Post Match Reactions - Round 4

[JB@Norwich]

Missing
ful and shu - 442N

Errors
lei
Error in conditionals (line 2)
Reason: Sign missing after MIN

Error Watch
cel - 1
fcp - 1
shu - 1
val - 1
lei - 2

[Ian]

Ajax 4 - 1 Villarreal

Took a bit of a pounding in this game although you have to say that our performance wasn't as bad as what the score line is suggesting. The home side though certainly maintained the upper hand and were out of the starting blocks like a team on fire as they shot into a three goal lead before the game was even 15 minutes old. Shortly after the interval Ajax made it four goals to nil and it took until the dying stages for us to nick a consolation through our main man up front Pavlidis but on the whole a day to forget for Villarreal.

[Sanchez@Cardiff]

Nottingham Forest 0-1 Valencia

Valencia celebrated a narrow victory at the City Ground on Saturday.

The home side were reduced to 10 men in the early stages after Ryan Yates was sent off for a reckless challenge. Valencia took advantage of their numerical superiority and took the lead through Jose Gaya in the 57th minute. Forest pushed for an equaliser but were unable to find a way through the Valencia defence earning Jaume Costa a well-deserved Man of the Match performance.

The match was dominated by Valencia, who had more possession and created more chances. Forest's best player was Serge Aurier, who put in a solid performance at right-back. The home side's only real chance of scoring came in the first half when Taiwo Awoniyi was denied a goal for being in an offside position.

The win for Valencia was their second in two games. They move up to fifth in the Conference League table with the two team above having a better goal difference, while Forest remain in 20th place.

Key stats:

• Attempts on goal: 7 | 9
• Shots on target: 3 | 4
• Possession: 40% | 60%
• Corners: 0 | 2
• Red cards: 1 | 0
• Yellow cards: 2 | 2
• Subs used: 2 | 3
• Fouls: 4 | 6
• Key tackles: 11 | 8
• Key passes: 13 | 14

What’s Next?

Valencia are at home to English side Watford for fixture 5 of the Conference League. Notts Forest have a difficult away game to Scottish side Celtic.

[Neil@Fiorentina]

PSV 1-0 Leicester

Strange to line up against my old side, and a confusing read trying to remember which players play for which side!

We switched tactics to E, expecting GS to possibly counter our usual tactic this season, but as it turned out it was EvP for most of the match. We got the the important early goal, and there were several chances created but the keepers were on form today.
Leicester had most of the possession, and shaded the shots 13-9, and overall we were perhaps fortunate to hold on.
We did switch up to the late D, expecting a late onslaught, and so it proved with the A coming in which could well have caused damage against the E. All in all an important 3 points after losing on Monday, Ul dude.

Next up is another game against one of the strongest sides on paper, Norwich.

[Guest]

Cardiff 2-0 Frankfurt

What we tried completely backfired and it was one of the most disappointing performances I’ve had in ESMS for a while. I need to work on what works well for Frankfurt and try secure more points per game as we are promotion favourites and if we can’t get that top 3-4 it’ll be a super disappointing season. GG Ed

[Johnboy]

Luton Town 0 - Celtic 0

After disappointment last time out in Spain we introduced a couple of new signings to the match day squad. Defenders Chris Richards, recently signed on loan from Celtic, started the match replacing Andersen, while South Korean defender Kim Min Jae began the match on the bench replacing Drameh who had yet to feature in the first 4 matches.

Celtic began the match with four up front and that was an indication that a tremendous rear-guard action would be necessary if we were to get anything from the match.

Rui Silva faced 17 shots in the match, 8 on target, and was equal to everything while Sonny Bradley in the heart of the Luton defencewas named man of the match following a performance where he tackled everything that came near him.

While defeat in Valencia was disappointing this result is definitely a point gained rather than 2 points lost.

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

[Sam@Bilbao]

Luton 0-0 Celtic

"A bad draw today, we were by far the better side and pummelled Luton all game, we just couldnt get one past a possessed Rui Silva between the sticks, but thats on us, if we are creating that many chances we should be scoring goals, the defence and keeper have really got themselves sorted but we now need the goals at the other end of the pitch to make it count, definitely 2 points lost and we now need to start moving up the table if we have any chance of getting promoted"