I feel strangely sanguine about the fact that our European adventure is over almost before it started. In this third round qualifying round we outplayed the opposition over both legs, yet still went out. Even though we played a very weak team in this second leg, we should still have triumphed. Make no mistake there were plenty of pluses to come out of tonight’s performance even if the two goals we gave away were soft.
People will argue for a very long time about Slaven Bilic’s decision to only play three first teamers and I am still not sure if it was the right decision. If we get anything out of the Arsenal game, I guess we will all say he was right all along. If we lose that too, there may be a slightly different reaction.
What this has shown is that we don’t have the strength in depth to fight a long term Europa League campaign. We’re not far off it, but we’re not there yet. The youngsters who have played in the six games have been universally tremendous. I think we have all been impressed by them. I think Reece Oxford in particular is going to be a real star for us, and he’s only 16.
We all know that if hadn’t conceded those two fluke goals in the home leg we wouldn’t be in this situation now. But it’s no use looking back. We just need to concentrate on the Premier League now. The Arsenal game beckons (and don’t forget to fill in your Predictor League prediction by clicking on the link below) and we need to concentrate on that now.
PS Can we please find some poor bugger of a club to take Maiga off us. He was the one player tonight who just didn’t seem to give a damn. He’s got to be offloaded and quick.