Are we back?

What a difference a week can make in football. After losing to Brentford and then meekly bowing out of the league cup against Crytstal Palace last week, we’ve now beaten an in form Villa team and any win against Real Madrid is special.

Last night was comfortably our best performance of the season so far. Slot has more or less gone back to his tried and team of last season and frankly, that’s what he should have done from day one. Throwing all the new signings in at once caused the team to lose balance and put unnecessary pressure on the likes of Kerkez and Wirtz. I also feel like if you’re joining a team that has just won the PL then you should have to earn the right to take someone’s place in that team. Anyway, better late than never.

I thought both fullbacks were outstanding last night but Bradley in particular, pocketing Vinny jr as Trent watched on from the subs bench, probably thinking how many times Vinny jr has had him on toast when Trent still played for us. The Brazilian looked like he was going to cry by the end of the game and if he has a tougher match than that this season, I’ll be surprised. Bradley McMOTM.

Szoboszlai was brilliant again and if he keeps this form up, he should be nailed on as our player of the season when they’re dishing out the rewards next summer. Gravenberch continued to show why he’s so vital to our game and Mac Allister finally looked back to his best and it was his bullet header that settled proceedings, converting a fine Szoboszlai cross to finally beat the outstanding Courtois, as fears of another Madrid smash and grab were starting to build. I thought Wirtz had arguably his best game for us as well but his dismal luck in terms of improving is G/A stats continued as he put yet another chance on a plate, only to see it missed. I do feel it’s only a matter of time before we start to see the best of Florian though.

I was very impressed with Slot’s post match interview as well and watching Rooney squirm when Virgil pulled him up over comments he’d made recently, was a thing of beauty.

All in all a fine night’s work by all and sets us up nicely to face City this weekend. Are we back? We probably won’t know that for sure until the next low block, long ball team we play, as they have proven to be our Achilles heel this season but there’s definitely no doubting how much better we’ve looked this past week. Walk on!