CSKA Match Reaction

[WMUG]

After watching the Stoke game and the first leg against CSKA, I've mentally discounted winning the EL as a possibility. We gave away so many needless chances against CSKA that any decent finisher would have buried, we just got lucky that they didn't have any decent finishers. 4-1 was not a scoreline reflective of the balance of the game, it should have been about 8-4.

We won't get the chances to score 8 against Atletico or Leipzig, and they'll have the finishers to punish us.

Given we'll most likely have to play at least one of them later in the competition (assuming we don't balls it up on Thursday), I'm not getting my hopes up.

[Letters]

Yes, I have seen a few games recently where we have won comfortably but you can't help feel a better team would have lapped up some of the chances we gave them.
Our defending on Sunday was comical.
But Atletico's scoring in the league is not that impressive, it's been better in the Europa but against poorer sides, we would probably the best side they've played in it, as would they for us.
From everything I'm hearing they'd start as favourites but they are not unbeatable.

[selassie]

Interestingly, Atletico are not that prolific up front.
They've scored only 51 goals in 31 games, the lowest in the top 5.
Their defence looks pretty special though, they've only conceded 15, fewer than Barca even.
Scored a fair number in the Europa League but as has been noted the quality is somewhat mixed, we have too.

I'll be honest, I don't know loads about them but I think on our day we'd have a chance.

Their whole system is built on not getting beaten and they have had a World Class defence for a number of years now. Tactically they are near flawless IMO.

They are a very well drilled side who are very difficult to break down. They won't buckle under pressure lightly, they regularly go toe to toe with Barca or Real in La Liga so we will be like Chicken feed to them.

They may not be prolific scorers like Real or Barca, but they have plenty of players who can hurt us (Costa, Griezmann, Saul, Koke etc).

As I said earlier, assuming we get to the final and face them we will need a special performance to beat them.

If we face them in the Semis assuming we draw them then we are going out IMO, we won't knock them out over 2 legs.

[WMUG]

They might not be prolific in the League, but they're the type of team that will just stop you from scoring and be clinical at the other end. So yeah, maybe we could beat them in the final, but that'd require too much luck for it to be worth getting my hopes up for.

[Penguin]

From everything I'm hearing they'd start as favourites but they are not unbeatable.

I'd agree with that.

[Cripps]

Sounds like Chelsea last season.

And we beat them in the cup final

Europa is ours