Prior to the sending off how much did you think the game plan was working?
I felt pretty good about that. Obviously we gave up an early goal and that was not our goal, we talked about keeping it 0-0 as long as possible to give ourselves a chance. I thought we were aggressive, we were getting after them and the game was there for us. The red card changed the match.
How alarming is that the keeper hasn’t had a save to make, though, how disappointing is it form an attacking point of view?
We’re still trying, against top opponents, to find ways to limit them and create chances.
What are the guys like at the moment, are they understanding everything you’re telling them?
The guys are gutted because we’re not giving ourselves the chances we want to come into the match. That part hurts.
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How gutted are you with Dan James’ tackle today?
One thing for sure I’m not going to sit here and blame anyone. Our guys come everyday and they do everything they can, they stick together, they fight for each other, even on the third goal you see guys diving around the box doing everything they can to keep themselves in this league and in this match.
I love these players, they fight to the end and we have to find ways to rewards ourselves and not go down in matches and stay even.
You want to see that passion but how much more composure do you need from your players?
We have to find ways to be in the match more, control moments more and obviously stay even so that we give ourselves a chance.
What about on the injury front today, Jack Harrison, Raphinha both came off. How serious is that ahead of Sunday?
We will have to scan them in the morning. Raphinha was more precautionary, he was cramping and I wanted to make sure we didn’t push him too much. We’ll see how Jack is.
Two games to go now, do you just have to put this behind you, stay positive and attack the next two?
We want to learn from these moments so that we don’t repeat these situations and mistakes. We have six points left, the first come on Sunday against Brighton and we have to do everything we can to recover, be mentally strong and be ready for the next challenge. Someone asked me if it was a psychological project, I said ‘it’s been like that since I’ve been here, really’. That’s where we are and we’ll recover and get ourselves ready.
Is it about sticking together, the fans, the players, everybody?
The fans were phenomenal again. They get it which is great to see. It’s what I said to the team, we’re not perfect but we’re together and we are going to figure out a way to help ourselves in the next matches.
Three consecutive games, three tackles have cost you a senior player for the rest of the season, what do you put that down to?
It’s a little unfair, I think, to classify Stuart’s in the same category, but we have to be aggressive against the ball, we have to try to win balls and sometimes we have now been a little too aggressive in certain situations and that has cost us.
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Are you seeing enough quality in the team to believe they are good enough to stay up?
You’re talking about City, Arsenal and Chelsea, three of the best teams right now in the league. No matter what these games were going to be a massive challenge. The frustrating part is that we’re losing players in the process which hurts our ability to recover and compete in the next match. That’s the part that makes it most difficult. We knew how good these opponents were.
You lined up with Raphinha at wing-back with 11 men, what was the game plan and how were you hoping to hurt Chelsea with that system?
We were going to try and press them in certain moments and we were going to have to defend deeper in certain moments, that we could move the ball and move them around and also have Raphinha in advanced positions on the right wing where he could be in one-on-one situations or create an overload on that side. There were some moments that were quite good. We didn’t get him freed up enough.
He was aggressive, he was attacking down that wing and he almost played a really good play to Rodri, we found him in a one v one situation against Alonso, they were the situations we wanted him in. We wanted to overload that side of the pitch and make sure that we had enough good, stable defensive players to help limit the chances that Chelsea could get.
We do have some options in the back right now and a lot of those guys are playing at a high level. I thought Junior (Firpo) was very good, I thought Lewis Bate did a good job and Klich when he came in did a good job. In general if you go down to the performances, it’s not that they’ve been great but it hasn’t been horrible. It’s just the level of the opponents and playing with a man down for 60 minutes in two matches limits your ability to win the game.
The aggression and red cards, is that down to circumstances and pressure?
I don’t know. I think the situation of the table has something to do with it, it has everything to do with our situation right now. We want to be aggressive but certainly not cross the line.
What has Dan James said afterwards?
At first I thought it wasn’t a red. I haven’t seen it but I was told it was a red. Dan said he didn’t mean to do it, he was just trying to be aggressive to win the ball and caught him in a little bit of a bad way Dan feels terrible.
Have you seen it back yet?
No I haven’t seen it.
