MATCH REPORTS 1999/2000

MAR 4 CRYSTAL PALACE - MANCHESTER CITY 1-1 (1-1)

TV-Report by: Svenn Hanssen

Last week I went to Maine Road to watch City give their poorest performance of the season (so I was told). This Saturday I was pasted in my armchair and turned on my television. Lo and behold it was City again! This time away to Crystal Palace. Now I'm not sure if I want them to go up if this continues ;-)

"Guys remember to take your vitamins"

The manager must have turned himself a few times in bed since last weekend, wondering what changes he could make to improve the performance. He also had to take into account that top-scorer Shaun Goater was away on international duty. In the end he came up with six changes, which resulted in a completely revamped offensive line-up: Mark Kennedy was moved over to the right wing, with Danny Tiatto covering the left side. Jeff Whitley was moved inwards and Jamie Pollock replaced Kevin Horlock, who was on the bench. Up front Lee Peacock and Robert Taylor replaced the absent Goater and the unlethal Paul Dickov. City lined up like this:

                  Weaver
Edghill      Wiekens Jobson     Granville
Kennedy      Pollock Jeff Whitley  Tiatto
            R.Taylor Peacock

But most important must have been the vitamins given to the players before the game, because the first ten minutes of this game was an absolutely awesome display by the blues (dressed in white for the occasion).

The left footed Kennedy on the right wing didn't sound quite right in my ears, but it soon became clear that the Irishman was in a good mood. He created all sorts of trouble for Palaces left-back and could have scored several times during the first 10 minutes. The first chance came after only 51 seconds when Tiatto showed his pace on the left, before passing to Kennedy who shot just outside. After 5 minutes Kennedy turned inside from his wide position and unleashed a shot that Digby in the Palace goal just managed to turn round the post. 2 minutes later the goalkeeper could only watch as Kennedys whistling shot hit the post and went back into play.

Kenendy did well during this period of the match, but it was his replacement on the left that made the final breakthrough. 8 minutes into the match Tiatto turned at the corner-flag crossed the ball to far post where Robert Taylor climbed over two defenders to head the ball into the net behind Digby. A very much deserved goal and an impressing performance by the blues.

"Lee Peacock Sportif"

News came in that former City player Steve Lomas had scored for West Ham. They went on to win 2-1 away against Watford.

10 minutes into the game it was all City. One of the best opening minutes by the blues this season, and miles away from the dire performance last week. This was the time to settle back and enjoy the ride, but hey why did the City players do the same??? Palace fought their way back into the game - but it was City that gave them the chance. Tiatto continued to play really well on the left and after 17 minutes he managed to break down a good move by Palace, and 2 minutes later Weaver had to make a great save from a free-kick just outside the area (given by Pollock). Another free-kick by Palace after 26 minutes was punched over the bar by Weaver, and on the resulting corner the ball found its way to the unmarked Palace striker Morrison on the far post. 1-1.

A couple of minutes after the equaliser Palace again came forward. This time only the egoistic display by Forssell kept City from going 2 down. Instead of passing to an unmarked team-mate in front of goal Forssell decided to go for it himself. He was promptly brought down outside the area and Weaver collected the following free-kick from Rodger

Up front City looked rather harmless. Peacock and Taylor was not linking very well and even though Taylor provided us with some aerial strength the other half of the partnership was easily dealt with by the Palace defence. Lee Peacock looked weak and slow. He got one really good chance in the dying minutes of the game but failed to convert it. Taylor got two - he managed to get one in the net. Neither of them made an impression today. I guess you could say that Taylor isn't fully match fit yet. He surely didn't look like it today. Last week I bought the Le Cock sportif City-bag with 7 compartments. The Lee Peacock in the field today was no box of surprises. He simply didn't show the gear that will earn him a regular place in the team.

City got another good chance before the interval when a free-kick from the left was nodded back by Wiekens to Jobson who gave the ball a looping bounce that seemed to give the goalkeeper a hard time. Digby just managed to scramble the ball away from the goal-line and Wiekens smashed the ball into the side-netting. Now where are the strikers when you need them??

Half time score: Palace 1, City 1.

