Mircea Lucescu’s thoughts on the offal are very interesting:
It is a good thing that we’ve got a second leg so we’ll still have a chance. We’ve lost a game that we shouldn’t have lost. A lack of practice coming into the game saw us concede the first goal. After that we had the game under control.
There were a lot of chances out of which we could have scored but unfortunately we couldn’t find the right solution. This was a rivalry between two different styles of game – Fulham were playing very strong passes and we based our game on technique and speed. As a result we had a spectacular game for the fans.
Now we have to do our best to realise our potential in Donetsk and win the game. It will be very difficult because Fulham are very well organised, especially in defence. We’ll definitely have to find ways to weaken their defence and create our own chances.
We hope that the referees in Donetsk will facilitate a beautiful game and not what happened today, I’m not judging the referee – he had his own method of judgement which facilitated more physical football.
But I congratulate Fulham, they are a great team who have a very good defence and play in a compact manner, that’s why it’s going to be very difficult in the second leg. I’m sure we will be in better form in Donetsk. Fulham definitely had some luck and managed to take advantage of their chances but that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate Fulham’s defensive strength.
I thought he is slightly generous to his players there. I would also question where we had ‘luck’ (ignoring the poor keeping for Zolty G’s goal of course)
Yeah, it would be interesting to dig a little deeper into his comments. Thought the referee was penalising people who fell over rather than were fouled. There were a few incidents in the second half especially that could have resulted in free kicks in our favour. Think if we play sensibly in the away leg, we’ve got a chance.
These Belgian referees are awful. He gave Shakhtar more than enough iffy decisions. I’m not sure what the manager wants there. Zero tolerance of contact?
Is this man, Mircea Lucescu, from another planet? This was not a physical game in any shape or form, or is he already trying to bend the mind of the ref for the second leg?
“We hope that the referees in Donetsk will facilitate a beautiful game and not what happened today, I’m not judging the referee – he had his own method of judgement which facilitated more physical football.”
What I saw were fouls given for the smallest of touches and a large dose of play acting, for me the ref was right to book their man for feigning injury.
Thanks for the link to the goals, from the Hammersmith End I was convinced their goal was offside, but with the use of the pause button I have to agree it was a good goal.
It was a great game last night, but sometimes more like watching a chess match as two different styles of play combated each other. Their width, depth and fluidity only work because they are so good on and around the ball. I feel we could nick a goal in SD which should carry us through. But I expect it will be a long 90minutes of watching SD trying to work through us from the back.
Happy days………..
Yeah, I didn’t see too many rough tackles, either. From the Hammersmith End, I just saw a very swift break from Shakhtar for their goal. We were caught alarmingly square and high up the pitch though.
As I’ve said on the other thread, I like your chess analogy. It did seem like they were trying to prize us open but you got the sense they would have taken the 1-1. Their reluctance to shoot from around the edge of the box probably cost them a victory in the final analysis.
Watched the game on the telly and the suprising thing to me on Shaktar’s goal was that from the whistle up until that point they had been attacking the flanks and then in the run of play, the middle of the field opened up for them like the Red Sea. I am not sure if that was a tactical move, but whatever it was it worked.
I thoroughly enjoyed the play between Bobby and Zoltan esp. the moment when Zoltan tried to chest the ball to Bobby…they must be working on that in training quite a bit…I don’t remember seeing so many players use that move.