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I can't remember smiling so much after the opening game of a season.
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Assistant coach Rui Barbosa needed six stitches in a head wound after hitting his head on the dugout celebrating Wood's first goal.
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Is that the newly designed dugout? ?
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Really good first game. In the first half we were outstanding. MGW, Anderson and Sangare absolutely bossed the middle.
I know Brentford weren't great, but exciting to see that type of football. Then we add in our new signings and it's looking like we might have another cracking season.
MGW my motm. Hard to pick between the 3 midfielders though.
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Sangare - I’ve not been a fan of but he was excellent and let MGW and Ando do their stuff with assurance that he was playing the anchor role so well. Milenkovic absolutely owned their number 9 who I could see being half decent after he has bedded in. Aina totally locked down their left channel too- his defending yesterday was very impressive whilst Neco again put in an immense shift- supporting and underlapping/ overlapping CHO constantly - he also took a card for the team on Sharde. It was as complete a 45 minutes of football that I have seen from us for a long time - even more impressive than the destruction of Brighton last year.
The one touch football around the box was superb.
Dan Ndoye- an intelligent footballer and great goal. I don’t think he trusts himself yet - he had a number of opportunities to have a go at his fullback and seemed to not give 100% in his running. Maybe he is just more of a footballer than Elanga and has had keeping the ball drummed into him from his other experiences. I also think he’d prefer to play on the left.
CHO was good too.
However, wood - what a finisher! He was excellent all match and his hold up play was great. He gives us so much. Bargain of the century and his numbers are really elite in world football.
Brentford- so poor but I think we were bloody good. Take that you xG weirdos. I can’t stand that Thomas Frank and Andrew’s is just as unlikeable - he hated us on co-comms in the championship. But I actually felt sorry for him yesterday - as he tried to give instructions. Almost!
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We will have many tougher days than yesterday with much stronger opponents but great to get a win and banish the pre season worries.
2 more games then Nuno gets 2 weeks off to hopefully work with some of the new boys, call ups permitting.
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I loved the fact that the sky commentators seemed genuinely taken aback by how dominant we were and how much possession we had as well as how well/how much we pressed. A clear and noticeable shift, hopefully this is a shift that can be maintained going forward as we looked very good!