Speaking to us afterwards, Thomas reflected: “It’s always disappointing to lose, and it’s always disappointing to be out of a tournament where we’d like to progress to the next round.
“To look at it from a bigger perspective, I think our performance was good. I think we come to St. James’ Park and created more shots than them. We looked much better in phase one and two and looked more clear in our attacking ways. We had some good situations and really tested Ramsdale at times. He made some fantastic saves.
“We also had six or seven situations where if we arrive at the right moment we hopefully score. So, that’s the positive. I also think our mentality was good.
“Football sometimes is margins and I think in a tight game it was margins. I think the first one, a set-piece, where we normally have been very good, always things we need to look at. It happens. The second one, we lost the ball, then we have to defend the box. Then it happens again, but Toni shouldn’t go for the ball, just stay in there and I actually think he would have caught it, but that’s a decision you need to make and it happened.”
