The Championship – 22/10/2007

Phil Brown is developing into a man capable of delivering surprises. Perhaps he was underestimated – not the uncomplicated manager who wanted to be one of the lads, but actually their leader. Trooping out of Vicarage Road on Saturday, the reaction among the majority of City fans was reasonably upbeat despite the defeat.

Not Phil Brown; he took a less charitable view of his players’ efforts. It almost looked a little harsh, a trifle short of understanding, a bit short of patience. Two days later, those same players proved his response to Saturday’s loss to be entirely vindicated. Maybe these football managers actually do know what they’re doing.

However, Mr Brown’s weekend disappointment did not extend to drastic alterations of his side – admittedly a policy dictated by the unfortunate run of injuries he’s faced with, Okocha, Pederson, Folan, Barmby all still unavailable. Nonetheless only one alteration was made, Dean Windass replacing Stephen McPhee, as the Tigers lined up on a chilly evening at the Circle in a 4-4-2 formation staffed thus: Myhill; Ricketts, TurnerBrown, Delaney; Garcia, Marney, Livermore, Hughes; Deano, Campbell.

City began the match attacking the North Stand, home to a handful of City fans and a modest Barnsley support…and it was the multinational visitors, flirting with the play-offs after an unexpectedly bright start to the season, who made the more fluent start, knocking the ball about smoothly in unthreatening areas for the first five or six minutes.

Then City scored.

It was a peach too, as Windass collected the ball in midfield and slid a perfect – literally, perfect – pass to Frazier Campbell, who cheerily bounded clear of his leaden-footed defensive guardian. He glided towards goal, and his low crisp finish was a beauty. It brought to mind Theodore Whitmore’s immaculate pass into the goal at Rochdale some time ago, insofar as there was absolutely no question he’d score.

He did, a lovely goal, and Tigers led. Barnsley’s previous swagger crumpled more pitifully than a Charlton player in a stiff breeze, and our zippy Old Trafford loanee was terrorising the visitor’s panic-stricken back four.

He nearly doubled our lead as City poured forward once more, stretching to reach a shot that he could only direct at the tremendously-named Barnsley goalkeeper Heinz Muller.

There was no respite however, and on 18 minutes Campbell made it two-nil the Tigers – this time collecting the ball outside the area, merrily skipping through sequence of hopelessly feeble challenges before shifting the ball right and thumping it leftwards past the flailing limbs of Herr Muller.

The City fans celebrated wildly, rejoicing at this quite marvellous act of skill from a fabulously talented young player, and Barnsley were beaten already.

Pity their fans then, facing up to another 72 minutes of this. Or don’t. It was fine viewing for the Tiger Nation however, and City – marshalled by Livermore in midfield – slowed the game down a little and kept possession astutely, robbing their opponents of any chance to establish a platform from which to recover the situation.

City did have a few openings to add a third before the break, a flashing cross from the useful Garcia narrowly evading Deano’s outstretched limb. Meanwhile, Barnsley had a rare foray forward, a deflected free-kick from distance bobbling narrowly wide of Myhill’s right hand post, the City keeper have long since moved himself to the left of the goal. Souza also directed a header into the side-netting, which was probably the most useful thing he did in an evening of comic ineptitude.

However, City comfortably repelled most of Barnsley’s stumbling efforts, and City went into the break 2-0 up – memories of last season’s surreal surrender against the Tykes from a similarly healthy position receding somewhat with our successful negotiation of the closing minutes of the half.

The second half was a more cerebral offering by City, not dissimilar to the ruthless closing out of the game after a two-goal advantage was taken into the interval against Ipswich. With Livermore parking himself deep, Garcia willing to cover Rickett’s bursts forward on the right, Marney running around dementedly (to excellent effect) and both forwards applying pressure to their bewildered adversaries, Barnsley were unable to build any momentum.

