My mate’s reaction to seeing our team sheet was “I hope they don’t get a corner, have you seen the size of our team?”. He’s not often right so De Jong’s clean header, a minute after kick-off, left him looking both disappointed and smug.
That moment apart, we were on top throughout and made plenty of opportunities which Harry, Dele, Lucas, Son and Davies took in turns to spurn. The breakthrough finally came with quarter of an hour to go when an old-fashioned spoon into the box (from Eriksen?) was knocked down by Llorente and Harry finally fired one out of the keeper’s reach.
Gazzaniga, who must now have overtaken Vorm as Hugo’s understudy surely, made an excellent save as PSV caught us on the break but then with only a couple of minutes left, Dele split the right-hand side of the Dutch defence with a ball that Davies just got to and delivered a first time cross. Harry’s header down was deflected twice before it crawled inside the post. Finally, some good fortune in this competition. Before the game I put a £10 bet online with Novibet for a 2-1 Spurs win and was so glad that I didn’t try and cash out.
The better team won, the time-wasting cheating arseholes lost. We played with a stutter rather than a swagger but still created countless clear chances that only some desperate defending and the keeper kept out. This PSV side have won thirteen games on the trot in the Eredivisie, they could have conceded thirteen goals here. If this is the best Dutch football has to offer then it’s now clear how Vincent Janssen did so well.
Poch’s gung-ho team selection was an interesting experiment, but not one I hope to see repeated, though given our current tedious habit of picking up niggling injuries, who knows?
Please Lord may I never hear that drum again. Like most orchestrated fans they started well and loudly but soon fell back on the same old repetitive tripe that’s makes you reach for the paracetamol rather than extol their virtues as supporters. Boring.
Inter’s draw with Barcelona means that to have any chance of progression we will need to beat the Italians by more than one goal and then win in the Nou Camp. The atmosphere at Wembley will have to be ratcheted up a notch or two compared to what it was last night for us to have a chance of achieving the first of these, our finishing and concentration at the back also I suspect.
Palace next.
COYS.
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