CITY 1 MAN CITY 3
Report by Eddie Blount
Before the game there was some discussion as to whether the par score for this game would be 0-5 or 0-4. After all the opposition would figure prominently in anyone’s top 10 of world football clubs at the present time. Although Man City rang the changes their starting XI still included a full set of internationals, nearly all of them household names, whereas City were somewhat weakened by the changes Pearson made with more than one eye on the crucial game on Sat away at QPR. De Laet was replaced by Wasilewski, Moore by Miquel, James by King and Vardy by Taylor-Fletcher.
The first half was embarrassingly one-sided and therefore excruciatingly boring. For most of the time you might have heard a pin drop in spite of a season’s high attendance of over 31 000. Man City were simply far, far too good for us.
An aggressive footballing side might just have stood a chance but we were much too nice to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in and Man City took full advantage of our ill-advised respect. The longer the game stood at 0-0 the more chance we had of an upset, so you can imagine the feelings of the crowd as we duly conceded the early goal which would leave us virtually without hope. Since we do this in every away game we should not have been surprised.
In fact the game was over in just 10 minutes. Knockaert failed to cut out a pass when he allowed the ball to run under his foot, tried to make up for his error with a poorly timed tackle and conceded the inevitable free kick some 25 yards out and level with Schmeichel’s right post. Against this sort of opposition you simply don’t make that sort of mistake. Kolarov’s splendid free kick almost produced a stupendous save from Schmeichel but the ball found the top right corner of his goal. Match over!
Unfortunately Knockaert’s loss of possession set up their second goal just before half time. A quick thrust down their left ended with a cross deflected to Dzeko some two yards out. His simple header rendered the rest of the game irrelevant. It was fitting he should score as he had already gone close on two occasions whilst we had failed to muster a single shot of any kind. In fact we had to wait until 50 minutes had passed before King’s weak effort from inside the box opened our shots count.
Pearson made two changes at the interval bringing on James, who had an excellent second half , and Vardy for Knockaert and Taylor-Fletcher. Man City quickly responded by moving out of sight. A quick throw caught several City players unforgiveably napping and it was only necessary to cross from the byline to give Dzeko the chance to bulge the net from the edge of the box.
Credit to City that this was to be the lowest point to which we sank. We immediately began to show some spirit, driven on by Drinkwater and James, plus to a lesser extent King, and the crowd responded at this show of defiance. On 75 minutes we actually got a goal back, an event that had seemed impossible in that turgid first half. Dyer, who had some useful moments throughout the game, was put in on goal at a tight angle and his deflected shot beat Hart at his near post.
We then had our best spell of the match and actually had the better of the last 15 minutes without really looking like getting a second. Man City eased to the finish in a degree of comfort and whatever cup it was we were in we were now out! Few reputations were enhanced but City’s Man of the Match was Kasper Schmeichel which tells you all you want to know.
City: Schmeichel, Wasilewski, Morgan, Miquel, Konchesky, Drinkwater, King, Knockaert(James 45), Dyer, Taylor-Fletcher (Vardy 45), Nugent (Schlupp 68)
Man City: Hart, Zabaleta (Boyata 12), Kolarov, Rodwell, Kompany, Lescott, Navas, Garcia, Dzeko, Silva (Nasri 70), Milner
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation