Martin O’Neill maintained his unbeaten home record at the Stadium of Light with the heartening goal from Fraizer Campbell, just back from long-term injury securing the draw. We now have to go the Boro and win to earn another home tie, against Arsenal, in the 5th round – and Martin’s post-match missive recognised that the main plus from a moderate display was that we were still in the hat …
Dear Colin,
We started off slowly in the game and didn’t gain any real momentum which was strange for us, especially with it being a cup tie.
Because of that we found ourselves a goal behind.
In the second half the players upped the tempo and we got the equalising goal. I felt it was deserved.
I’m delighted for Fraizer Campbell. I’m very pleased indeed; he’s been out for a long time. His enthusiasm has never waned and neither has his determination.
He has had a lot of setbacks, so it was fantastic for him to go and get the equalising goal and great to see him celebrating.
He took the goal very well and great credit must go to James McClean for his part.
McClean was just brilliant for us in the second half and put in some splendid crosses – Fraizer could have just snatched at the ball, but he took it coolly.
After going a goal down I think the players responded well.
There hasn’t been 10 or 15 minutes in any game over the last few weeks that have been easy for us and today was no different.
It was a long hard struggle – but a really decent cup tie, in terms of atmosphere too!
We’re still in the hat and that’s the main thing.
All the best,
Martin O’Neill
* See Kartun Malaysia’s Flickr images at this link
You cannot really disagree with anything in that.His musings were pretty much neutral to the point of being curt.He knows we should have won it but we were not good enough on the day.He does not seem to like showing any negativity,….not that is a bad thing,it seems to be working anyhow.
Still nice to get something out of the game when we were not at full throttle, as it were.
Credit to Boro though who played very well.