Battered, bruised but totally elated

i WAS going to spend some time with my team-mates at the golf course on our day off yesterday but i woke up and knew there was no chance, i was too sore. Beating Manchester city left me battered and bruised. it was a similar story on Monday in the dressing room after the game. Will Grigg’s song was sung, but only quite quickly. The lads were too knackered to keep it going. it was an incredible night for everyone at the club. in the build-up the gaffer was positive. He said if we don’t believe we can win the game there is no point playing. it was the most tactically difficult match i have been in. We tried to get them into wide areas, because we knew their strength was through the middle. They wanted to take us to the wings then bring us back centrally to try to hurt us when we were open. So we tried to stay as compact as possible. you could say Fabian Delph’s red card was a turning point. i didn’t see a lot in the tunnel at the break. Maybe the heat from the red card hadn’t quite calmed yet, but there was no malice. At half-time the manager said: ‘Just because they have got 10 men don’t go and try to get the win early.’ We knew we’d have to defend deep but that there would be chances to score. For the goal i just tried to put the ball down the channel. Then out of nowhere Will was one on one. it was a wonderful finish. At the final whistle the feeling was pure elation. Trying to take in everything was hard. Experiences like that are why you play football. We’ll get the stats for distance covered soon. They are probably still downloading, the numbers are so high!