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Kenny Cunningham's Ma's trifle & Barcelona | "I couldn't even look at it"

There are few whose standing in international football and ability to analyse a pudding are on pa...



Kenny Cunningham's Ma's trifle...
Soccer

Kenny Cunningham's Ma's trifle & Barcelona | "I couldn't even look at it"

There are few whose standing in international football and ability to analyse a pudding are on par - step forward Kenny Cunningham to explain Barcelona's defending by way of a haunting childhood memory.

Barca's embarrassing capitulation at the hands of Bayern Munich showed all the cohesion of a dropped trifle, as the man himself explains.

"I'd rather not talk about it," said Cunningham of the Catalans' performance.

"It is hard to think of an analogy," but by Christ did he manage it.

"I remember once when I was growing up and we were having dinner, and my ma or somebody was walking over to the table with a trifle.

"Anyway, she tripped up and the trifle hits the ground. You know the way you pick up a trifle like that, big scoopfuls and you smash it back into the bowl. You come over and you present it, and everybody is looking into this bowl thinking 'Ugh, oh no, that is an absolute mess - I don't want any part of this.'"

Bear with us.

Bayern Munich

"That is how I felt looking about half an hour into this Barcelona game. I just didn't want any part of it. It was an absolute mess, I didn't even know what I was looking at. I couldn't pick it apart.

"From a defensive point of view, that was as bad a setup as I have seen from a team. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and it destroyed the whole game for me.

"That's because you can't talk about how great Bayern are, some of the best Bayern play - forget it. When you are up against a defence like that, you can't qualify the merits of the opposition. You just can't."

Cunningham believes the performance from the Bavarians on Friday night was not one of their best this season.

"From an attacking point of view, I have seen them pass the ball a lot better, the quality of passing and their combination play has been far superior in the Bundesliga.

"Even defensively they were a bit loose - Alphonso Davies for the first hour was as probably as poor as I have seen him play."

Barcelona's mess

Cunningham is not critical of Bayern in any sense, just that the Barcelona performance makes it difficult to analyse their system and performances - with one Barca player coming in for an intense critique.

"That Barcelona performance was absolutely unacceptable. Gerard Pique put in a performance the other night where it is almost like you walk out of the stadium and you never come back. You don't put your boots back, you just walk and go home. That's it - you're finished.

"It struck me a little like Gary Neville against West Brom - one of those moments where you just think 'it's finished.'

"It was one of the worst individual performances I have ever seen at that level of football. It was absolutely car crash.

"It was awful to watch, I didn't enjoy it."

You can listen to the whole trifling matter with Kenny here.

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