On whether this was the ‘perfect’ response to the defeat at Molineux on Tuesday and also a positive in terms of his team selection…
Of course, it’s a perfect response when you look at the results, but every stat is exactly identical to three days ago. I think they were on 0.44xG and they scored tonight. Their only chance they had, they scored one. The positive thing is three days ago they only had one chance and scored twice. We struggled to create a lot of chances from a lot of ball possession we had in the first 50 minutes. But after scoring not a big chance – the shot from Robbo is not a big chance – things opened up a bit more for us.
Again, we conceded in extra time, so that’s similar. There was not so much difference because in the first 50 minutes we were maybe a bit faster going from side to side, that had also to do with the personnel, with the different type of players that were in certain positions. But overall, there were a lot of similarities between this game and three days ago [and] a lot of ball possession.
But then to your last part of the question, I’m really happy a few players have come back, because I don’t think I’ve ever complained about a player’s availability, but if you have to play with 12, 13 or 14 players every three days, then I think it does make sense that maybe once in a while an individual performance is not of the level we are used to of him because they have to play so many games. That’s why I respect them so much; every three days the same players had to play.
Now I can also impact the game more off the bench, as you saw today as well. The players who came in did really well and the ones that I started that are maybe not always playing did really well also. So, a good thing that it happens now towards the end of the season.
On the similarities between the first half and the game in midweek and whether he had to ‘address’ that at half-time…
No, because we were penetrating more in their 18-yard box and coming closer to their goal than we did in the first half this week. So, I did see the things we were talking about before the games which we had to do better. That’s also what we did better. But that also comes from different personnel on different positions. One simple example is Dominik Szoboslzai has a better diagonal over 80 yards than Jeremie Frimpong has. Jeremie Frimpong has other qualities and Dom used that once or twice during this game.
Apart from that, I think we knew even better how we had to play them. We knew three days ago, because we played them three days ago. So, then the game plans are usually easier to create and the execution of that was better than three days ago. Still, it wasn’t as if we were five times in front of the goalkeeper on a one-v-one. That wasn’t the situation. But that’s also really difficult against 11 players in and around the box.