The game yesterday seemed to find a whole new way to be frustrating. Unlike Wednesday, there was much more incisive attacking. The stats bear this out - see some of the FotMob stats below. We had big chances that went begging, hit the post, etc.

The team did tire down the stretch - as excellent as CR7 was, there were times where he looked a little ragged, as did a few others. We reverted to the horseshoe for stretches of a few minutes while ignoring runs in behind.

I am a huge fan of Vargas, who I think is a major talent. Yesterday, though, he seemed to have a rough match. Bodied off the ball several times, skipped in possession. He had one great line-skipping pass in the first half, but almost always the ball was going backwards to Nouhou. As we made only two subs and he’s been asked to play a ton of minutes, I can’t understand why Atencio didn’t get 30-45 minutes here.