Menu
in

‘We were the better team and lost the game’ *

On bad luck during the match…

“I think what is the most difficult to take is that we were the better team and we lost the game. We were in front and had a chance to score the second goal and got punished on two goals. It is beyond belief.

“So overall I would like to keep the positives of this game because I believe that we can deal well with the disappointment of losing the game today. We have a great future and we can be a real force. But of course, it’s difficult to sort out tonight and we go home without any points.”

On being sent off at the end of the match…
“I kicked the bottle of water when the goal was cancelled from disappointment and the fourth official called the referee and sent me off. Frankly, I don’t know what to say. Thirty seconds to go. It was really spectacular. I didn’t even know where to go. He told me to go into the stands, but there was no way to get into the stands. Just because I kicked a bottle of water, I didn’t say a word to anybody. And it was quite a good kick.”

On Robin van Persie’s cancelled goal…
“I didn’t kick the bottle because Gallas was not offside, but because I was disappointed. I thought we had equalised.”

On missing out on a penalty in the first half…
“Maybe I’m not the most objective, but for me I believe it was a penalty in the first half.

On the differences between Rooney’s and Eduardo’s penalties…
“It will be a big difference tomorrow in the newspapers. I don’t know…I have not seen it, I do not want especially to see it. He kicked the ball to the corner flag, Rooney, and after  – was he touched or not, was it a penalty or not – leave these decisions to the referee.”

On the frustration of not getting any points from the match…

“Football is unpredictable. I believe in this team we lack some calmness, maturity and experience when we were in moments where we were not under panic at all. We assessed wrongly two situations. The first one, Rooney was no danger to score, there was no need to panic. And on the second one as well. There was not one player of Man United around our players. So it’s lack of communication and still little bit I feel in these situations that we might be lacking a little bit of experience.”

On the missed opportunities at 1-0…
“We couldn’t finish the game off. You play at Old Trafford you get 1-1 of course. And any mistake and then you’re down. We had the chances to kill this game and even to come back to 2-2.”

Written by Israel Saria

For the last 20 years I have been working as a football pundit. This experience has provided me with a very useful insight into football and the opportunity to carry out extensive research into the game including its players, the stadiums, the rules and tactics and I have also been grateful to meet a wide range of people connected to football in the UK, Tanzania, Germany .....

Leave a Reply

Exit mobile version