Leyton Orient 10 January 2009

City 0 Crystal Palace 0

The pre-match odds were the same for a City win as for a Palace win, suggesting that punters found this one hard to call.  And there proved to be little to choose between the teams in the match itself.

Fryatt’s injury forced City into a new formation for their starting line-up: 4-5-1, with Gilbert, Hobbs, Tunchev and Mattock at the back, Gradel, Davies, King, Berner and Dyer in midfield and Howard alone up front. 

The first half produced few chances. The referee, Graham Laws, was kept busy with a number of petty fouls and Palace being caught regularly offside.  City had far more possession, and closed down well in midfield.  Palace resorted to poor quality long-range shots, breaks from defence and route-one clearances to their forwards which were all easily dealt with by the Leicester centre-backs.  Indeed a couple of blocked half-chances for Hobbs aside, there was no shot on target by either team in the first half. 

City’s closest opportunity was on 30 minutes, when the ball was rolled to Mattock from a free-kick 20-yeards out and his shot arrowed narrowly beyond the far left-hand post.

So, 0-0 at half-time, and City’s game plan seemed to be working fairly well against higher-league opposition.  Palace were firm and physical, but had produced no chances.  Howard was winning almost every header, and generally holding the ball up well, but there had been no real spark to create any clear-cut chances....

A bit about you:

Name: Andrew Hill 

Current home town: Croydon      Birthplace: Derby

How long have you supported your team? 20 years

Overview of your club:

Favourite thing about your home ground: Atmosphere

Favourite match played by your team & why: Beating Charlton this season , we haven't won against them for quite awhile . They sent us down from the Premiership when we last played there.

Favourite player of all time who played for your club: Attillo Lombardo

About our forthcoming match against you:

Your favourite current player in your squad and why? Shefki Kuqi , who has much improved since last season.....