Nobody was asking the side to down tools and actively ensure that we lost, he conjured that entire argument out of nowhere all by himself and got himself so worked up over it that he actually placed more importance on that one game than any of the others we were playing at the time.
It was galling at the time because we were, with a pretty much full squad available incidentally, putting in piss poor half arsed performances all over the place, wasn't it just a couple of games before that we were 3-0 down at home in the NLD by half time? And yet, seemingly just to spite our own fans, he had them psyched up to the gills for this match, and even threw in some tactical tweaks to try and catch City out!
I'm sorry, but all fans were asking for was just to produce more of the same shit that he'd been serving up in the run up.
To then add further salt to that wound the following season, turns out Mr Can'tstandtolosenomatterthecircumstances actually didn't mind losing that much at all, to the extent that he actively chose to throw the league from about gameweek 7 in order to preserve his own always wins a trophy in his second season bluster. Guarantee if he'd not managed to bring home the EL that he'd have been passing off a Manager of the Month award as his trophy.