Thoughts on the game?
Started extremely well again. Dominated the game, dominated the pitch and scored two beautiful goals. After that we made a huge mistake to stop playing with the same purpose to score the third and fourth one and just thinking we could play around them and maintain the result and just looked too easy. At that moment we gave them hope. Credit to West Ham, they took it. They defended really well. They started to play extremely direct with long throws and corners. If you don’t defend the box the way you should with the two goals that we concede, then you have to do many things better than what we did.
There is another moment where you could go 3-1 up after 50 minutes and probably the game is over. Two minutes after that you concede the equaliser. This is part of football. My worry is after 2-0 that we made that huge mistake and didn’t understand what the game required in the moment.
How do you explain the complacency?
Easy to do it from outside the pitch. You have to be a player, you have to feel it there and we have to understand those emotions as well. We need that ruthless mindset in those moments to go and kill a team. When the game is there for the killing you have to do it. Today we haven’t done it. When you don’t do that in the Premier League at some stage it’s gonna turn around with the momentum and then you have to defend, for example, the second goal much better than we did. If not you don’t win the game.
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Does it concern you that this week and Anfield were so similar?
The pattern in terms of the result is different. In terms of what happens it was very different. But you have to accept that. The last thing we want in our brains is to not have the confidence to kill the game when you can do it. That’s the next stage, when you are there, you have to do it. You have to play with the same purpose or more and not give them anything.
At 2-1 was there a hangover from last week?
It can happen. But what goes through everyone’s mind is probably different. We all knew at half time that what we had to do and try to do it better. It’s true, and credit to West Ham, if they’re efficient in what they’re doing it is difficult because you have to fight to earn the right to play. What we did, especially with the changes, then you have to earn the right to play much more.
Is it concerning that you couldn’t reverse the change in the team’s mindset?
For sure, because we’re here to win. When you’re able to play at that level and you drop your level so quickly the game is there. Any opponent is going to be able to do that. For sure we have to dig really deep and find the solutions to that.
How significant have the last six days been in the title race?
For the race of the title, I have no idea. Just as I had no idea seven weeks ago, or 12 weeks ago, or what will happen in three weeks. My biggest task is to go again and train really well and on Friday play in the same level that we played in the first 35 minutes against a team that is fighting for their lives, or against Liverpool, but do it for much longer periods.
Why did the players look fatigued towards the end?
Fatigue-wise no because what we produced in the first half against Liverpool was similar and today we put a higher input in the second half than in the first half. We were slower in everything that we did, but I don’t think team is fatigued or looked fatigued. The best way to put it is to convince the team how good they are when they do what they have to do. This is what we have to do in our brains.
Why do you think the West Ham penalty had such a big impact on the game given how good you’ve been at managing adverse situations this year?
Because after we could not control what West Ham was proposing. If you concede two goals away from home, it’s so hard to win football matches in the way we did. We have to blame ourselves there for how we defended our boxes.
Did the pressure of this stage of the season get to them?
I would say yes if I saw a team playing from the beginning like *tenses and holds his breath*. When I see a team playing with that flow, that’s not. At 2-0 certainly it’s not the pressure, it’s that we misunderstood what the game needed in that moment.
How does Saka respond to the missed pen?
The same way the team has to respond because if you do, the 3-1 you have to win the match and maybe you win by a bigger margin and we’re not discussing what we are here. So you have to put everything into context. If you are prepared to take responsibility of penalties, you have to be prepared that in that package the possibility to miss is 100%. At some point you’re going to miss. That’s it. You have be able to react to that after. If you cannot do that then you cannot be a penalty taker. Bukayo has been through that and he will go through that again.
It won’t put him off stepping up again?
For sure. If I had to pick one player to do it, it would be him again. In that moment we missed it and this is football.
Do you think West Ham’s pen was soft?
I haven’t seen the image and it’s too late now. I don’t want to use it as an excuse, honestly.
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