One could always hope for another storming display at the start of the second half. Surely the players hadn't been running their socks off during the first half? 3 minutes into the second half City should have re-taken the lead. A free-kick from Kennedy found Wiekens alone at the far post. The Dutch defender got the ball between his legs and spoiled the opportunity. I suppose it's because he's mostly used to finishing with his head instead of his feet that he made a mess of that chance.

"Blue Moon all over"

On-loan striker Danny Allsopp scored the winner for Wrexham against Luton after 55 minutes.

Tiatto had been lively during the first half. He continued to impress me with sheer speed and bravery in defence. After 57 minutes he managed to squeak past the Palace defence and make another good cross that caught Digby in no-mans land. Sadly the two strikers were not present to push the ball into the open goal. Instead it bounced into safety while the home-crowd could catch their breath.

Former City-maestro Georgi Kinkladze scored the opening goal for Derby after 65 minutes in their 4-0 trashing of Wimbledon at Pride Park. It was not his most spectacular goal, but you could see the satisfaction in his eyes as he celebrated the goal with his new team-mates.

Pollock and Jeff Whitley were supposed to be the luminous of the midfield today. None of them showed any of the skills of the Georgian maestro mentioned above. They are bleeding hearts when it comes to defending, but inside the oposite box they pose no real treat to the opposition. 20 minutes into the second half Pollock made his best pass of the evening by setting up Peacock inside the area. However the City strikers lame shot went well wide.

After 71 minutes it was time for Shaun Wright-Phillips to enter the field. Now at this point I was expecting Peacock to retire. Instead Royle decided to take off Granville. Kennedy moved over to the left, pushing down Tiatto to the back-position. The not so imposingly built Wright-Phillips covered the right-wing the best he could.

The game now went into a rather uninteresting phase. It seemed like Palace was settling with one point. Of course they need every point they can get to stay out of the relegation battle, but so does City at the other end of the table. A lot of bad passes and no killing touch in front of either goal seemed to make the game go quietly away. 7 minutes from time Taylor could have scored his second when he received the ball inside the area following a corner. He turned and aimed his shot at the left post, but the shot missed the post and the offside positioned Peacock missed the ball.

During the last few minutes a couple of good chances could have killed off the game. A scramble inside the City penalty-box with two City-defenders lying on their backs could have given the home team an easy win. In the end a defender managed to clear the ball away from the danger zone. One minute later Wright-Phillips showed his talent when he took the ball between two Palace players and ran forward challenging the Palace defence. He played the ball nicely for Peacock to finish, but the striker showed no speed at all, got under pressure by a defender and squandered the chance.

Final result: Palace 1, City 1.

The visiting fans were very, very vocal today. A stranger to football would have expected this to be a home-match for City. Palace received little if any support from the terraces. It was great to hear Blue Moon sound almost all the way to the north pole. It was also good to see Kennedy, Tiatto and the rest of the team trying. The opening 10 minutes were quite good. But if we go up we need 90 such minutes to stay there, that's for sure! City went back to second spot since Ipswich managed to lose at home to Portsmouth. Charlton beat Bolton rather comfortably 2-0 and are now 10 points clear at the top.

Former City striker Chris Greenacre plugged in Mansfield Towns last goal in their 3-1 away win against Leyton Orient in the dying minutes of the 3rd division match.

MAR 8 MANCHESTER CITY - QPR 1-3 (0-2)

Report by: Phil Hartley

Stunned, gobsmacked, dumbfounded, confused, speechless. Sums up my thoughts at 9.45 PM GMT last night. This was a weird, strange game. A game that we would have won at a canter, had it not been for the completely unpredictable events of the 37th and 45th minutes.

City started with the same line -up as the Palace game, other than Goater back in for the stomach bug ridden Robert Taylor. Bishop joined Grant, Horlock, Dickov, Wright-Phillips and Wright on the bench. The game had been subject to a pitch inspection at 1pm for possible waterlogging, but there were no problems at kick off time. However, the wind was fierce, swirling in every direction.

City's formation during the first 20 minutes was very fluid and worked a treat in pulling the confused QPR defence all over the place. Kennedy was on the right, then the left. Tiatto was in the middle, then the left. Pollock was in the middle then on the right...It was good stuff too! Kennedy had a stinging shot held by the keeper, Wiekens headed against the angle of cross bar and post. And following a sweet move, Goater fed Pollock in the box, whose shot was blocked at the last second for yet another corner. From a corner a QPR defender appeared to blatantly hand ball in the area, but the ref saw nothing. No exaggeration 90% of the play was in QPR's half.

