City 1 Luton 1
City fans sat through another uncomfortable afternoon’s football at the Walkers Stadium on Saturday as the Foxes battled for a point with Luton.
Following some mild optimism before the game as a result of fresh faces coming in, the crowd saw both Mark Yeates and Geoff Horsfield make their City debuts. The optimism didn’t last long. In a scrappy, dour, dull game neither side did enough to deserve the win although both had chances to steal the points before the end.
Milan Mandaric was in the directors’ box to watch hopefully his last game before the boardroom situation is resolved. The enforced sale of Gareth Williams being the only way of enabling Rob Kelly to bring in three loan signings before the transfer window closed is testament to the club’s current precarious financial position.
City began the better of the two sides after an early scare and Iain Hume had a chance to put them ahead after 6 minutes having controlled the recalled Johansson’s through ball. His shot was saved by Beresford but new boy Yeates was in the right place at the right time to score with his first touch for the club.
Sadly the winger had little further chance to make any impression aside from a few neat touches in midfield.
Luton’s plans were upset early on by the replacement of Lewis Emanuel with Dean Morgan after 9 minutes due to injury. Overall City had the better of the opening 20 minutes after being buoyed by their early goal….
The Hatters pressed forwards though and created a decent chance on 27 minutes, Runstrom encouraging the crowd to question the location of his caravan and length of his hair by putting a good chance over from ten yards. Worse was to follow 4 minutes later as the same man was guilty of a shocking miss, volleying over from only 5 yards out. The pressure told after 33 minutes however when Morgan easily beat Andy Johnson in the air and put Bell’s free kick past Henderson to make it 1-1.
The crowd then witnessed a bizarre half time entertainment performance as leotard clad men stood in front of the kids in the west stand and gave them all a selection of ideas around how to remove a limb/get 3rd degree burns by tieing lit fireworks to the end of a rope and swinging it around your head.
The second half got underway however City somehow seemed to have even less ideas going forward than in the first period. Horsfield put in a decent display up front considering he has not had many games recently, and looked like he might be a good acquisition if only to control some of the wayward long balls which invariably get served up to Hume and Fryatt/Hammond by the City defence.
The problem was again a lack of anyone taking responsibility in midfield, despite the alleged “man of the match” performance by Andy Johnson on his return from injury. Whilst he was undoubtedly better than on many occasions in a City shirt, a man of the match performance it certainly was not. City were too often ball watching as Luton battled in midfield, and there is only so much time a central midfielder can spend pointing and shouting to his teammates without actually putting some tackles in himself.
Poor delivery from set pieces also cost City, highlighted in the 75th minute when 3 consecutive corners failed to result in a single chance on the Luton goal. A goalmouth scramble almost saw City take the points in stoppage time however they weren’t able to put the ball into the net.
For both teams the objective is now survival in the Championship, a situation only too familiar to City fans over the past few years.
Let’s hope the boardroom wranglings result in a decisive outcome sooner rather than later. 16 points from 16 games may be enough to keep City in the division, but a performance lasting longer than 20 minutes will be required, hopefully beginning at Portman Road next week.
City: Henderson, Maybury, Kisnorbo, McAuley, Johansson, Yeates, Hughes, Johnson, Porter, Horsfield, HumeSubs: Hammond (76 for Yeates), Stearman (63 for Hughes), Kenton, Cadamarteri, Logan
Luton: Beresford, Foley, Keane, Perrett, Davis, Bell, Robinson, Spring, Emanuel, Runstrom, TalbotSubs: Langley (79 for Bell), Morgan (9 for Emanuel), Boyd (79 for Talbot), Asafu-Adjaye, Brill
Referee: M Thorpe (Suffolk), Attendance: 20, 410
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