Result! - - The official of Robbie Elliott

Result! - 24/10/2002

At last!!

What a tremendous result! Ok we rode our luck, but after the first three Champions League games, we more than deserved to get a few breaks.

I’m now travelling down to Chester for tonight’s reserve game against Liverpool – just a bit of a come down after last nights 48,000 at St. James. After the events of last night, and the fact that my youngest had me up half the night, I’m having difficulty keeping awake, maybe I'll get a bit of sleep during the rest of the journey. At present I feel I’m doing quite well for the reserves, and I’ll look to continue this against Liverpool tonight.

Going back to the Juve game, I thought the atmosphere matched the performance of the team, and for once we got what overall I feel we deserved. After sitting on the bench in Turin, I’ve now had a close up view of Juventus twice in a couple of weeks. In my opinion they are the best of the group, some of their play is absolutely fantastic and all their players are so comfortable on the ball. My only disappointment is that I didn’t get to compete against them.

I was sitting next to Shay Given in the dug out, and after watching Nedved push Steve Harper’s clearance around the post, I turned to Shay and said “If that had been you playing, it would have been 1-0”. Steve then made a great block from De Viao and again I turned to Shay and said “2-0”. In the second half Del Piero was through and Harps pulled off a great save – “3-0”. The finally when Zalayeta hit the bar….you can guess! Anyhow, I didn’t get a chance to watch the TV highlights but I heard today that after one of Steve’s blocks the TV camera’s panned into the dug out. There’s me whispering something in Shay’s ear and then both of us laughing – so now you know what we were laughing about.