Then Pollock fouled Mikkel Beck for once. Let me digress for one moment. Mikkel Beck, silly haircut and all, was a disgrace. If a City player got within 3 yards of him, he threw himself to the ground. The ref fell for it in the first half, but thankfully realised he'd been conned in the second and denied the Dane anything! Anyway, from the resultant free kick, Langley (I think) floated over a cross which evaded everyone. Weaver easily caught the ball, but then inexplicably dropped it. Like all good strikers should, Kiwomya gambled and pounced on Weaver's mistake to make it 1-0 for the visitors. Maine Road was dumbstruck. Our Nicky making such a mistake, surely not? Never mind, there was plenty of time to complete the job. But on the stroke of half time, Nick got down to save a speculative shot, but instead of holding firm, he again let go. QPR forwards were homing in on the mistake, but the ball did seem to be covered by Wiekens. However, Weaver lashed out at the loose ball with his foot, kicking the ball against a player (officially Wiekens) and the ball cannoning into the empty net. This really was surreal stuff!

Rightly, Weaver and the rest of the players were cheered off the pitch. This was the best we'd played for several weeks, but we were 2 down!

Bishop replaced Granville at half time, with City opting for a 3-3-4 formation; Kennedy on the right, Tiatto on the left. We bombarded the visitors, but even at that stage our play looked a little too frantic, a little too urgent, whereas a little more thought might have gained more rewards. For me Royle made the wrong decision in bringing on Dickov for Pollock, the team lost all shape, and although we continued to press forward, we were leaving ourselves wide open at the back. And so it proved. Kiwomya raced onto a long ball, Bishop tackled in the box and a penalty was awarded. Beck scored and QPR had an unbelievable and totally undeserved 3-0 lead. Horlock replaced the injured Tiatto and City although naturally deflated, continued to dominate possession. With 5 minutes remaining Whitley scored the best goal of his career, a screaming exocet from 25 yards. There was a renewed belief and we were desperately unlucky not to at least get a second. Goater spooned over another dropped ball by a keeper, Peacock and/or Wiekens missed a chance during a scramble in the 6 yard box. But it wasn't to be. At least Whitley's goal maintained a 2 goal advantage over Ipswich's goal difference.

Its difficult and indeed unfair to be too critical after this result. It WAS a good performance, certainly in the first half, and I'm certain that we would have won, but for Weaver's second error. There are really just 3 points of criticism that I feel are justified. Obviously Weaver had a bad night, but he will learn form it (as he did form the Stockport game) and I'm confident he won't do it again. He's still earned us far more points this season than he has lost. Lee Peacock, for me was very, very disappointing. I've said before that his touch and all round play looks quite promising but he never looks like scoring. Tonight, he had 1 maybe 2 kicks in the direction of goal, which is not good enough. He looked less lethal than Dickov and certainly [based on his form at Wrexham], way behind Allsopp . One for the future maybe, but not for a promotion race. Finally, as mentioned above, I thought JR's tactics in the early part of the second half were a wee bit naive. Yes we wanted to get an early goal back, but at times it looked like we were going to start playing 'rush goalie'!! Who knows what would have happened if Dickov had replaced Peacock instead of Pollock, or Shaun Wright-Phillips went on the right, with Kennedy reverting back to the left.

Anyway, this was not a game to dwell on the negatives. We are 'officially' in a poor run - 1 win in 5, but based on this performance (Weaver apart, naturally!), there is good reason to suppose that we might be at the end of this run. We really mustn't lose at Barnsley, but a win will put us back on a high!

