Great description
I suppose it's a big improvement from "a.n.other played like twat and well f*cked it up for me" so he's going down the right route and I do wonder whether there's any place in the modern game for 'honesty' anymore and that stereotypical replies are what we should expect. It's happened in other top sports like F1. They're surrounded by PR advisers and have a 'company line'.
I do think that sometimes people confuse 'honesty' with being unprepared/professional. I'm of the Arsene Wenger school of post match interviews. Defend the players, defend the team, give very little away and deal with it behind closed doors. Let's face it, there's very little space for anything original in football-speak anymore. It's genuinely hard not to describe the game in cliches. That's why I think your description is so good.