The Joint-Chairman shares his thoughts on the Manchester City game, Saturday’s FA Cup trip to Liverpool and the latest transfer news
The Joint-Chairman shares his thoughts on the Manchester City game, Saturday’s FA Cup trip to Liverpool and the latest transfer news...
Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City was a fantastic game and everyone gave their all. You can see some of the players were totally exhausted at the end. You thought we might go on to nick it but it wasn’t to be as Kouyate’s header clipped the crossbar.
Whether their first goal was a penalty or not I don’t know. With Payet’s free-kick I think there are only three goalkeepers in the Premier League who would’ve saved that and unfortunately we got one of them.
It is also worth remembering that we were missing three key players in Lanzini, Carroll and Sakho.
I thought Sam Byram, who wasn’t expected to play, did very well on his debut. He had cramp at the end as he’d missed a few days of training. It’s a big jump and he’s got to adapt but I think he did well.
On the other side they hit the post twice so realistically it was probably a fair result.
I thought the crowd were phenomenal and really got behind the team.
Let’s not forget how good Manchester City are and the quality they have. They were bringing £50m players off from the bench. They had a strong team out and their main striker is back to form and if he wasn’t playing I think we would’ve won.
It’s a strange feeling when you’re coming away feeling disappointed that you’ve only drawn. It was a phenomenal game and it shows just how far we’ve come.
As a Board we’re very proud of the team.
I was also proud to welcome one of the world’s great sportsmen to the Boleyn Ground on Saturday – Gennady Golovkin. I am a big boxing fan and Gennady is a World Middleweight champion, has won 34 of his fights and is rated as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world.
I hope Saturday’s performance can give us even more confidence going into Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup fourth round tie at Anfield. I have said before we have nothing to fear as we have shown repeatedly this season that on our day we are a match for anyone.
If we do get through I would love a home draw as we are now undefeated at the Boleyn Ground since August. Let’s hope we can maintain that run for as long as possible.
Another reason for hope is that we always seem to perform well when the game is on TV.
I do still hope Liverpool play a weakened team as they’ve got a busy run of fixtures coming up. That’s not to say that I don’t think we can beat their first team but it is a big asking winning at Anfield twice in a season.
Finally, just to update you all on transfers, we may look to bring another forward in. We’re working on a very complicated deal at the moment, which may or may not come off, so we will have to see how that progresses.
We have always said we didn’t plan to do any business in this window so if nothing more materialises we will be more than happy with our squad.
Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City was a fantastic game and everyone gave their all. You can see some of the players were totally exhausted at the end. You thought we might go on to nick it but it wasn’t to be as Kouyate’s header clipped the crossbar.
Whether their first goal was a penalty or not I don’t know. With Payet’s free-kick I think there are only three goalkeepers in the Premier League who would’ve saved that and unfortunately we got one of them.
It is also worth remembering that we were missing three key players in Lanzini, Carroll and Sakho.
I thought Sam Byram, who wasn’t expected to play, did very well on his debut. He had cramp at the end as he’d missed a few days of training. It’s a big jump and he’s got to adapt but I think he did well.
On the other side they hit the post twice so realistically it was probably a fair result.
I thought the crowd were phenomenal and really got behind the team.
Let’s not forget how good Manchester City are and the quality they have. They were bringing £50m players off from the bench. They had a strong team out and their main striker is back to form and if he wasn’t playing I think we would’ve won.
It’s a strange feeling when you’re coming away feeling disappointed that you’ve only drawn. It was a phenomenal game and it shows just how far we’ve come.
As a Board we’re very proud of the team.
I was also proud to welcome one of the world’s great sportsmen to the Boleyn Ground on Saturday – Gennady Golovkin. I am a big boxing fan and Gennady is a World Middleweight champion, has won 34 of his fights and is rated as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world.
I hope Saturday’s performance can give us even more confidence going into Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup fourth round tie at Anfield. I have said before we have nothing to fear as we have shown repeatedly this season that on our day we are a match for anyone.
If we do get through I would love a home draw as we are now undefeated at the Boleyn Ground since August. Let’s hope we can maintain that run for as long as possible.
Another reason for hope is that we always seem to perform well when the game is on TV.
I do still hope Liverpool play a weakened team as they’ve got a busy run of fixtures coming up. That’s not to say that I don’t think we can beat their first team but it is a big asking winning at Anfield twice in a season.
Finally, just to update you all on transfers, we may look to bring another forward in. We’re working on a very complicated deal at the moment, which may or may not come off, so we will have to see how that progresses.
We have always said we didn’t plan to do any business in this window so if nothing more materialises we will be more than happy with our squad.