City 4 Birmingham 1.
How is it that a team gets walloped 4-1 still manages to grab all the post-game headlines? When a team turns in a performance as woeful and inept as the one Birmingham did in on Saturday you do. If they in any way wanted to play to save the job of Steve Bruce then the players who 'turned out' must be pretty keen to see the back of old Brucie if that was any indication.
There were no plus points mentioned for City or any players taking the plaudits, only the bleatings of Bruce as he sought to admonish his Birmingham side as he labelled his players 'not able to do the basics in a football match' and that 'we looked pathetic, it's as simple as that'.
Rarely can it be said that a team appears to have both no talent or passion for the game, but the Birmingham side on Saturday are probably the worst side I have seen in the Premiership (and the relegated Sunderland side of a couple of years ago take some beating).
In some respects due to the no-show that was put in front of us it is hard to evaluate the City performance from Saturday. Every time we went forward there seemed to be the potential of a goal, although how much of that was down to us carving Birmingham apart is open to debate and defensively we were barely troubled from a strikeforce of Forsell and Pandiani who are no mugs.
Personally, I thought Sommeil looked decent and has played well on the occasions he has had to fill in this season. Sinclair is beginning to look sharper with each game he plays and Vassell was bright and showed good movement upfront in Coles absence.
The goals? Sommeils was as a result of calamtious defending of a set piece, the Barton penalty from a woeful challenge, Sibierskis header (on target!) as he jumped between his marker and keeper before Bradley Wright-Phillips capped it off with a neat strike. David James won't be happy that Jarosiks consolation slipped through him and it seemed a strange move to bring Fowler on bearing in min he is now just one game away from the next installment being paid to Leeds. Perhaps the further rumours that circulated at the end of last week (moves to Portsmouth, Millwall or Ipswich) were well wide of the mark?
Match reports:
Manchester Online
Sky Sports
The Times
BBC
5 comments:
Birmingham had a team of hard fighting journeymen who got us promoted and did well for 2 seasons in the Premier. We then bought in 5 prima donnas who were supposed to take us to the next level. These whining fairweather wantaways have actually destroyed both team and club morale and left us languishing perilously. For this Manchester City fan I would say dont get above your station, you're not exactly Chelsea yourselves. Any team above the Dr Martin League would have beaten us on Saturday. If you want to assess your current form and capability, judge yourselves by your previous game, score and opposition. Now run that one past me?..
Excuse me mate (9:52 ANON) but its not like we're claiming to be Brazil or anything. I could'nt agree more we are definatley not Chelsea, WHO IS? We cant afford to buy success, so we're trying cultivate it through our Academy, argueabley the best in the country. On Saturday I did'nt think we looked that clever to be honest, but we still hammered your sad MOB. So you dont have to remind us who we are pal,WE ALREADY KNOW. 30 Trophy free years and we're still here, we even had over 41,000 go and see your sad excuse for a team, and that was the lowest gate of the season. IF in your frustration your looking to Bollock the arrogant and the ignorant, may I suggest a you look in another part of town, you'll only get sympathy from us mate, we've been there and back, so dont have a go O.K.?
I've read through the post again and at no stage can I see that I was 'getting above my station'. If anything, I've played down any performance City turned in due to the woeful effort displayed by Birmingham.
We are clearly some way of the top four (now Liverpool appear to have got their act together) but with some better consistency, the possibility of a couple of decent additions in January and some luck (hey, every team needs it) we can make a serious attempt at the rest of the European spots. That is a view I have long held (and stuck by) and to me is a realistic one, rather than 'getting above our station'.
Regaeding the wisdom (or not) of the Robbie Fowler guest appearance, it was confirmed by the City board to GMR the Saturday before last that there are DEFINITELY NO MORE PAYMENTS due to be made to Leeds for Robbie Fowler, so all this "two games to go before we owe another half mil" talk is nothing but pure invention from somewhere. Personally I was glad to see Bob back on the pitch again, though we didn't see much of what he may or may not be capable of these days.
It was widely reported in several newspapers and websites around the time of his non-appearance for the reserves a couple of weeks ago that another two games would trigger a further payment.
If indeed it isn't true then all well and good.
It's still hard to see how much of an impact he is likely to have over the rest of the season though.
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