‘I’ve been really happy with a lot of our stuff this season, so maybe that means we’re slightly ahead of the curve. But in football, the curve will go downhill very fast if you don’t keep on yourself and take a lot of the lessons from this game and move forward. Now our test is: can we really bounce back from a defeat when we’re used to winning? That’s another challenge for us all.’



There is little time to dwell on the setback, with a huge Champions League match at Valencia immediately on the horizon this Wednesday which is quickly followed by back-to-back home fixtures in the Premier League against West Ham United and Aston Villa. But can confidence be taken from the manner of the performance?



‘The feeling in the dressing room, it looked like they were very disappointed. That’s probably a simple answer, because we lost, but also I think they expect a lot of themselves. I think they will take an amount of confidence, but where we want to go to means that we might come here and win, and it might mean we can actually win titles going forward. I like to see them disappointed – it just shows the next question is the reaction we have.



‘I expected us to compete in the game, because I’ve been watching us training daily, getting performances and playing well. I’m confident in the players we’ve got. I wanted us to win, so I probably haven’t changed my [long-term] mindset too much.



‘I know this Premier League is hard and next week against West Ham will be a huge challenge, different to this, but we have to try and win it. I don’t want to jump ahead of ourselves. We’ll just go back to the training ground, back to our work and see where we can get to.’

