I don’t know if they did or not. They always enjoy going to football games. It is in the family, we love it and they would have been glad to be here tonight, but overall it was a really tough game, a really physical game. Gent were very strong first and second balls and made it difficult for us.
Were your players guilty of underestimating Gent at all?
I don’t think we ever were underestimating them. I think when you get to any sort of stage of the competition, into the final eight, there are not many bad teams wherever you go. I think you will find everyone has worked really hard to be here and they don’t want to give up a chance to make a semi-final. We knew that would be the case. We knew it would be tough and it proved to be.
How pleasing was it to get Danny Ings a goal?
It is the reason we brought Danny in because he has got goals in him. He is more of a penalty box striker. If we create chances he will take them. we didn’t create enough tonight, we didn’t build well enough and made it difficult for ourselves. we were more liable to score a second on the counter but it didn’t materialise.
What did you make of the performance and the result?
I didn’t think the performance was good, but the result was not a bad result, and when you play in cup competitions, especially in England, we are all aware of what can happen. Tonight was a cup competition, two teams in a quarter final and us away from home. A strong crowd and Gent played very well. Hopefully we can show them a bit more about how we play when we see them next Thursday.
With the decisions that went against you, do you feel your side were unfortunate?
When you look at the night, you would say there were so many things that went against us. Whether they were correct, you hope they were. I thought some of these decisions were only for if it was clear and obvious that they would overturn a referee’s decision, but we have nearly had every decision overturned tonight. I didn’t think they intervene unless it was a clear and obvious mistake? We had two or three decisions that looked really difficult to take.
What frustrated you about the performance of your side?
There were so many different aspects we could be better at. We didn’t build well and then a lot of the basics come into it like picking up first and second balls. We didn’t put them under pressure. We had opportunities to pass it better. The pitch wasn’t great. I wouldn’t use that as an excuse but it looked like they were better on it than we were.
