but for the two sets of supporters they must have felt as though they had been put through the wringer watching this game. When Juve got their go ahead goal at the start of the second half, Frankfurt's faithful must have felt the new manager bubble had burst after two wins on the bounce. But the players in black and red had other idea's and kept at it. They were rewarded with a 70th minute goal to set the game up for an edge of the seat finish. The game continued to swing back and forth until the scorer of the first goal struck once more as defender Jesus Vallejo skipped through the Juve defence to score the winning goal and send the home fans into heaven. Overall we really rode our luck as although we had more possession, the away side had by far the better of the goalmouth chances.

Unlucky AB, deserved at least a draw with those stats.

Next game sees us travel to Ibrox to play Rangers.

[Marshy@Atletico]

Atletico 3 Rangers 1

GG Aaron

Nice to get back to winning ways after a lean period.
Two goals from Fati and one from Romagnoli put us into a 3-0 lead before Rangers pulled one back late in the game.
Does very little at the top end of the league with the majority of sides winning but there is a nice gap below 09th place now. Its an interesting battle with Ac Milan and Lisbon showing good form this season so with Munich and Juve it looks like there is going to be 11 clubs chasing the 8 champions league places this season.

Manager Simon Marsh commented "Relief really to get a win and keep fighting at the right end of the league. We really need to get a mini flurry of wins together if we are to pressure any sides above us".

[Livi@Liverpool]

Barcelona 1 Dortmund 0

Well with a 22 to 1 shot count I'd have been disappointed if we hadn't walked away with the 3 points but we were left sweating all the way to the final whistle due to our inability to find that killer 2nd goal.

When all is said and done we have to be happy with another win as we continue our good start to the season. It's still far too early to be getting excited about league positions and the like but we are starting to look like a decent side.

[Guest]

Sevilla 1 - 0 Napoli

A deserved win, restricting them to just 1 shot on target ... would have liked us to convert more than 1 of our 8 shots on target tho!

We opted for 3 at the back with 2 x DMs in the absence of Toby, and it seemed to work well

Darder was MOM and on form Jose with the goal once again early on ..

One defeat in 5 now sees us out of the bottom 6 and back in the DPT places .. if you'd said I'd be a point above Bayern at this stage I'd have bitten your hand off!

[AB@Juventus]

Eintracht Frankfurt 3 - 2 Juventus

Yet another awful result against a team weaker than us. Out of the cup this week, lost our last CL game and our league performance so far this season has been nothing short of abysmal. Something has to change at this club and fast.

Onto this game, we looked at the squads pre game and felt comfortable going all out attack against Frankfurt and expected our strength to see us through, how wrong I was.

Frankfurt set up with P vs our A and when we didn't score early I knew trouble was on the horizon....14 minutes in, the hosts took the lead and TA however, 10 minutes later Y_Adli added to his tally for the season to bring us level.

We went into the break level but just 3 minutes after the restart, A_Isak put us ahead.

On 67 minutes, we thought R_Leao had wrapped up the points, however his goal was chalked off for some unknown reason.

3 minutes later and Frankfurt were level and I was fuming with the offical's decision to rule our 3rd goal out and if that wasn't enough, we lost the game in the 83rd minute when Vallejo scored his 2nd of the game.

Statistically we were probably the better team, with less possession however with a better squad I'd expect to win this game, draw it was the very least so to lose it hurts. I don't dare look at the league table anymore.

Good game Ray.

[Dazzler]

Monaco 1 - 0 Celtic

Two in a row!! A last kick of the game defeat two games running. To be fair about both games we didnt do enough in either of them to win them but two away draws would have been good results. Not to be however. We are obviously running out of steam at the very last and we need to improve our fitness levels so as not to giveaway these points.

Well played John.

[Steve@Chelsea]

Lisbon 1 - 2 Real Madrid

"We might have been inconsistent so far this season, and Lisbon have been doing better than expected - but there are levels to this game. We turned up in a weakened state, with our best defender and best striker suspended and still came away with the deserved victory against the early pacemakers.

Lisbon took an early lead, but much like the league table - could not sustain that and Madrid showed their superior class with goals from TAA and Sterling to take the three points away from the now, former, league leaders.

I was expecting to see a long PMR, lots of gifs in the manager chat group the next morning but ... nothing. Still a couple of days later there's been no sighting to Gaz. Perhaps Gaz got busy at work again, over the weekend.... Perhaps I'd better start putting up missing posters."

[Sanchez@Cardiff]

Lazio 3-0 Valencia

We continue our poor run of results. Didn't offer much in this game which is disappointing as the squad as the ability to do better. We are very much looking at having to prepare for dropping back down this season after a fairly decent one last. Maybe we rode our luck too much.

GG Drum

[JB@Norwich]

Marseille 1-1 Bayern
"Once again I stand here annoyed. I have no clue how to feel right now as I am just numb to it. I really do think someone else should take this club forward but I will continue on to the end of the season. The players need to start performing how they do in training or look for other clubs. Thats all I can say right now"

[Gary@Millwall]

Sporting Lisbon 1 Real Madrid 2

After reclaiming top spot in game 11 Steve Talbot's superstar Real Madrid rolled into Lisbon looking to reduce the seven point gap between the two sides.

Sporting Lisbon dominated the first 23 minutes hitting the woodwork twice in that period as the superior Real Madrid team rode their luck.

Sporting Lisbon continued their dominance and Real Madrid started to lose their discipline continually fouling but not receiving any yellow cards to the frustration of Windebank and the home faithful.

In the 28th minute Juan Mata found Robert Lewandowski who beat the offside trap and rounded Courtois to score his 10th goal of the season and give Sporting Lisbon the lead.

Windebank tweaked the Lisbon formation that was working so well and eight minutes later Trent Arnold brought the game level which sucked the life out of the stadium as Real Madrid's continual fouling play did not really warrant it.

Although the game was more even than the opening 35 minutes Sporting Lisbon were creating more chances and in the 60th minute De Jong made way for Eden Hazard as Windebank tried to find the winning formula.

In the 68th minute Real Madrid got what only can be described as a huge slice of luck. Elliot delivered a great cross that Sterling got a head too and looked harmless with Lopes having it covered, however the ball took a ridiculous deflection and nestled into the net for Sterling's 10th goal of the season and give Real Madrid a somewhat underserved 2-1 lucky lead.

The mighty Real Madrid then parked the bus and things got worse for the Portuguese side as Eden Hazard got booked twice in the 86th and 87th minute as he was dismissed and Sporting Lisbon were down to 10 men.

Sporting Lisbon could not get any actions against the big D and the game ended 2-1 with Sporting Lisbon again dropping off the summit and Real Madrid closing the points gap between the two sides to four points.

Real Madrid edged possession with 53% and created 13 shots to the home sides 11 also having two more shots on target with 8 to 6.

Despite committing 13 fouls a referee that showed blatant bias towards the away side brandished not one card.

Windebank Post Match Comments

I could really not ask anymore from the boys today, we went toe to toe with a great side and manager plus the officials as well. As you can imagine seeing some of the fouls committed by our Spanish opponents not get punished is very frustrating especially seeing Eden sent off towards the end of the game.

I have to take some of the blame here as i should not have changed formation when we took the lead as it was working and Real Madrid were getting battered and not in the game. Their goal was a sucker punch and then we got undone by one of the luckiest goals you are ever likely to see.

This obviously puts a smile on Mr Talbot's face and the lads are gutted not to secure a win against a manager who thinks they are lucky to be where they currently are.

Luck shone down on Real Madrid today and we have to bounce back against yet another big side on Sunday when we travel to AC Milan.

Good game Steve T a pleasure as always mate