Knew you'd be a voice of reason,
Mensa
. Today was shite, but it's pretty difficult to get too angry when we have key injuries, and Poch has rightly earned so much goodwill from us as fans over the past two and a half seasons.
Unless we draw a particular opponent in one of the cups, I can't see us coming up against a team with the playing style of Liverpool until next season. That's a good thing in some regards, but bad if Poch fails to reflect on what happened this evening and stop it from reoccurring.
I won't be too harsh from our past experiences against high-pressing teams: this is the first time he's been beaten by Liverpool in the league (with Spurs), and we rotated our squad so heavily in the Dortmund games that drawing conclusions from them is near impossible.
We're victims of our own progression. At the moment we have a fantastic first XI who can blow away pretty much anyone in the league when everything is clicking. Beyond that, the drop off in quality (whether through poor purchasing or young talent not quite being there yet) is steeper than any of our direct competitors.
Given how much less we've spent, there's no shame in that.
But one thing I do know for certain is that we'll be even better next year. I'm very calm about our best players sticking around, and another summer (with the scouting overhaul starting now to have targets lined up in time) will let us add a couple of quality players to compete/offer game-changing options on the bench.
Last summer wasn't ideal, but the intent was good (get a striker, winger, CDM). Imagine what we'll be like in a year if we're smart and add another Wanyama-type signing (or two).