00:10Hi Arna, looking at the stats tonight it was 53% possession for yourselves, 21 shots to
00:19their 12, 5 on target for yourselves, 6 on target for them, they made 29 clearances compared
00:25to 14. I just wonder what those stats say about the way your players competed tonight and
00:30also potentially what level you feel that this group can get to as well, what indication
00:35it gives of the level they can get to whilst recognising obviously you'll lose Andy Robertson
00:39and Mo in the summer.
00:40Oh, those are a lot of questions in one day. I think we made a lot of progression compared
00:47to last week, I have to give a lot of credits to the players how hard they worked, I have
00:52to give a lot of credits to our fans, how they helped us tonight to execute our game
00:57plan and that means if we have a high press it's so helpful if there are fans behind you
01:02to keep on pushing you, pushing you, pushing you. That's what they did. Unfortunately it's
01:08one of the many examples of this season where we weren't able to score from the many chances
01:14we had, again we were so far underperforming in terms of XG and that is just an ongoing
01:21thing with us throughout the whole season and add to that as it seems to be a bad injury
01:27we don't know sure yet, add to that another intervention of the VAR which we're not in
01:34our favour and that's also not for the first time this season. Then of course we are very
01:41disappointed because I think there were parts in the second half where you could just feel
01:45that if we can score now this is going to become a special night. But, but, but, the future
01:51looks very bright for this team, for this club because we've shown that we can compete with
01:59the Champions of Europe in our stadium to be the dominant team, not many teams can be dominant
02:04against the Paris Saint-Germain and generate so many chances as we did. But, yeah, chances
02:11is one thing, scoring is a second.
02:13What do you make of that decision to overturn the penalty? Because the argument is obviously
02:19clear and obvious. Was it clear and obvious for yourself?
02:24I think, I think probably last, last week we've had too much luck and we ran out of luck today.
02:31So, last week there were also two incidents where we might have been a bit lucky. Although
02:37the first one that was overturned by the VAR there was clearly no contact and the ball was
02:41played. The second one could have been a penalty but if you don't give it ever as worry I don't
02:46think a VAR should overturn it. And today, in my opinion, and I've, I've conceded a few of these
02:52penalties this season and I could name them all for you, but starting with Brentford away and Leeds
02:58away where, yes, there is contact but you would never give a penalty for this. But yeah, if the penalty
03:04is
03:04being given, usually, usually VARs tell you, I see contact, so yeah, then the decision should
03:12be the on-field decision, I should support that. But yeah, I wasn't surprised, were you?
03:19Now you've seen a lot of our games, now you're a fan of another club in this city, so I
03:25wasn't
03:25surprised that this went against, but that's not the story of the game. I'm surprised, given that there's
03:29contact, that it's overturned. Yeah, me too, but not when it comes to us, because this has happened to us
03:34multiple times this season. I think it was Rodri or Bernardo Silva who said that they've been very
03:44unlucky with referees this season, I heard them saying this one month ago, something like that.
03:49Then I thought, oh, if you can say that, then remember the both games you played against us,
03:53how many decisions then went against us. So what does it tell about us if they already think it went
04:00against them? It is what it is. And you mentioned Hugo, what's the early indication, was it an
04:08Achilles injury, and also was Joe Gomez injured when he came off? No, he wasn't injured, but I wanted to
04:13make a different substitution, and then he said to me, I'm not convinced if I can keep sprinting,
04:19I feel a little bit, so I think it's better to go off than not to take the risk, so
04:24yeah, then I think
04:25that was my fourth or my fifth, that would have been my fourth substitution, so then to keep someone
04:30on that might get injured, it was never a smart thing. So I had to change the substitution. And
04:38Hugo, yeah, I think we all saw the video and the clips, that doesn't look good. 88 minutes till tonight,
04:43we could play with Florian, Alex and Hugo. We added 27-28 to that tonight, and I would be surprised
04:51if we
04:51can add a few more minutes to that this season. But the good thing is, Alex is back. So yeah.
05:04Yeah, sorry, on Alex, you said the good thing is that he's back. I mean, what did you
05:13make of his performance? Was he sharp enough for a game of this size, and was it a bit of
05:18a gamble,
05:19sort of hoping he could get back to his best? No, I said before the game that
05:26if you go to extra time and you play him the second half and he plays 45 minutes, there's only
05:30two minutes in between before extra time comes up for half an hour. And I don't think that was
05:35realistic, but to play him 45 and at C at halftime our reveals to add five to ten minutes to
05:40that,
05:40that was a possibility for today. But because we already had to make this first substitution,
05:45in the first half I didn't want to make the second substitution five or ten minutes after
05:50half-time, that's why I took him off at halftime. He was twice close to a goal and that's why
05:58you play a
05:59striker of his level, because there was one header from a set piece and there was one great run in
06:07behind Paco, where he was really close to scoring, which eventually was offside. So it's good to see
06:16and to have him back. And I think he was ready. If I thought he wasn't ready, then I wouldn't
06:21have played him.
06:31Just a question about Hugo Ekitike. Do you know anything about the gravity of his injury?
06:38Because the image was very, very bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I want to come back first to add something
06:46about Alex. I think if you compare us today with last week, I think it's fair to say that he
06:50was
06:50completely ready to play. Otherwise you can't play the first half as we did, although the second half
06:55was even better. Yeah, Hugo looks really bad, but it's difficult for me to say how bad. I think these
07:01things are tomorrow we will investigate this further, how bad it is for him. Let's see. But
07:17yeah, that it doesn't look good, that's clear. Did you speak with him? No, no. I didn't see him at
07:23half
07:24time. And after the game, he was already home. I went home. So I haven't speak to him yet. Spoken
07:33to him
07:33yet, sorry. You've mentioned again that your team missed so many chances, which is very obvious.
07:40Do you have any explanations? Is it a lack of patience, a lack of position, a lack of concentration?
07:45Is it like maybe too desperate to score goals? What is it about? It's difficult, but one of the reasons
07:50to play Alex and Hugo is because they have proven to be goal scorers. So yeah, I don't know what
08:01it is,
08:02but it is part of our season this season. But of course part of it is also that Alex hasn't
08:08been
08:08available because it is one proven goal scorer in the Premier League as a number nine that I have
08:13in my team. It's of course Alex who scored so many times for Newcastle. But I think
08:22if you look at the finish of Dembele, I think Rio had the same shot two minutes before. Very good
08:28shot,
08:28by the way, very good save of the goalkeeper. But the Ballon d'Or winner scored two minutes later,
08:36a great goal. And that is sometimes you have to give credits to this particular player,
08:44who is Mandanbele, who finished that chance of really well. Please, for a second one as well.
08:49Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
08:52Okay. Okay.
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