Rising To The Challenge

In the midst of a tricky run of league games, manager Ronald Koeman believes the Blues are showing poisitive signs to reignite their season, despite the untimely loss of Yannick Bolasie.

- Ronald Koeman

Coach, it’s a few days after the Manchester United result and a much better performance by the team after a couple of performances and results which were disappointing given how we can play as a team.

Something I haven’t been disappointed about is the effort and application and the way in which we have reacted to adversity. We have made it difficult for ourselves in some games – the way we started against Southampton and our first-half performance against Swansea. But even against Southampton, when we won a lot more second balls in the second half and posed enough threat to deserve a goal, we could have come away with a draw from the game. Against Manchester United it was much better. We showed character and aggression and, from the start of the game, we were organised and disciplined and all of these things made it difficult for Manchester United and contributed to a deserved result. In the second half especially, the belief that the players showed and the spirit and determination to go and win second balls and create chances was very pleasing. It was important to get something out of the game because the performance was good and, psychologically, it would have been difficult to have to deal with getting nothing, given that we performed well in the game.

What satisfied you most about the way we played against United?