Posted by Rijs on September 19, 2009, 9:53 pm
Not sure whether to question Mike Ford's initial team selection or praise his substitutions, but City wouldn't have scored in six hours against a well-organised Tivvy defence today while playing Craig Faulconbridge on his own up front. Craig needs a partner to flick or lay it off to, and with no-one else there, all City's long balls forward were wasted. This made for an utterly tedious first half. In the second they kept the ball down and passed it more, though quite a few passes were still going astray, even from Sav. It wasn't till Lee Steele came on that we started to look lively up front, and by that time poor Craig was tiring. Mark Janes was a bfreath of fresh air. Great ball from Liam, who had a good game, to set Mark off on the run that led to the goal. Cool finish by Lee stood out in a game where everyone else seemed in too much of a hurry.
Good performances from Clarke, Gunn and Baird meant that Tivvy didn't get many chances to score and it was pleasing to see Andy G. returning to form, looking very solid. Overall, man of the match for me was once again Andy Baird--what a good start to the season he has had, in a rich vein of form at the moment at both ends of the park. But a number of others were off the pace today so we struggled to beat a team below us. At the end I suppose we just about deserved the win because we were the better team in the second half, but it was a close call. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I'm sure most people watching today (and there weren't many there, certainly not 200) will agree that if we play like that again next week our cup run will come to an abrupt halt.
Still, by then maybe Fish will be back and fresh, and Andy Ballard returned from injury so there will be some competition for places. Today we couldn't even fill the subs' bench!
Message Thread:
« Back to thread