For me, preparation for any game always started two hours after the one I had just managed. My drive home to the south coast on a Saturday night after a game could take three hours or more, and much of that would be spent on the phone while I had precious quiet time. When I was at Stoke City, my chairman Peter Coates would always speak to me then if we lost. If we'd won, he never bothered, knowing I wouldn't need comforting.
Perhaps we're a bit better prepared for our opponents this time around. We were very dominant in the first half and saw what we were capable of. In the second half, Bayern's quality became evident. The lesson is that when we create chances as well as we did in the first half, we need to be more clinical in front of goal.
How many games have we played this season? Probably around 30. I think about 28 of my pre-match meetings I could just throw in the bin, Slot said. I think only once or twice the team did what they did the 20 weeks before. Arsenal was one of them. But Barnsley always plays a 4-3-3 and today decided to go with five, which I can completely understand, which I would have done
DR Congo were able to achieve positive results, and they are used to facing opponents of this kind. We have to be careful, but we have to focus on ourselves. Of course they have a strong team collectively, they have special individuals, and they play with connected lines. They do not give up for 90 minutes, but there are areas that we have to exploit.
It was quite obvious, he scored the last penalty against me taking it like that. He was in a good moment of confidence, I knew he would choose the same side. Then you have to pray to reach the ball,
