Sunday 27 April 2008

City 2 - 3 Fulham, reflections

  • I'm writing the report on this game for the next edition of King of the Kippax, so apologies if you end up reading any of these points again in August when it comes out.

  • I have never been so confident that City would win a game. In the sixty-ninth minute, before Corluka decided to let Kamara run round him, Fulham looked like they could have played for weeks and not scored. And, under the patterns of play at the time, they would not have.

  • To almost contradict what I wrote above. I wrote in my notes on 63 minutes "Ole-ing, too early". Yes, I thought we would win at this point. But the hubristic mocking of a desperate opponent, with almost one third of the match remaining, does not feel right. If you saw another team do it on Match of the Day you'd say that they deserved to be brought down. I love being proved right, but not this time.

  • I didn't really care when Kamara scored the winner. By that point we'd already thrown away a two goal lead, and missed five good chances to win it. When we lost the ball that final time, it felt like a loss. Kamara scoring only confirmed what I already felt.

  • During a nine minute period (83-92), City missed six wonderful chances. Six! We played our best attacking football for months in that time. Geovanni, Geovanni, Petrov, Benjani, Caicedo and Petrov were the culprits. Each one worse than the last. And with a cumulative build-up of frustration and fear. I think those misses hurt more than their winner.

  • We played really well! We defended effectively for seventy minutes. Seeing Corluka school David Healy wasn't even funny. We attacked, for the whole ninety, with real creativitiy and verve. On another day we would have won 5-0! After Sunderland (should have lost) and Portsmouth (could have lost), I can see that it's fair. But it still sucks.

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