MAR 11 BARNSLEY - MANCHESTER CITY 2-1 (2-0)

Report by:

MAR 19 MANCHESTER CITY - CHARLTON ATH 1-1 (1-1)

Report by: Sharon Hargreaves

First match report for a long time, here goes... I honestly thought we'd lose this in the same way that we'd lost against QPR - you know, play really well, tons of possession, loads of chances but lose to a couple of daft goals. Which would have been all very well but I don't want to go through the play offs again thank you very much. We set off very early (so THAT'S what 7am on Sunday looks like) and got to Maine Road far too early. After hanging around for three hours (I was driving back so couldn't even go for a few jars) we finally made our way and sat down. Imagine our surprise when we saw not one, but two Bob Taylors - one on the pitch and one masquerading as the blimp floating above... OK that was a bit mean but Taylor really should think about having a chat with Pollock for some dieting tips. The City line up was Weaver, Edghill, Tiatto, Wiekens, Jobson, Pollock, Bishop, Kennedy, Whitley, Goater & Taylor. Lee Mills was nowhere to be seen and the subs were Wright, Wright-Phillips, Granville, Dickov & Horlock.

We started off really brightly, lots of attacking the Charlton end and not letting them settle on the ball at all. This was one of the best starts City have had for a while - normally it's lasted the first ten minutes and then we've sat back, but this time we did keep pushing and pushing them back. Taylor had a good chance after about 10 seconds (or so it seemed) - a ball came across to him on the edge of the area and he showed the skill & finesse that we've come to expect from him (oops no, sorry, confusing him with someone who hasn't been permanently injured since he got here) to turn his defender and shoot just wide. Seriously though, it was a good touch and he used his strength and size well to turn away from the defender. That was about the last shot the ref allowed him to have though. Not long after that Kiely came out to collect a ball under pressure from Goater and handled outside the area. Goater went mad, the North Stand went mad, the referee looked at the linesman, the linesman looked bemused then suddenly remembered what the stick thing in his hand was for and waved it madly. I'm not entirely sure what the rules are here - I assume that as there was a defender with Goater that Kiely was deemed not to be the "last man" and therefore that's why he was shown only a yellow and not a red. We could have done with him going off though, he's a pain as he's actually quite good - and he pulled off some extremely good saves later in the game. Wiekens had a scorching (scorchio!) shot that went over the bar & wide and took out about four people in the North Stand, such was the pace behind it. Don't worry though - it went in the Charlton section not the City one.

We continued to pressure Charlton and to have the best chances. Pollock rose like a salmon (that's been on a crash diet) to meet a Kennedy cross and placed a header perfectly that Kiely somehow managed to get his fingertips to - told you he was a pain. The only Charlton "attacks" of the first half hour resulted in them being caught offside 3cm inside the City half - including one where someone was about 6 miles offside in the area. The ball went in the net from someone else but the linesman had flagged straight away, luckily as our defence was nowhere near any of the Charlton attackers at the time. We finally got the goal we deserved after about half an hour. Someone (Bishop?) played the ball into space in front of Goater, and Goater released a right foot volleyed shot that was going just over the bar. Except that it didn't - somehow at the last moment it dipped under the crossbar, we only realised that it had gone in when the North Stand went mad. Yippee!!!!! A true class striker's goal, and who cares that it went off his shin? I reckon he meant it.

Charlton looked really rattled now, especially in defence. Their tactics at this stage consisted of falling over whenever tackled to try and win free kicks and pushing Taylor in the back whenever he went up for a header - you've got to handle it to them, shifting Taylor's bulk (even if it is in midair) is no easy feat. It was then so so cruel when they equalised - a shot from outside the area took an awful deflection of someone's shoulder and into the net. Weaver never moved, there was nothing anyone could have done about it. They didn't deserve it for a second.

Charlton spent the last five minutes of the half complaining to the ref and linesmen, gesticulating wildly at them and each other and their bench, and generally making prats of themselves. No wonder they were booed off at half time, along with the ref who by this time had taken a real dislike to Taylor. Unless it was just that he didn't believe anyone could shove him over either.

We weren't on top as much in the second half but we still could have won it. Charlton were limited to trying to catch us on the break - unfortunately they had rather too many chances to do this for my liking, Wiekens & Jobson were found lacking for pace far too often. I thought Wiekens in particular had a poor game - he couldn't cope with Pringle's pace when he came on and was caught out of position too many times. Unsurprisingly Edghill was getting most of the stick for our defensive frailties, the poor lad had a good solid game at the back but no, he can't do anything right for some people. I could tell he was playing well as it was halfway through the second half before the moron in our section of the Kippax that really really hates him was able to stand up and howl abuse at him - normally it's a constant feature of sitting where I do.... We had two real chances to wrap up the points though. Firstly Whitley passed to Goater from just inside the area instead of shooting himself - why oh why oh why I just don't know. Then Tiatto (who was kicked really hard about 5 minutes into the second half and had a blinder after that) ran almost the full length of the pitch - Taylor couldn't quite get on the end of the pass into the area. If he lost that extra weight he'd gain those few metres he's missing at the moment, as apart from his lack of fitness he did play well. He's a far better player than Peacock, for example, as he does actually read the game and anticipate passes, which is where Peacock is poor. It's a shame we can't combine Peacock's youth and enthusiasm (and not-being-fat-ness) with Taylor's intelligence, but there you go.

