ON REFLECTION

Last updated : 16 September 2003 By editor

"When you score five goals in a European quarter-final, you expect to reach the semi," he said.

"If we had maintained the defensive solidity we had shown for most of the season, we would have been into the next round but we went to Madrid and conceded some soft goals. You are always looking for improvements and one thing about our defence now is that they are all young, they haven't had the experience of playing together for two or three years like Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister did 10 years ago.”

"That was a great period for us in terms of people playing together for a long period of time. Now we are looking for that same consistency of performance."