Indeed, the superb Livermore nearly added a third early in the half when taking a free-kick on the right from thirty-five yards – he appeared to have totally mishit the cross, but Muller stood and watched the ball trickle just past him, only to react in horror as it pinged his left-hand post. An imaginative effort by Livermore, or a near-fluke? Hard to tell, but the witless reaction of Muller was entirely indicative of a defence that was being given a torrid evening, and knew it.

As City fell back once more however, a little frustration mounted in the East Stand – disappointment at not seeing a hopeless side put to the sword, although City’s understandable wish to station men behind the ball and take no unnecessary risks was pragmatic and sensible, and we looked menacing on the break anyway.

As the game entered its final quarter, Barnsley’s meagre rally finally ended and Campbell nearly had a match ball to show to Alex Ferguson as another splendid Garcia cross found him in space, however he missed his kick and Hughes’ run at the far post was a fraction too late to enable to him to get a clean hit.

McPhee replaced Windass, who’d put in a sterling shift, Marney popped a free-kicked narrowly over and City were now in full control and keenly hunting a third goal, even Damien Delaney rampaging forward before being halted by an ugly challenge from the defeated De Silva. Frazier Campbell then went off to thunderous acclaim, Nicky Featherstone replacing him…and with injury time just beginning the Tigers finally added a third.

McPhee collected possession with only one man between him and the goal and Marney haring forward to his right – his pass was immaculately timed and Marney cracked a thudding drive past Muller to make it 3-0, prompting an exodus in the away end and crows of derision from the buoyant City fans.

A fourth nearly arrived with Barnsley already tapping the mat, Marney finding Featherstone whose shot beat the keeper and appeared to be heading in, but the Barnsley netminder had just got a touch to it and the ball screwed crazily away from goal.

That was the final action of a wonderful game, and as Barnsley slunk off the pitch and away from the harsh glare of the Sky Sports cameras, the City players exchanged high-fives and sundry manifestations of triumph.

Campbell was a joy to behold, the sort of thrilling footballer that makes you want to pay money to watch. Dean Marney was the driving force in midfield we all hoped he might become, David Livermore was the tidying, chivvying influence mopping everything up; Garcia was a constant source of alarm on the wing, Deano was the old warhorse harassing the enemy who’ll be beloved unto infinity, TurnerBrown were impassable, Ricketts and Delaney offering sturdy support to both centre-halves and wingers – it truly was a solid, dedicated, accomplished team performance, and left the assembled Tigerfolk beaming with happiness.

The three points elevate us briefly to tenth, but more importantly mean the Tigers had finally secured a victory to accompany a good performance, have failed to take the points our displays at Crystal Palace and Watford might have meritted.

It also alleviates concerns of being sucked into a relegation battle once more. We look more than good enough to be settling into a midtable berth – it is difficult to imagine there not being three teams worse than the side that has impressed in recent weeks, and likely that at least 8-10 defeat inferior to our own having lined up in this season’s Championship. We look forward to the visit of Sheffield United on Saturday with relish. (AD)

The Championship – 6/10/2007

Observed one City fan during the pre-match fortifications: “at least we know that if they score first, Taylor’ll get all eleven men behind the ball. Then we’ll equalise.”

While one salutes such prescience, correctly predicting Peter Taylor’s battle plans are less soothsaying than they are extrapolation. And it is an unhappy camp that our former manager presides over. Booed off at full-time after collecting an ill-deserved point with only two wins this season, one suspects the patience of the orange cretin who owns Crystal Palace must be close to expiry.

Pushing Taylor closer to the precipice were: Myhill; Ricketts, TurnerBrown, Delaney; Garcia, Livermore, Marney, Pedersen; Windass, Okocha – it meant no place for Hughes with Phil Brown opting to risk Jay Jay despite reports of his stomach injury, Duke, Doyle, Featherstone and McPhee making up the rest of the City bench.

For Crystal Palace, ex-City hero Leon Cort lined up at centre-half while ex-City fish-lipped fadge Stuart Green – now playing for a bigger club, remember – was a substitute.

