I don’t get why anyone would be angry with us tonight?
We played better than Liverpool (they weren’t good so granted the benchmark is low), we didn’t disgrace ourselves.
We should have done better of course - maybe that’s where the anger is coming from?
I feel far too deflated and gutted to have an emotion as strong as anger - and I don’t think it would be justified anyway.
Plus I’ve had at least 3 pool fans tell me we played well/I should be proud of my team/we’ve had a CL campaign to be proud of. All of which I find very disconcerting and I really hate people being nice to me when I’m feeling down.
I think it's the manner, the what if of it all.
We've been involved in 2 of the all time great CL ties in this campaign (and not just my bias, lots of opposition fans have said the same) . Yes sometimes we've been outplayed in these games. Perhaps been a little lucky at times. But they've been punctuated with attacking intent, drama and a never say die attitude.
I'm not ashamed to say that despite being generally very rational, generally quite free of emotion, I'd started to convince myself that maybe, with the manner of those victories, that our name was on the trophy. Just like it was for Liverpool and Chelsea in 05 and 12.
So to get to the final and then concede a stupid penalty within 22 seconds... Was just mind boggling for me. To not have a shot on target until the 80th minute... Baffling. To only produce an onslaught (of sorts, not like they were properly under the cosh) after we'd conceded the 2nd goal in the 88th minute... Why not before that?
We didn't embarrass ourselves out there, for sure. And I'm incredibly proud of these players for the CL campaign as a whole. They've done an amazing job, well beyond what was expected. But I'm disappointed in how we performed in those 90 minutes. We were 90 minutes away from immortality, from changing how this club is perceived, potentially forever, from maybe launching us into the elite. But we didn't perform as we could and like we know we can. That's what most disappoints me.
Anyway, we have a huge summer ahead of us now. This squad needs a refresh, the CL run kind of papered over the fact that we just about limped over the line in the league and have played quite poorly for most of it. We need to do 2-3 windows worth of work in 1. But I'm confident in Levy and Poch and am excited to see what we look like when the season starts again.