Hope

Lech Poznań second away trip in group stage of the Europa League was less effective than the first one to Turin but still nobody expected them to get a point at City of Manchester Stadium. Nobody expected them to draw with mighty Juventus in Turin as well and one point from two toughest games is something that gives the hope to Lech fans. But not only current situation in Group A looks promising in Poznań.

Yesterday we could see the team that can beat their nerves, for smaller periods even match such team as Manchester City. At one point they even made them sweat to make sure that the result is right. Alright, Lech's defence was pretty awful, their center backs marking especially but Kamil Drygas gave solid shift learning the brilliance of DM from Patrick Vieira, while Tshibamba showed that he may not be transfer flop at all. Sławomir Peszko's performance was rated highly by English web sites, Stilić for half-an-hour showed that his techniques are not something special only in Ekstraklasa and Krivets made good runs ended with good passes. 

Lech needs more confidence - they lacked it for the entire first half but it was not so surprising after losing three games in a row in Polish league. Jacek Zieliński earned his money with half-time talk and his players believed that the difference on the pitch is much smaller than the one between Lech's and MC's budgets. But he needs them to play like that, better, with confidence, for more than 30 minutes against teams like Juve and City. For Salzburg it was enough in Poznań and that gives the hope that not all is lost in their fight for promotion to the next round of Europa League.

After two tough away games in Turin and Manchester, Lech will now play them at home and they need to stop one of them, snatch a draw or three points. Then win in Salzburg, fully concentrated as yesterdays result of Austrian team shows they can and are much better, and eight points may be enough to get out of this group. Manchester City is heads and shoulders above all three teams with Juve the closest to be near their class but Italian side can be beaten and disinterested players from Manchester can gave away a draw in Poznań with the fanatic fans getting behind Lech once again, pushing them to the impossible.

The new stadium and great support Lech is getting there will be as important as Krivets, Arboleda, Rudnevs and Stilić being in good form. We can hear that there is a problem with pitch in Poznań which also may cause both teams playing there troubles. Jacek Zieliński has a tough job to do before three games left in group stage but their position gives hope that second place may be in their reach. They 'only' have to use in 100% every advantage they have - obviously there isn't a lot of them with Juvenstus and Citizens as main rivals...