Perhaps one or two saves were on the simpler side, but several of them prompted that mix of relief and admiration which signals they were far from routine \u2014 involving sharp reflexes and full-stretch dives.<\/p>\n
In an era when goalkeepers are assessed by everything except their shot-stopping, it was refreshing to forget about distribution, positioning, or composure at corners for a while, and simply credit the man for flinging himself around to deny Monaco.<\/p>\n
3. Little to Cheer Elsewhere<\/p>\n
Normally at this stage I\u2019d pour another drink and recall some individual standouts. Unfortunately, that\u2019s a tough ask this time, as the entire team was largely dreadful.<\/p>\n
The first half offered flickers of encouragement. Odobert looked as dangerous as he\u2019s been since joining, though his final touch again deserted him. That left flank remains a puzzle \u2014 Johnson and Simons look uninspired, and while Odobert still feels like a \u201cWork In Progress,\u201d he at least hinted at promise early on.<\/p>\n
Archie Gray, too, began brightly \u2014 tidy in his covering and energetic in his overlapping runs, even if Odobert repeatedly ignored his efforts. Yet once he got more involved on the ball, his accuracy faltered, and the sparkle of his opening minutes faded.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still early days, both in Europe and under this new setup, but while improvement will surely come with time and familiarity, one can\u2019t help but wonder where, exactly, it\u2019ll emerge from before the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perhaps one or two saves were on the simpler side, but several of them prompted that mix of relief and admiration which signals they were far from routine \u2014 involving sharp reflexes and full-stretch dives. In an era when goalkeepers are assessed by everything except their shot-stopping, it was refreshing to forget about distribution, positioning, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":52776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4b4b30110dd8b8136877b791f27773ca.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52777,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52775\/revisions\/52777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}