A game full of everything, taking everything into account was that a fair scoreline?
The score line should have been a victory for us today. I believe with the spirit we showed, the commitment we showed if we're going 2-0 up I think would have, the way we defended the game apart from silly penalties, of course, we would have won the game. The fact that we allowed ourselves to get knocked back a couple of times by missing the penalty and then conceding the penalty within two minutes and the way we stayed in the game was very really good.
Of course, going 2-1 down again to another penalty and then coming back from that scoring, and then again the player sent off. So we shot ourselves in the foot quite often but also, we showed us enough today to say we if we cut out those mistakes we can get three points perhaps. We are playing the third in the league and nearly or should have won in my opinion, of course.
But that's down to our fault today, giving two penalties away and missing one, and even when we got a player sent off we defended exceptionally well to make sure we did get a point, because we could have easily lost again.
Patrick Bamford took the penalty and it was saved. Was there a sense that Rodrigo could take it or had you already decided?
Well, I left it how it used to be like before I got here. I mean, I haven't seen them take many penalties. It is what it is, they have been what they're doing then we cannot say ‘why didn't somebody else take it?’. I would have thought if Rodrigo really wanted it he have gone and snatched it off Patrick and said ‘I'm taking this’. We see that quite a bit and then of course that puts you under even more pressure to score. So you miss it, it can happen to anybody. It happened to us today, but at the worst possible time. And that's very unfortunate for us.
Robin Koch came into the midfield today. What was your thinking there?
Well it was my job to do that. People playing in that position have the ability that Robin has. And also the defensive nous means that they can make a play happen and also stop the opposition by his defensive experience. So he's a terrific asset in that position today. And then I think we got a bit better when Adam came in alongside him second half as well.
Young Sam came on, but inexperience, he did the best he could but I think when Adam came on alongside Robin, and we pushed Weston forward a bit we got a bit more in possession, forward a bit more. So we find out these things all the time. I have to do it as quick as I possibly can because time's running out. But yeah, 2-2 in the end is satisfying.
It’s going to the wire which is all you asked for?
I hope it goes to the wire. All I've said is that when we play Tottenham I hope there's something in it for us. We have to keep our fingers crossed a little bit today or tomorrow that the others don't win. We are near that position of let's hope they slip up, but we have to wait to see. It’s not in our hands. It's in theirs. So all we can do is what we did today and next week do it better.
What was going through your mind those crazy two minutes spell where you missed the penalty and Newcastle scored?
Well. the first penalty was more disappointing because all week it’s stay on your feet in the final third, when you defend in the final third stay on your feet, especially in the box, stay on your feet. It happened last week with Pascal and he got a b------ing at the end for diving in. I mean, we're giving goals away by doing it. We can't afford that because we're not a prolific goal scoring team.
It's a real disappointment but of course players under pressure and under the pressure were under, lost it for that particular moment. He believed he could win the ball, but unfortunately he didn't. The second one I'm not sure about whether it could have gone either way. You know, should it have been looked at by VAR or shouldn’t it, I don't know. Was it a push or wasn’t it a push? Was it a big enough tug? Who knows but it's not been given so there's nothing I can do about it.
I meant in terms of emotions, because it swung so quickly?
I needed two Valium when I came off to calm me down. Enjoyed it actually. I did. I was nervous before the game because I wanted to give the fans something but what the lads did for me and the rest of the backroom staff and the fans and themselves gave me some hope about us going forward. They tried their very best and I can't ask for any more than that.
How did you find the Elland Road crowd and the atmosphere?
Wonderful. I've always known it's wonderful. I’ve been coming here as a player and as a manager for many, many years, so we needed them and they stuck with us. Going 1-0 up, which is the most important thing scoring the first goal, lifted everybody and the atmosphere was brilliant. I thought, ‘you’re glad you’ve come back now, aren’t you?’ I was.
Was Adam Forshaw fit to start today, or was that a tactical one?
It’s a delicate play with Adam, of course. The medical staff say we can play him and then bring you bring him off around 60 minutes but I felt that bringing him on at halftime was the right thing with his experience. We’d done okay but we got in the game better with him on, we changed the system actually because we push Weston up on Joelinton who was getting far too much ball. So that helped us a bit but defending in our overall performance was good today. And I have to point out my goalie by the way, he was excellent.
Some of the difficulties that Patrick's been through this season missing penalty today. It might have been easy to take him out of the firing line at halftime or the hour mark. You kept him on for the full 90 was that with the aim of trying to build that confidence back up?
I thought he was good today. He held the ball up, he caused a few problems. He got the cross in for the goal. We were doing, we were doing okay with him. Hopefully, like everybody needs to do when it's get a little bit better next week and better again, he scores goals when he gets a chance and we need goal scorers on the pitch and also we've got that many.
Do you feel like that was a leaders’ performance from Luke Ayling at right back?
I thought we had 11 leaders. Thank you.
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