A dressing room 1-0 up is a stranger place than one 1-0 down. Nobody knew whether to celebrate the lead or hide from it. Bounou sat with a towel over his head. Hakimi grinned at his phone until Benatia took it off him and dropped it in a boot. THUNK.
CLAP. CLAP. I brought my hands together and got them quiet.
"They have to come now. Cherchesov has no choice. He will throw another striker on before you have had a sip of water, put Dzyuba right up Mehdi's back, and send the whole ground with him. The first 15 minutes of this half will be the worst of your lives."
"So we do not chase it. And we do not drop deep and pray, because that is how teams die on this pitch. We keep 2 up. Every time they give it away, and they will, we go, fast, into the grass behind them."
I dragged a finger the length of their half of the board.
"They send 50,000 forward, there is a prairie in behind. That is not where we hang on. That is where we finish them."
