🚨 Jurrien Timber on Arsenal’s Carabao Cup exit against Fleetwood Town: 🗣️ Reporter: “How do you explain tonight’s result?” 🗣️ Timber: “I think the kit situation affected us more than people realise. They were wearing our traditional red and white, playing at Highbury, and we had to wear our away shirt. It was confusing. Normally when you see eleven players in those colours celebrating at Highbury, you assume Arsenal have won. Unfortunately, tonight we were the other team.”

🚨 Toni Kroos on Nico Paz’s performance against Torino: “Watch Nico’s goal against Torino. A header. I had to watch it twice because I thought they’d sent me the wrong player. I remember Nico as a young player at Madrid. Very comfortable on the ball, always looking for a pass that other players hadn’t seen yet. One day in training, he tried something difficult and lost possession. I told him, ‘You don’t have to prove you’re clever every time you touch the ball.’ He asked, ‘So I should play safe?’ I said, ‘No. You should know when the difficult pass is worth it.’ That’s the thing about talented young players. They often think their job is to show everyone what they can do. The really good ones eventually understand their job is to decide matches. Against Torino, Como were losing until the 82nd minute. Nico assists the equaliser. Five minutes later, he scores the winner himself. Then Como score again. He didn’t need 90 minutes of highlights. He needed five minutes to change the result. And people will ask why a player like that isn’t at Real Madrid. It’s a fair question, but Madrid is a difficult place for a young footballer. Sometimes you’re surrounded by established players and the opportunities don’t arrive when you need them. You can stay and wait, or go somewhere you’re allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. At Como, Nico doesn’t just have to play well. People look at him when the team is behind. That’s a different education. I actually think the most interesting thing tonight wasn’t the goal. It was the assist before it. When you’re losing late, everybody wants to be the hero. Nico saw a teammate in a better position. Then, when his own chance came, he took it. I hope people don’t rush to decide where he must play next. Let him enjoy becoming the kind of player that makes those decisions difficult. Although I will say this: if you keep winning matches like that, eventually the biggest clubs stop asking whether you’re ready. They start asking why they let you leave.”