God may have blessed us with Banoffee pie, Newcy Brown, Elvis, and The Legend of Zelda series of games, but he only truly peaked with the creation of last minute winners!

By: Martyn | August 10th, 2008

Every single win, be it a 31-0 thrashing or a jammy, undeserved sucker punch steal is rewarded with exactly the same prize: 3 points. Such logic applies in all aspects of life: If you work 80 hour weeks for 20 years before you finally earn your fortune, Sod’s Law dictates that you’ll still end up financially equal to someone who only ventures from the sofa once a week to buy a (jackpot winning) lottery ticket. By no means was the performance today a disaster but then by no means was it ever entirely convincing. The fixture was played in the kind of driving rain that reduces even the most mild-mannered into a frenzied swearing fiend. Our game was not fluent in any sense of the word, bitty being a more appropriate descriptive term. However we picked up more of the pieces than Soton did so you could straightforwardly make a case for the win being warranted. That quarterly trip to the offy to enter the Lotto might just pay off come the end of the campaign when the numbers are totted up so its a sly grin that shapes my lips this evening. Here’s how I felt the 13 City players involved fared today, grouped under labels representing the good and bad of the chocolate world!

Toblerone

Ross McCormack looks like a wholly-carved Premier League player, and boy, he don’t half play like one too. It’d be exaggerating to say that his performance today bordered on the outstanding, but when talents are bestowed with as much giftedness as this young Scot, the performance doesn’t have to be that superlative to still be appreciated and effectual. McCormack was at the hub of our first real pass and move (26) which resulted in one of those hanging in the air jumping-the-gun-to-celebrate strikes! Likewise, although it was highly obvious that our strikers were not used to playing with one another just yet, McCormack belied his young age and newbie tag to show intelligence in link-up play on more than one occasion – an attitude that suggests he’ll force and forge a telepathic link in the event that it naturally occurring takes longer than he’d like. Delicate of touch, light of balance, darts of poignancy and purpose and goals-in-waiting: McCormack gets even the most lardy of rear-ends off their seats! Delving further back into the defence, I had thought that Mark Kennedy looked thoroughly average in the first half, my thoughts justified by one hopeless cross when he found himself in a penetratingly perfect position. However, come the end of the second period my thoughts had changed – Kennedy was easily one of our better players. When Soton finally and permanently placed a foot in the game’s shoe, Kennedy was like a spider’s web to all the flies that buzzed in. For someone not supposedly a natural full-back, positionally Kennedy shone, covering his own flank and ensuring the centre-halves were never exposed. Although Nathan Dyer showed that he had the potential to be a tricky customer, the young hoodlum never beat Kennedy on the inside and grasped the chance to fire in one of those crosses that makes you contemplate running on the pitch yourself to stop it as you can see it’s so obviously gonna result in a goal. Like the one for Southampton’s goal then, pretty much. The ex-Crystal Palace man had his efforts epitomised midway through the second half with an excellent tackle which halted a deadly Soton break in its tracks. More of the same anyway please Mr Kennedy! Kevin McNaughton was officially deemed to be MOTM, but although his performance was unquestionably a good one I still felt the first two names on this list were more worthy winners. Nevertheless, Kev is one for the casual viewer and attention-drifting child with his eye-catching tracking-back dispossessing tackle technique. The kind Sky Sports editors just love to use in montages glorifying the supposedly steely English game. McNaughton was never exactly placed under Robbie Coltrane sized pressure, but even if he was, you just know he’d handle it in his personalised swashbuckling manner. Jay Bothroyd may only have been in the cavalry from the bench berth, but he I felt he showed enough in the first glimpse to justify a decent rating. There’s no doubt that as this was home performance, the new recruit was a little more pumped, psyched and willing than he normally would be, but sod that – Bothroyd looked potent. He read the game as easily as an adult would tackle a pre-school book (in one instance being able to totally escape the shackles of his marker), showed that he’s stronger than a swimmer’s appetite, and to top it off, he gets his head on everything inbound directing it with vision and deftness. A pleasing cameo.

