Hi Jesse. It’s no disgrace to lose to Manchester City but in possession how poor were you tonight?
Well, I think in the first half we were stable defensively and we won a lot of balls. But then because we were a little nervy we were so quick to just give it away and so that was the message and was going to be the message at halftime, that we're pretty stable. They're having a hard time breaking us down the tactics of what we're trying to do against the ball but we could stay on the ball and I showed a few scenes where when we won balls that they actually from behind weren't pressuring us and we had more time than we thought. If we were able to get into second half and do that better at 0-0 then maybe we could find ourselves in a match. Then the second goal is a tough mistake and that now makes the challenge that much harder.
However, then you saw us coming into the game more, right and this is part of the being brave is at 2-0 or 3-0, then you know we have nothing to lose. But what I really wanted to see us is play like that from the beginning, where we were brave on the ball, where we were making good dynamic movements and connections with the ball and trying to unbalance them as much as they were trying to unbalance us, but obviously there's a quality issue in the match, and they're very good and they have a lot of good players and it winds up being a little bit of a battle of attrition.
Willy Gnonto showed bravery throughout the night, why is it that others don’t when clearly it needed that?
Yeah, well, it's about understanding roles and connections and even when they're in tight spaces, and they're pressing us in certain areas that we know what the next options are and the connections are clear. Then the decisions on the ball and the calmness to make the next play is better. So yeah, it was obviously not easy to watch when we were just doing pretty well and pretty stable and just kind of giving them the ball back every time we won it. But, you know, this is where we need to get better.
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Mateusz Klich was involved at the end tonight but didn’t start and Cody Drameh wasn’t involved at all. You’ve talked a lot about them, but can we read anything into that or their futures?
No, Klichy was sick last week and if he wouldn't have been, he would have been a candidate to start the match. Then Cody has been playing really well but with both Rasmus and Luke right now at right-back he's challenging both of those players and how he's performing. When we looked at the makeup of the squad, this was the decision that Cody was out, but I’ve been really happy with Cody really happy.
The chairman's talked a lot about investment needed at the club, literally in the last 24 hours, Jesse, I don't need to see the quotes, but what would you like to see now?
Well, he told me that that interview was done a couple months ago and that was just recently released and it becomes a talking point. For me, Andrea has been supportive and with us and behind us every step along the way, so I'm thankful for my relationship with him. He's helped this club immensely over the six and a half years or however long it is. So I think everybody should have a very high appreciation for the work that he's done and the investment that he's made.
And finally, any injuries tonight?
No, I think we came out of it okay. Some of the decisions we made were to protect guys a little bit to make sure that with a quick turnaround in a busy couple of weeks that we can turn around quickly. Cree we just felt like we didn't want to push because we wanted to not risk him and the same with Jack Harrison.
Things haven’t been dropping for Joe Gelhardt this season, he’s not been able to play a huge amount, what does he need to do and what do you need to do?
Well, I think first of all, he's had a really good last four weeks and we had an individual meeting with him two days ago, and we told them that. I thought today when he came into the match, he was dangerous and he was effective and he was intensive and he had a real positive effect in the match. So I’m pleased with him and it was really unlucky for him, specifically in the one that slides past the second post that he wasn't able to come up with a goal.
Do you feel you find something in the 4-3-3 that's worth persisting with?
Yeah, I think the flexibility it gives us against the ball to be variable. It can look like a diamond sometimes it can look like 4-2-2-2 it can look like a 4-3-3 it can look like a Christmas tree, it can look like different things based on what we want to achieve with what the opponent's trying to do.
They get three on the day so obviously to say it was great isn't accurate, but you know when you play these games that the opponent's quality is so good. I feel like we're making progress and we have to stay laser-focused on our process. I know what it's like, the games get going, the matches get going and the table gets hectic and we just have to really stay focused on ourselves and stay in the moment and be totally concentrated on improving
How tight a call was it with Illan tonight, was he always going to play?
I think it was not that tight. He looked to be recovering really well, all the tests we had with him about five, six days ago were all in line with what we thought and I thought his performance was outstanding. So it's good.
A lot has been made of Erling Haaland and your relationship with him, what have you said to each other tonight?
Yeah, I'm just really happy for him. In some ways watching him score is painful, I want him in a different kit. When you know some of these young men and you see their qualities as people, you just want them to be their best, just not against you.
My gosh, I'm happy for him and he's such a great person. Really, happy for him.
The players must have covered a lot of ground tonight, what will the next few days look like give you’ve got less time to recover?
Regeneration. It'll be about trying to get the players like Jack and Cree and some of the others closer to being real match ready and then about recovering the others so that we can go again. We pushed training over the last four weeks so that our fitness levels would be high so we'd be ready for this so I think we will be.
It's obviously not the best situation when the schedule comes out and then they and then they change our match day and then we know we have three days’ rest and Newcastle has five and by the way, Newcastle and us are the two most intensive teams in the league, we know that then the turnaround is going to be really important and the demand is going to be high for us. A lot of respect for the way that Newcastle plays and the results that they've gotten the job that the manager has done. So we know that we're in for another really tough match at their place come Saturday.
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