City use (Keep)moat to stave off attacks to Heaton’s castle but forget and fail to take Don’s King in the process.

By: Martyn | August 17th, 2008

So it continues: The last time City tasted defeat was in the FA Cup final. Our 100% start to the season - continuing a successfully undefeated pre-season - was maintained yesterday with a draw at lowly but plucky (patronising and condescending: Why the hell not?) Doncaster Rovers. After 5 rather hungover, mundane, irritable and unmemorable hours on the road getting to the damn venue itself; hours spent reading every Fleet Street offering cover-to-cover, predicting scores for the games in every division that was humanely possible, and praying to every God, deity and holy being that Darren Purse wouldn’t chuck deodorant cans on the fire like he normally does, the coach journey was palpably more pleasurable on the way back after yet another last minute equalizer from the boys in blue!

Much like Hugh Hefner knows how to treat a lady (money, big house, and freedom with the aforementioned pair), this current City team know how to treat their fans. Hell, why take the lead and be pegged back when we can steal their thunder after looking clueless for 89 minutes!? Yesterday’s point-redeemer was a goal greeted with grown men tumbling down the stairs from as far back as row N, such was their determination to goad the 7 or so Rovers fans game for a spot of banter, joyous celebratory scenes reminiscent of those last seen after certain special strikes from Andy Campbell and Scott Young, and the highly annoying pisshead next to me® - his constant bothersome stumbling, gurgling and attempts to get the “Harold Shipman is our friend” chant going really failed to portray what I’m sure was the genius that lay beneath the beer and whiz shield - proceeding to hug me in a manner that was semi-Juliet to my 20 second transformation into Romeo, borderline-rape, and nigh-on love.

Hereto, as much as you wanted to say “Sod it, the beer was good (Stones – highly recommended), the away support vocal and fantastic, the meat and potato was 8/10 tasty, Scimeca is back, Darren Purse was half decent, Dave Jones actually shifted the formation to something resembling a 4-3-3 when the need occurred (ok, quarter of an hour after the need occurred) and we got a point against a team who play the game the right way©” you were struck down all of a sudden by the overpowering truth and realisation that the match was dour, the home fans were rubbish (they were so static, uninspiring and hushed at times it felt like watching the crowd as you play on any instalment in any computer game football series ever. All it needed was someone waving a flag in the same motion, direction and pace for the duration of the entire game), the stadium a boring bland breezeblock-heavy nightmare, the performance inept and a 3-point banker (not that I’d have said this before the game, but after seeing Doncaster treat the ball like one of the Mitchell brothers treats a wife, we really should have seized the burgeoning and eventually gaping initiative) didn’t actually yield 3 points.

After creating very little other than a brief period three-quarters into the first half, the equalizer was to a certain extent lucky and almost unexpected – McCormack eventually blasting the ball into the empty net. To use an oft-heard cliché - we got out of jail. In doing so however we didn’t go Great Escape style: building a tunnel after excellent and inspiring usages of craft, guile, determination and skill. Nope, it was more like the guard accidentally dropping the key into our cell and then us escaping as he dozed off in the chair by the door with the TV on blaring in the background and an empty 75cl bottle of Wray & Nephew nestling nonchalantly on his privates (as all guards do. Says who? Says my big brother Hollywood, that’s who…). Actually, perhaps my metaphor offers a slight overreaction for purposes of comedic value: we played our part by throwing a stick in the guard’s path that resulted in him tripping up, being knocked unconscious, and thus allowing the key to sail soaringly in the air through the cell bars. Rejoice, incarceration escaped!

Never at any point did we use the ball, never did we overexert ourselves, never did we grab the game by the scruff of the neck – all we got was feeble attempts at hopelessly grabbing their shirt before promptly loosening the grip and apologising profusely for such uncharacteristic and non-gentleman like conduct and behaviour. Ho hum.

We failed to caster side Rovers (beg my pardon, I had to overload this piece with puns at some point), and it’s another week spent prefacing every City performance related answer with the words “Yeah, but surely we could have…”. This week I’ve grouped City’s players in categories of Brazilian international goalkeepers.

Taffarel

Darren Purse was our only strong, fully involved and consistent performer today, but even he was at fault for the goal after deciding to have his siesta on the pitch during the 69th minute. That extremely costly blip aside, Purse was authoritative, composed and a real battler.

Adrian Basso

Jay Bothroyd showed a few neat touches after coming on, and some argy-bargy ensured he got an assist for our late goal. He still needs to be given more time in order to make an impact goals wise mind. His fellow substitute, Steven Thompson, was the man City fans were calling for long before his arrival. Now and again, Thommo really does look like a Premier League player so good is his touch and yard-finding. Despite the minimal time he was given to make an impact he did his best to bridge the midfield and striking gap, and played a crucial part in the goal. Peter Whittingham tried a lot harder than he normally does and actually looked like he gave two sh*ts yesterday afternoon. Infuriated at times with his inability to whip in a quick cross with his right foot but overall, this was far improved and he drifted out of the game less than he normally does. Nevertheless, it’s still only a leap from 20% to 50%, so keep at it Whitts. Ross McCormack did a lot of running as per, but other than his goal had little to show for his afternoon up in windy South Yorkshire. Riccardo Scimeca looked rusty and as we know already, doesn’t quite do the gut-busting running that Rae does, Mark Kennedy looked amazingly average once again (in the safe cheese and tomato sandwiches in the buffet type of way) despite having to do deal with more attacks coming down his side than the other, and Roger Johnson looked less confident without a certain long-haired daisy from the Netherlands by his side.

Dida

Kevin McNaughton thankfully wasn’t troubled that often because he didn’t look like he wanted to get involved. When he did get involved, it was to fall asleep and allow Lewis Guy through to net Donny’s goal. Real handy, that. Perhaps its unfair to stick Tom Heaton down here in the basement as he was relatively untested. However, his kicking remains awful - even when he’s under no pressure whatsoever - and is a matter that needs to be urgently sorted out. We can’t keep giving the ball back to the opposition so needlessly. Paul Parry, one close first-half effort aside was absent and futile. The partnership with McCormack really failed to get going and never linked up with the midfield at all other than for a very brief spell. Miguel Commingues looked very much out of place and unsure after coming on in the full-back position: Perhaps he would rather have played further upfield? Stephen McPhail was watching clouds, looking for bugs in the grass and mentally writing his shopping list for the Tesco trip he had planned in the week. Well, maybe not… but whatever he was doing it certainly wasn’t shepherding and dominating the Cardiff City midfield. The game totally passed him by and unless he had discovered just that morning that he has a newfound allergy to the materials used to make footballs his performance was unacceptable. Last but not least, I’m pretty certain Joe Ledley was actually back in Cardiff and a cardboard cut-out like the one in the old John Smith’s adverts had instead taken his place.

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Norwich City are next up at home, and Sheffield United away is in a fortnight’s time. I dislike stating beforehand how many points I’d settle for from games such as these, but I’ll disobey myself and say I’d take 4. Any less would be unacceptable, any more would be wonderfully received. Onwards and upwards it is, and hopefully players-coming-in news is imminent!