'The lesson from today is to kill teams off'

On not finishing the game off…
“We complicated the game a little bit. We had five or six chances in the second half where we missed the final ball. That's where we have to learn.”

On West Ham's fightback....
“It is very frustrating. West Ham did fight until the final second of the game and I never had the feeling that the game was won, even if we were completely in control because I saw the attitude of West Ham, they were not giving up. You know that if you make a mistake you will be under pressure and the crowd got behind the referee's decision and then it’s always difficult away from home.”

On 'playing the long ball' in the closing stages of the game…
“There was not much time to go and in fairness West Ham stopped every time we got the flow. We got through and we got fouled. We had to play against 10 men again and that was extremely difficult for us.”

On the penalty…
“If you count how many times [Carlton Cole] went down in the game, I think you expect him to go down.”

On the referee's decisions being influenced by previous decisions...
“I believe that if you start to consider the decision the referee makes in 80 minutes is influenced by the 60th minute, the 61st, 62nd, then you don’t need a rulebook. Just make your own rulebook; the next decision is influenced by the decision the minute before.

“We have to keep the positives today. We played well and we are a strong team, and we want to learn of course to finish these games off. That is basically the most important lesson of the day.”

On a ‘lack of killer instinct’...
“In football sometimes you have periods like that. When you make a problem of it, it becomes a real problem. We have to play the football we love and learn when we are leading to kill the games off and keep playing the way we want to play the game.”

On Wednesday night's Carling Cup clash with Liverpool…
“It will be a mixed team. We want to win every single game we play, no matter who plays.”

On playing 'too complicated'…
"We had crosses in the second half in situations where we missed the final ball because we played it too late and we have to learn that. In the second half we got four of five crosses through but not one arrived."

[Sunday, October 25, 2009]

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