DMAA

Some of Barisic’s crosses were brilliant. How he digs some of them them out I will never know, a rare ability.

Not with Davies, he struggled for game time at Sheffield United for this reason.

Has to be McGregor. Two penalty saves in the Chanpions League is incredible. He made other big saves too.

I’ve always said about Kent that I’d just prefer an inverted winger with more technique, who has close control when he comes inside and can one-twos, chipped through balls etc. We saw some great examples of that from Napoli last night, the Georgian’s player ball control was a joy to watch. But Jota has proved that there are guys out there within our range who have that skill set. That Georgian was picked up by Rubin Kazan for 500k too, so again good scouting goes a long way. Kent’s game for me has always been mostly about pace, causing chaos, work rate.

What I find is that when he runs inside he doesn’t have a plan and just runs into trouble. Ball control is an issue too, makes it easy to tackle him.

I was pleased with Morelos last night, and I’m not his number one fan. He showed desire and generally played well. Still missed chances that Colak might have scored and had some ropey passes though.

Kent, Kamara, Morelos and others are all proof that you should sell players when they are on a high.

It doesn’t say much for our recruitment that Kent is still virtually undroppable due to the fact that his competition is Scott Wright, a left back, Fashion Sakala and Matondo. Granted, Lawrence is injured, but we’ve needed more quality in the position for years.

Kent lost the ball countless times. Generally struggled with the level but found Barisic’s overlapping runs a few times.

For me, it was very positive generally up until those two subs. Gio needs to take the blame for that, an unnecessary roll of the dice.

I knew when we made those two attacking subs on ten men that we were just going to lose goals. We were doing well up until then.

What a man

Why the heck does he get a retake

That’s a sickener

It’s been a very positive first half. We’re lacking in quality when it comes to the final third as usual, but the team as a whole are playing well and making a game out of this. I’d be thinking about giving opportunities to Colak, Matondo or Fashion Jnr at some point early in this second half.

Two absolutely ridiculous free kicks given against us there. I like this ref but those were very bad decisions, the linesmen partly to blame maybe.

We’re desperately in need of a positive performance tonight.

Sorry yes so Knutsen wouldn’t apply, but Stankovic recently resigned so he is a freebie. I had a look at the Serbian league table in the years before and after his appointment and Red Star’s points tally jumped 20-30 and they started regularly scoring 100+ goals.

I predicted a downturn in our European form when GVB came in because I feared he wouldn’t match Gerrard’s ability to set up properly against attacking teams. I was very much proved wrong when GVB showed a tactical flexibility that I didn’t quite expect to get us to the Europa League final. Again, this season he proved me wrong and overcame two genuine challenges to make the Champions League. And yet there is truth in the theory I had. Gerrard never once lost by more than 2 goals, and only lost by two goals 5 times. Gio hasn’t been here a year and has already overseen two Old Firm humiliations. The Ajax loss was different to those, but the system we set up in was so poor and it was not addressed when it was crystal clear that goals were imminent. Gio has been a bit of an enigma, but the one thing that has been consistent is that since an initial 7 game new-manager-bounce, we have been poor domestically and that’s why I think we need to see what our options are.

Dejan Stankovic and Kjetil Knutsen? Stankovic has an incredible record domestically. He seems to know to hammer smaller teams. His European record is good too, though he’s failed to qualify for the CL. Knutsen who I wanted the first time. And he is someone whose merit is purely in his management ability. I was wary with GVB of the nostalgia and reputation as a player getting in the way, and I think it probably did.

I really feel for Barisic. That was an incredible finish and so cruel to be ruled out like that. Kent was lazy to be so far offside there, no excuse for it.

I told you they were rubbish @BlackSocksRedTops

30 seconds left before half time and we won’t just get the ball forward and take a chance, sums it up.

Like February, what really annoys me is why not change the system before you are getting hammered? It was clear as day it wasn’t working and and our luck was about to run out and the goals were going to start going in.

That wasn’t even going in before the deflection.