Remember who we are, we are a club which won the European Cup, that's in our DNA, that's what we expect
The reality that night was not what people chose to remember. We spent the whole match in a negative defensive mode where Bayern ran the show, and totally against the run of play we nicked it in the final few minutes. Bayern were robbed. Great football it was not.
Much the same as last night, in fact. In the final few minutes as Brentford tired we began to look the more likely to nick it. Unfortunately, Brentford did.
Smith made a realistic assessment of the threat posed by Brentford, and decided, rightly in my view, to go defensive. That was the plan. I thought it worked, the players remained concentrated and sweated their guts out, and Brentford had hardly had a look in where it mattered. Until the goal where they nicked it.
Compare what our players can do compared to Brentford if you will. I'm fine with that; we are where we are. But it was not the awful performance some make out. Not a performance to remember, defensive performances never are. But we had a plan, a realistic plan, stuck to it, and it was pretty close to working.