Bishop was replaced by Granville with about half an hour to go and obviously wasn't happy to leave the pitch. Fair enough Ian, but you aren't going to change anyone's mind by walking off at a snail's pace so get off quickly and let the others carry on without you, please? Kennedy moved across to the right and Granville and Tiatto linked up down the left. At first taking Bishop off seemed like a bit of a strange thing to do, but I think Joe did the right thing - the game was there to be won and with two wide players we had more of a chance of scoring than with Bishop playing his holding role in midfield. Bishop had played some woeful passes by the way, I hope the person who wrote into Mcvittee last week was counting the passes completed ratios of Edghill and Bishop as he said he would as it would be very interesting to see the results.... We had loads of pressure in the last few minutes, Charlton had a couple of breakaway chances which Weaver did well with - one in particular should have been a goal but luckily Pringle was as good in front of goal as he's been every time I've seen him, and shot weakly straight at Weaver. Phew. We didn't manage to scrape anything from any of the 97,000 corners we had in the last five minutes so had to settle for a point. At least Ipswich lost.

This was a good performance. We've 10 games left now, it's all in our hands and if we can play like that we'll win most of them. I just hope we don't go to Edgeley (sp?) Park and lose of something stupid like that, it would be just like us to put in a crap performance after more than holding the team top of the league who everyone keeps claiming are far and away the best in the division. Which brings me to my final point..... No-one who watched the game can have failed to have noticed that a) it was a good game b) it was close c) some of the football played by both sides was very good d) the teams at the bottom of the Premier League (Southampton and the like) would have struggled to have beaten teams playing as well as that. So imagine our surprise then when, as we were nearing Cambridge and home, we heard a summary of the match from that old favourite & die hard Macclesfield Town (yeah right) supporter Alan Green. I paraphrase here somewhat as I can't remember his exact words, but try this :

"Charlton should have won this game easily. They had four chances to wrap it up in the second half. City's passing was woeful. Goater waved his right foot weakly at the ball and fluked a spoon shot into the net, past Dean Kiely who was unfairly booked in the first half when Goater handled the ball and pretended it was him." (OK I might have made that last bit up, back to the real summary) "Charlton were by far the better team and looked true Premiership class. City were most definitely not Premiership quality and haven't a hope of staying second until the end of the season".

WHAT PLANET WAS HE ON?? Goater did what a striker should do, he connected with the ball and send it goalwards - which is more than Robinson did for their equalised. If our goal was flukey what on earth was theirs? If they had good chances to win it what about ours - Whitley passing instead of shooting, Taylor just failing to connect with a pass, Kiely tipping shots from Goater over the bar?? Even Alan Curbishley, who isn't normally slow to complain if he feels his side should have done better than they did, said that it was a good close game and he was happy with a point. What is the matter with the man???!!??

Still, at least Norwich won the battle of the carrot crunchers, hope Alan Brazil was suitably upset ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

MAR 21 STOCKPORT - MANCHESTER CITY 2-2 (2-1)

Report by: Phil Hartley

Ohhhhhh! It started so brightly. Easy parking, a couple of beers in the Robert Peel, exercising our lungs in a singing competition with County fans (that was a draw too). Standing upright behind the goal. Blues everywhere around the ground, great atmosphere. A goal after 7 minutes.... But all in all it was a very disappointing evening. City started with the same team that had earned a point against Charlton, but for Granville replacing an injured Tiatto. Tony Grant took Granville's spot on the bench, otherwise it was as you were.

