You said your defence played well, but it didn’t do particularly well from the first goal, and then you weren’t as much of a threat with your offensive players until the end of the game, are you still a work in progress?
Thomas: “I don’t think I said that they played well, the defence. I think I said if you concede five shots, then before the game you probably would have taken that. That’s not the same as the two shots they had, maybe even on target, was two situations we probably could have done better in, and we will of course look through that and go through the details, so that’s of course a fair point. Then we play a game against a team where both teams try to cancel each other a little bit out, and we always want to create a little bit more, but you can then flip that and say, hey, we scored two goals in a situation where it was difficult to create.”
You started with a certain formation up front, made changes at half-time, then more with 20 to go, which worked brilliantly – are you still trying to find the right combination in attack?
Thomas: “Yeah, I think that’s fair. We are searching to find the right balance up front, and I think when we look at the game back, I think there was positive bits going forward also from the game. I think we created one of the biggest chances – Richarlison from a cross from Brennan after, what, five, 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s the small things – he scores on that instead of Bryan then it changes a little bit and opened up the game a tiny bit more, but we constantly work on the relationships and try to improve it with the players and try to find what is exactly the right blend, but I think there were small steps in the right direction.”
Was Kolo Muani coming off a physical thing?
Thomas: “He actually struggled a little bit, but nothing big.”
Cristian Romero came off with a couple of minutes left….
Thomas: “Yeah, he was just done physically. He just came back from that injury. He’s fine.”
So he’ll be okay for the internationals?
Thomas: “Yes.”
How much of a blow was having him come off, given the manner of the goal you conceded?
Thomas: “Yeah, but his position, he wouldn’t have been near the goal anyway, so it’s a cross on the side, and then he would have been in the middle zone, so this was back post, so that wouldn’t have affected anything.”
Can you talk about Wilson Odobert’s performance – why did you feel it was right to not start him today?
Thomas: “We tried to work around what is the best way to attack the opponent in front of us, and at the same time still keep a little bit of flow. We wanted two strikers, Kolo Muani and Richarlison, for the crosses, which we though was an area where we potentially could hurt United. I think it worked perfectly with the first one, where Richarlison got a big chance, so that could have been an unbelievable, fantastic game plan from us. That was part of it, and we need different personalities and types for different games. Wilson, he’s positive. I think he’s stepping forward, or stepping up, and doing things that look right.”