PatrickLFC
Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2015
- Messages
- 4,342
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 36
UEFA Europa League Group Stage - Game 5 - IFK Göteborg (Home)
Our chance to seal passage to the knockout rounds of the Europa League today. A point should be enough, but a win would keep us in the hunt for first place. IFK Göteborg can’t qualify, so this match is a dead rubber for them, but their domestic season has just ended, and they were crowned Allsvenskan champions, so they can’t be discounted.
We dominated the opening period with four half chances, but couldn’t make any of them count, so went into the break level.
The game continued on it’s uneventful way until the 66th minute, when I subbed out Ward-Prowse, Martina and Pelle for Clasie, Yoshida and Rodriguez.
Tactical tweaks seemed to make little difference as we failed to create a single highlight for the remainder of the 90 minutes.
Fortunately, there was injury time too, and in the second minute, Clasie slid a ball through for Ramirez, who cut back for Rodriguez to finish from close range.
A dull match really, as we managed just 5 shots on target from 20 attempts, and I was almost certain we were about to draw a third game on the bounce before Rodriguez’s late winner. Qualification in the bag, and Dortmund drew with Besiktas - a result which changes nothing for us, as even if they’d won we would need a draw in Germany to finish first, whilst a loss hands them the group, now on head to head rather than outright. Surprising results see Manchester United and Liverpool both fail to qualify from their Europa League groups with a game remaining still.
POM: Jose Fonte (7.3, 0G, 0A)