The game started at a rapid pace with the ball seemingly a hot potato, as neither side was able to hold onto it for more than a couple of seconds. But then Kennedy decided he'd try and skin his marker, which he did with ease. His cross was headed back across goal by Bob Taylor and up popped Jamie Pollock to side foot in from close range. A simple, but classic goal. It's a shame that the blues quickly forgot the best way to attack County. The game reverted to a frantic affair, but it was noticeable that County were coming away with virtually every 50-50 ball. City were far too frantic; Bishop couldn't exert his influence and consequently we lost all shape. Danny Granville was all over the place, not in a positive way I hasten to add. He was making pointless runs, being dragged out of position and generally looked all at sea. Kennedy tried a 'cheeky' back heel in midfield, which was intercepted and with one pass, Ian Moore broke free of our 'offside trap'. Wiekens chased gamely but was nowhere near catching his man, as Moore placed the ball wide of Weaver. Oh well maybe we'd start playing now!

Unfortunately we didn't start to play and indeed, we probably got worse. I've noticed over the last few weeks that if we concede a goal, we seem to try and force the issue and get one back straight away. Now that's Ok, so long as we keep our shape and continue to play football, but we don't! The ball is launched in the general direction of the opposition's goal, bypassing midfield and not using the flanks. This sort of ball is food and drink to a decent centre half pairing and Flynn and Gannon were decent on the night. We run forward with no particular purpose until the ball comes back at us, with usually only Wiekens or Jobson in our half of the field. Weaver made a double save from yet another County quick break, but it looked as if we were going to get in at half time all square. Until that is, the ball hit Mike Flynn's back from a corner and it was 2-1 to our Stockport chums! Following the first 7 minutes our first half performance was poor. Only Jamie Pollock looked up for the battle and he did his best to tackle, show composure and score another goal. It was a shame that he was still criticised by several blues around me.

The first period of the second half was more of the same, as County nearly hit us on the break again. However, following the introduction of Dickov for Bishop and the injury to Jim Gannon in the County defence, we finally began to play a bit. As the game wore on Kennedy became more of a force and (sometimes with 3 markers) was able to deliver a decent quota of crosses. Finally it clicked: Stockport were uncomfortable when defending crosses! We created a few very decent chances. Jobson had a powerful header saved, Carlo Nash diverted at least 3 crosses which were heading towards City forwards. Finally from an excellent cross from Edghill on the right, Jobson headed powerfully into the bottom corner. 11 minutes to go. Time for a winner. Still we pressed and Jeff Whitley had a fairly weak shot cleared off the line. County hit us on the break right at the end, but 2-2 it stayed.

A draw was definitely the 'right' result based on the performance of both teams, but for us it has got to be viewed as another 2 points dropped. We created chances at the end, but overall this was a mediocre performance. As mentioned above, Pollock played well, Kennedy did well for the last 20 mins or so, Dickov did OK from the bench, but that was it really. Granville was very disappointing and didn't appear to contribute anything to the game. The lack of pace/organisation of the centre of our defence was exposed yet again. But overall what was most disappointing is that we didn't get the basics right or do the simple things. We won so many games earlier in the season 1-0 down to dogged defending and hitting back on the break or from a set piece. Now we are playing rush football and leaving ourselves wide open at the back. Not so long ago, we passed through midfield and Bishop was able to dictate the pace of the game. Not tonight! Our first goal was from a cross, but we failed to get the ball wide again until 20 minutes from the end, when we again caused Stockport problems. Today JR has bid for Spencer Prior from Derby, who on the basis he signs (and is fit!), will probably replace Wiekens on Saturday. However, a 'new centre half' will not be the answer; we need to get back to basics- play the ball through midfield, to the flanks, pass and move, run at the opposition with the ball (hope Tiatto is fit for Saturday), attack as a team and defend as a team. Get that right and we can still 'do it'. No more slip ups at home and at least 2 away wins, will I feel get us there. Fingers crossed.

MAR 25 MANCHESTER CITY - WEST BROMWICH ALB. 2-1 (0-0)

Report by: Phil Hartley

This was the most important game of our season so far. A win would hopefully reignite our self belief and form, allowing us to put together a decent run to (hopefully) secure the holy grail of automatic promotion. Failure to win would mean a reassessment of our ambitions viz: forget auto-promotion and keep an eye out over our shoulders to ensure we don't miss out on a playoff place.

