What the.....?
Who missed the penalties today? Huddlestone, admittedly English, and Adebayor, Togolese.
Who failed to save the penalties today? Brad Friedel, an American.
Unless Dawson, Parker and Carroll were guilty of not projecting some invincible penalty-guaranteeing aura which foreign players apparently have in abundance, I fail to see what they did wrong.
Dawson saved us many, many times today. Carroll was a whirl of energy, and far more importantly, movement, which is something our team as a whole lacks. Parker's been getting so much brick without anyone ever stopping to think what would happen if he were injured for any length of time and we had to cope with Livermore in midfield, or no midfield enforcer at all.
Today's defeat was down to three things; our willingness to give players game-time based on equality as opposed to skill (Friedel, Gallas first leg being examples), our strange lack of ability to ever win a penalty shootout and our fudge-ups in the first leg.
I'm proud of the lads. ALL the lads. Including Ade: serial bottler though he may be, at least he tried his damn hardest. The plpayers fought back in a hostile atmosphere to come back from being a goal down twice, despite missing half our preferred starting eleven. Then they weathered thirty minutes of pressure despite being a man down and without any midfield battler to shield the back-line. You cannot ask for more than that.