Can you sum up your emotions?
It’s difficult now because it’s been a rollercoaster and was very emotional at the end. I think we showed a lot of resilience character and quality. The context of the game was difficult, with the performance that we had against City and having to come here after less than 72 hours and then after 5 minutes you are down. Then you have to play the next 90 minutes like we are as a team right now.
We had some difficulties in the first half collectively and individually we brought the level right down and we stopped doing the simple things right. At half time we said the moment is now, we have to raise the individual level, we have to look each other in the face if we want to come out and win the game because we can.
Then we altered a few things and we produced a very strong performance. Probably we should have won it earlier than we have done.
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It seemed like your team were battling for confidence today. How is their confidence now?
I feel it’s right back with more belief than before because you have to turn performances into results. Against Brentford, we did that but we couldn’t win it because of a decision - fine - against Manchester City we deserved more with the performance but the reality is that in football the games are decided in the boxes. Today we have to put something else and there’s still a lot of things to improve, we have to be humble enough to see those things, recognise those things, work on them because we cannot those bigger margins. You don’t have to produce as much as we do every single game to win games. Smaller margins should be enough to win games in this league consecutively and we have to improve that.
It seemed like you conceded easy goals and then you sent the players out early for the second half. Did you address the lack of intensity?
Well, intensity… The first goal is Ollie Watkins he wants to attack you. You give the ball away and it’s one pass, one pass, and then he finishes the actions really well. The second one Bukayo is half injured, it’s gone, it’s a corner and we are not set and we are not leaving the game as we should. In the second half it was a completely different story.
Did Jorginho silence some of his doubters today?
I certainly didn’t see that quality of him - scoring from deep. The biggest quality he has is that he makes other people look better, better than what you actually are. He’s made a huge impact already on the boys and the staff and hopefully our fans. I hope people can see that because I thought he was tremendous today.
Have you spoken to Miguel Molina?
No.
There was a scuffle among the analysts after the third goal
Like anything that happens in the stands. We will look at it, address it and take action if it’s necessary.
How’s Saka?
He’s fine. He got kicked quite a lot today again. But he’s going to have to deal with that, not every week, but every three days and sometimes in training as well because it’s his game and teams are not stupid and they want to stop him. That’s why we need to protect him.
Does he need more protection?
We will discuss that. We will look at the images again and report that if it’s necessary.
Was that the kind of comeback that champions have to do?
You have to. Sometimes you’re going to have to win games in the 94th, in the 96th, you’re gonna have to score from set plays, you’re gonna have to score when sometimes you are down to 10 men. Win in any context and we’ve always talked about that. Today we had a really difficult context, especially with what happened after five minutes, and the team showed a lot of emotional qualities that are needed to be out there. So, I’m really happy.
Was that the response you wanted from Martinelli after dropping him?
It’s not dropping him! He’s played every single minute. You don’t see players at his age doing that. We have three 21-year-olds leading the front line. It’s unheard of. Leo (Trossard) has been doing really well and we needed impact. I was really worried about the last 25 minutes of this game after everything that we put on Wednesday. We needed energy and we needed a player that could do that. I thought we did it.
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