It was deja-vu for TNS, who fell to a third defeat from four UEFA Conference League games, with each loss being tighter than the previous one.
Following the 1-0 defeat to Djurgardens IF, here are five things we learnt
Pride is forefront of Craig Harrison’s mind
Despite yet another nearly moment for TNS as they were again defeated narrowly, manager Craig Harrison preferred to focus on the performance related positives from his team.
“I think the overriding emotion is proud of the players, the staff, the football club. Proud that we can compete at this level.”
“That is down to the strength of the group. The workrate and character of the players and the staff. We have always done ourselves proud in that aspect.
“We may have fell short results wise at this very high level but we have never fallen short in performance.
TNS have European opponents worried
Djurgarden interim manager Roberth Bjorknesjo admitted that he was ‘afraid’ of TNS and admired their fighting spirit not only in this game but from the pre match analysis he conducted.
Roberth said post-match:
“I have seen a lot of The New Saints, and I know that they are a very good team.
“I was afraid because I know they play for 95/100 minutes every game.
“I knew it would be a 100 minutes tough game.”
Lack of quality the main issue
The New Saints were unable to lay a glove on their opponents and failed to register a shot on target.
Speaking about this poor attacking display, Craig Harrison said:
“We’ve not had an awful lot of clear-cut chances but we had a lot of positions where we could have created one.
“A lack of decision making and quality, it’s not like us at all.
“But we didn’t get to the point where we had some real sustained pressure and asked the question, because we made some wrong decisions and a little bit of lack of penetration.”
Good goal difference key for qualification hopes
Despite only winning one of their first four games, the new format of the UEFA Conference League means that 24 teams go through to knockout football in one way or another.
With TNS only just being outside of qualification by one point, with superior goal difference to a lot of teams around them, Craig Harrison spoke about their qualification chances.
“It’s going to be tough without a shadow of a doubt, but we’ve still got a mathematical chance, and one more win might get us through, it would certainly take it close.
“We’ve got a reasonably good goal difference 2ith having only getting beat by one goal at Shamrock Rovers, getting beat by one goal tonight and in only two in Fiorentina.”
The importance of goal difference at this stage may give an indication as to why Harrison played so defensively against Djurgarden, as a narrow defeat still gives them hope, while a heavier one may mean that they could have been out of the picture because of goal difference.
European football taking its toll domestically
With TNS not being the dominant force in Welsh football that they normally are this season; many have made the correlation to be because of European group stage football and its demands.
Craig Harrison admitted this to be the case and explained why it is such an issue.
“There’s something happening every other day, on the pitch and off it, that we haven’t experienced before,” he said.
So we’re learning on the job. We’re having to learn quickly.
“The biggest problem we’ve got, and I’ve got, is the lack of rhythm in training.
“We’ve not had the opportunity to get two days of work under our belts.
“We’ve lost our intensity in training simply because we can’t train at that intensity with a game every three days.”
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