James Maddison's first professional hat-trick should have been a red letter day – but instead, the Norwich City star was left crushed as the Canaries slipped to a 4-3 defeat at Hull.
A first senior hat-trick meant the 21-year-old was still clutching the match ball as he tried to explain his emotions, immediately after Daniel Farke's Canaries had managed to turn a rare three-goal haul into a first away defeat of 2018.
'Obviously the one positive to take is that I've scored three goals, but I just can't help but feel disappointed,' said Maddison.
'I'm in the changing room sat there with my head in my hands and scratching my head, because we haven't got anything out of the game. So that puts a downer on it. Maybe when I look back over the season, I'll be happy with this one.
'As I've said, pressure and responsibility is something that only drives me on. It's little things like being the penalty-taker and having that pressure – I don't feel it as pressure but people would call it pressure – on my shoulders to score from the spot; especially after already scoring. I thrive off that.
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'But I don't really have a mixture of emotions, if I'm honest. I have one emotion, which is disappointment. To score three goals in the first half away from home and not come away with at least a point, is hard to take.'
City were full of their own issues, but they were far from helped by referee Tim Robinson's inexplicable penalty award just two minutes into the second half – gifting Hull an equaliser and altering the dynamic of the game from there.
'I don't know what to say about the referee,' admitted Maddison. 'I know you get in trouble if you say certain things. Just throughout the game, I found myself scratching my head at some of the decisions. But I'm not here to talk about the referee.
'It's been one of our positives this season, being able to shut teams out – especially away from home. We've had a lot of clean sheets. But we didn't manage to do that here and that's why we're going home empty handed.
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'We didn't defend well enough, we didn't defend runners into the box from deep, we didn't really track, we didn't read it as well as we have done in the past and that's why we've conceded four goals.'
Maddison added: 'Prior to this game we'd only lost one in 14, so you can take positives from that instead of looking at the fact we hadn't won in five.
'We've got a team of individuals who are capable of winning games and especially after being 3-1 up here, we have to look at ourselves as a group of individuals and look back at why we didn't come away with anything from the game.'
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