New boy Spencer Prior as widely predicted, replaced Wiekens, but I was surpised and concerned to note that he wasn't even on the bench. Discarded by Royle? Thankfully it appears that illness rather than anything more sinister kept Gerard off the bench. Tiatto was back in place of Bishop, otherwise it was the same team who started against Stockport. However, again adding to my concern, Kennedy was on the right, Tiatto on the left wing infront of Granville. The bench seemed top-heavy with central midfielders with Grant, Bishop and Horlock jostling for space with Tommy Wright and Paul Dickov.

The game started not at the usual 'first 10 minutes' breakneck speed that we have become accustomed to, but at a very lethargic and yes I'm afraid, apprehensive and nervous looking pace - from both sides. Lee Hughes was clearly the Baggies' dangerman, constantly looking to break, although in the main the added pace of Prior kept him pretty much under control. Kennedy and Pollock both hit the woodwork in quick succession, but it failed to raise the team or the game. I really don't like Kennedy on the right hand side. I feel that it was a fair idea to try it as an experiment (first time against Palace), but quite clearly it doesn't work. Yes Kennedy had a couple of shots in the first half, but that was his only contribution in the first half. It was almost laughable that again in quick succession, firstly Kennedy the left footer, failed to get in a cross from the right and then Pollock the right footer, also failed but from the left! Tiatto probably wasn't fully fit, similar to Robert Taylor who looked very out of sorts. He was probably delighted to be subbed at half time. Dickov replaced the aforementioned Taylor at the start of the second half and Kennedy seemed to have a more roving role.

West Brom's defence had looked very shaky to say the least, but we failed to put them under any sustained pressure despite dominating possession as usual. The longer the game went on the more apprehensive our players looked. Three or 4 touches were taken to control a ball, when a first time pass was called for. There was no vision, no running off the ball and little danger for the West Brom goal. Then almost inevitably, Lee Hughes got the ball wide on the left, turned Prior and curled in an astounding shot over the despairing dive of Weaver. It really was a great goal. Shortly afterwards, Weaver saved well at the feet of Hughes but then lost the ball. A 'comical' few seconds ensued including a possible penalty shout for WBA, but thankfully nothing was given. Tony Grant replaced Granville and at last there was a little more impetus going forward.

From a free kick 30 yards from goal, Grant rolled the ball to Kennedy who shot through a crowd of players. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one suprised when the ball hit the back of the net. 15 minutes or so to go. Had we left it too late for a winner? Straight from the restart it was as if the whole team had been substituted. We did play with vision, we did move off the ball, we did play one and two touch passes. We played as we should have done from the start of the game. When the 4th official showed that there was but 2 minutes of added time left, most of us thought that a point was the best we were going to get. But Dickov twisted and turned in the box and fired in a low cross which the Goat sidefooted into the net. Cruel maybe on West Brom, but absolutely vital for us. Cue delirium, in the stands, on the pitch and on the bench. At this stage of the season results are the be all and end all and this game summed it up really. For 75 minutes we were poor - probably still better than West Brom, but poor nonetheless. In the final 15 minutes we looked more like our old selves. If the team can reproduce that last 15 minutes for much longer periods in the games to come, then we've still got a great chance of achieving what we all want. I must admit until the second goal went in, for the first time I was having very real doubts about our chances and even considering whether Royle was losing it. If Royle wants to play both Kennedy and Tiatto (and I think he should), then either Tiatto must replace Granville, (who although not doing anything wrong of late, has not really contributed a great deal either), or play him inside. I've no problem with Kennedy switching wings during a game, but he MUST NOT be played as a right sided winger, it's a waste. Additionally I don't think the Whitley/ Pollock combination works. Currently Jamie is the better player and can offer more going forward, so for me Whitley should be replaced by one of our ball players. I would like to see Grant on the right of midfield, as I believe he has played there for Everton. Worth a try surely? Dickov had his most effective 45 minutes for many, many weeks and was far better today than Taylor. I still stand by my assertion that Taylor will be very good player for City, but probably not this season due to his lack of fitness/injuries. It is exceedingly tight now, although our destiny is still in our own hands. Swindon is another 'must win' game and it will be interesting to see which team City play both in terms of personnel and attitude/confidence.

by Svenn A. Hanssen, svenn@hanssen.priv.no