The second half was a different story. We were a different team. We were the team that had taken the league by storm, the team that had become the talk of English youth football.
We were relentless, our pressing a furious, swarming entity that gave Portsmouth no time to breathe, no space to think. We were a team playing with confidence, a swagger, a sheer, bloody-minded, beautiful belief in our own ability. And it was a joy to watch.
We scored our third goal in the fifty-eighth minute, a beautiful, flowing move that was a testament to the quality, the depth, the sheer, bloody-minded, beautiful resilience of my entire squad.
The central midfielder, a kid who had been on the fringes of the first team all season, his hunger, his desire, his sheer, bloody-minded refusal to be beaten a vital, infectious, beautiful force, picked up the ball on the halfway line, his pace and his power taking him past two Portsmouth defenders, before he delivered a perfect, curling cross into the box.
