Friedel Upbeat

Brad Friedel has said that although the players are disappointed with the loss to Chelsea, the atmosphere after the match was better than our previous encounter.

Friedel says the team quickly forgot the 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season because we were comprehensively beaten, but the this time round, given the chances we had, the team took a lot more heart from it.

Without giving excuses, the players also wouldn’t have missed the importance of how many games we have played in such a short period of time and the effect that will be starting to take on the teams ability to keep battling for 90 minutes.

Speaking on the official site, Friedel said:

‘It was a completely different feeling this weekend to the one we had after the defeat at Stamford Bridge.

‘On that day, we were not in the game from the first minute to the last.

‘On Saturday we were in with a chance throughout and arguably in the second half we were the better side.

‘We will take encouragement from that. That suggests progress. On some occasions – in any season – but hopefully just once – you have a performance and result that you just consign to history.

‘Ours this season was at Stamford Bridge. It was one of those days. We came back and showed a lot of character after that defeat. I’m sure we will come back again because we do have a lot of belief in the dressing room.’

Therein lies the rub, we are progressing and we are getting results irrespective of whether we are playing football as cleanly as we can. For all the doomsayers and the ‘bubbles burst brigade’ we can’t forget we have lost before this season and bounced back. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot do the same again now.

We had enough chances, we had enough of the ball and despite that being one of Chelsea’s best performances this season they nicked a goal and couldn’t get a second. Our only problem was with the chances we had we couldn’t get the equiliser.

It happens.