Dairy Milk

Steve Thompson may have scored the sumptuous opener (inadvertently assisting himself too!), but the irony in this was that the rest of his game was missing today rather than the normally absent goal! Showed a few neat touches but was not able to link up with strike partner McCormack often enough. Rightly replaced by Bothroyd as we were chasing the game. Stephen McPhail and Gavin Rae saw the game bypass them in terms of dictation. When at a restaurant you want a waiter to bring the orders to the table. At Cardiff City, McPhail and Rae are the team’s waiters who must provide the service to the more attack-minded 4 customers. As it was, Saints harassing and ripe for swatting nature meant that we were forced to drop deep and our attackers received more of the ball than the waiters: They were forced go into the kitchens to collect their dishes themselves. As a result we never flowed and McPhail and Rae must do more to get involved in the 45 upcoming clashes. When we find ourselves in the sea, the only way we’ll get out of it is by swimming to the shore, not doggy-paddling and hoping the current carries us! The one time the pair did carve a chance after a neat move together Rae hopelessly spooned and sliced the shot. Sigh. The pair redeemed themselves marginally with some resolve and bite in the middle of the park when Saints were on the go-to. Some of Roger Johnson’s backpasses in the first half were hair-tearingly frustrating and awful. Equally, his passing is still atrocious, Johnson opting for the hoof rather than playing the ball to someone. Nevertheless, the fan favourite stormed up the field to bury the winner and dealt with nearly everything the Southampton attack threw at us and for this we can only commend and salute him!

Out-of-date Chomp

Although Tom Heaton was left to deal with some woeful backpasses, the cat-calling and sarcastic cheering of the Saints fans seemed to play on his mind and he never looked confident when called into action. Most of his kicking ended up in the Bob Bank Terrace, Grandstand, or trickling harmless out for a corner. Thankfully, Soton never launched a full-scale assault so his net wasn’t as peppered as much as it could have been. Improvement in the kicking department and a steelier mind is urgently required. Glenn Loovens wasn’t so much bad, more uninspired. Lucky to get his chance after the Ajax horror-show, the Dutchman was one of the main culprits for the lacklustre backpassing that blighted the opening half hour. Perhaps the team need to get acquainted with the Yazoo song ‘The Only Way Is Up’, the lyric being altered minimally to inform the team that the only way to play is upfield! Dived in with a few team-saving tackles, but not as dominant or involved as we know he can be. Perhaps he’s feeling a hangover of Rangers’ midweek Champions League blunder? Joe Ledley and Peter Whittingham did their turn as the Ugly Sisters in the pantomime. Hopelessly marooned, isolated and half-asleep, the latter was even at fault for their goal as he allowed his man to nutmeg him and leave us exposed. Ledley was perhaps the most guilty of the pair – he seemed reluctant to shoot on any occasion, had a touch heavier than a night out with Motley Crue in 1987, and his passing used little of his imagination and even less of his concentration. These two need to get stuck in and fast as more performances like this will be simply unacceptable.

Haribo

Yes, I know this isn’t a type of chocolate, but it was so difficult to decipher Paul Parry’s performance after a late arrival that I’ve sought to stick him under a type of confectionery yet not one of the chocolate variety. For a start, why the Welsh wizard omitted in the first place? He should have started in place of the ineffectual Whittingham. Although Whittingham might whip in a far better cross, Parry will offer you far more over the course of 90 minutes. The ex-Hereford man doesn’t go AWOL for large stretches of the game, and as work ethics go, he’s twice the man that Whittingham is. His tireless running and overall contribution is a far better asset to the team than the one or two sparks a certain ex-villain provides.

So there we are…

After watching Southampton toil, there is absolutely no doubting the fact that we’ll face far, far superior opposition this season. And there is absolutely no doubting the fact that they’ll face far, far superiorly ruthless opposition this season. Saints made up for their deficiency in quality with bags of energetic, in-yer-face persistence and running, ensuring that our midfield players never got a chance to dictate and harrying our central defenders to the extent that our team was forced to drop deep, tuck and cram in, and thus not get our passing game going. They played a more ambitious 4-4-2 than I thought they might but without posing a serious regular goal threat, the formation becomes somewhat irrelevant. The most impressive man for Saints by a countrified mile was Michael Svensson. Positionally sound and aerially commanding, the man from Scandinavia – who owing to injury last played a first team game back in November 2005 – was at the heart of the battle throughout and in terms of physicality and space absorsing, he was more like one of those absurdly large marrows people take along to village fayres than a plain old Swede. I still stand by my prediction of mid-table for the Hampshire side, if only because they missed their suspended main goal threat today in Stern John and he could prove to be the fairy on top of their Christmas tree. I’ll give the Saints a ‘C‘ grade – Hassling and arsed, but could so easily be hassled and outclassed.

As for City, it’s a ‘B‘ grade. Onwards and upwards, one would hope. It’s a midweek 1st round Carling Cup tie next away at AFC Bournemouth, so expect more reserve (players) than the archaic idea of a British gentleman chaperoning a young lady on a date. Regardless, I’m excitedly and expectantly counting down the hours ’til I board the early morning coach to Donny next week, nodding like a gimmicky car rear-window dog as I glance at the pleasing 4th spot we currently occupy!