City kicked off the game attacking the end nearest to the side area where the 850 away fans were huddled, those who’d successfully made it past the ugly row of grim-faced traffic warden-wannabe fascists who seek employment as stewards at Selhurst Park, blocking entry for those they’d suspected of enjoying an alcoholic drink – the horror! – stealing harmless items on some arbitrary list of rules assuredly not advertised on the match ticket, even harassing one fan who dared to take a photograph on the public road outside the ground. What a bunch of total shits.

Anyway, the football…and it a pleasure it was, as City roared into their uncertain-looking opponents, forcing an early rash of corners and nearly taking the lead when a thumping shot from Sam Ricketts forced an excellent flying save from Julian Speroni. However, one man not really contributing to our vibrant start was Jay Jay Okocha, obviously struggling and after thirteen minutes he was withdrawn in favour of Bryan Hughes.

This disrupted City a little, as being shorn out of our primary creative influence understandably had an effect. Palace grew into the game as we looked a little breathless after our fast opening, giving the energetic Jamie Scowcroft and Ben Watson shooting chances that both failed to test Myhill.

Watson was cautioned shortly after for a idiotic lunge on Richard Garcia as he scampered towards goal on the right, and halfway through the opening forty-five we almost took the lead when a fantastic shot by Dean Marney crashed into Speroni’s post and came back out – a wonderful fizzing effort by a player looking uncommonly keen to influence proceedings, and it would have been a deserved lead had we taken it.

However, Peter Taylor teams are at least organised, and although being bested in midfield they look fairly tough at the back, led splendidly by the iconic Leon Cort neither side was unable to create anything else as a quiescent Selhurst Park crowd saw the match gently slip towards to the interval.

Now, let us not get on too much of a downer about our hosts. Their stadium is inferior to ours, but then most at this level are. Their stewards are gimlet-eyed students of National Socialist. Their fans think “facking” is a word. They provide employment for Stuart Green. All of these are not good things, but at one stage, all clubs have been guilty of some or all of these things. However, I can think of no other club that charges £3 for a 2/3 pint of lager.

Sigh.

On with the match, and the home support is roused from its slumber by news of some English egg-chasers beating some convict egg-chasers – a good thing, I suppose, though whether it’s deserving of a chorus of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” from some braying South Londoners is questionable. Anyway, City continued to look the better team, Hughes firing over a very presentable opportunity after terrific work by Dean Windass. Taylor had replaced Jeff Hughes with David Martin at the break, but still torpor continued to afflict our hosts.

Deano was the next to test Spironi with a looping header that caused more alarm than it initially appeared likely to, while Marney wasted a good chance with a timid shot after spotting an opening.

Clinton Morrison came on for the anonymous Paul Dickov, while Stuart Green replaced Ben Watson, and was given a well-earned volley of abuse from the City fans.

A booming header from Leon Cort nearly gave Palace the lead on 63 minutes, but Myhill was fortunately equal to it. As for City, Deano was tiring after a willing display, and he was replaced by Stephen McPhee, who was a usefully lively presence up front.

Palace had a brace of near-misses when Myhill paddled a Soares shot from distance wide and Hudson headed over from the resultant corner, but this was very much an isolated episode and a deathly hush had settled on the ground that was nearly punctured when Bryan Hughes nearly beat Speroni with a curling shot that took a good effort to repel.

However, with ten minutes left, disaster struck. A cross from the left saw Scowcroft cleverly evade his marker and head low and hard past Myhill – a sickening blow with City looking the likelier to score, and it seemed to have gifted Palace a monumentally undeserved win.

Back came the Tigers, urged on by the patient and supportive away end – substitute Hughes was replaced by Featherstone, McPhee clumsily spurned a shooting chance…but with the game in the 90^th minute, a high ball saw Mark Hudson clamber all over Michael Turner, and referee Beeby awarded City a penalty. A foul for certain, although not of the type that frequently sees penalties awarded and the home players were decidedly unimpressed.

Once their squawks of protest had been quelled, Dean Marney stepped up…and calmly sent Speroni the wrong way to spark massive celebrations in the away end.

Indeed, City nearly won it as the game entered the 94^th minute with another penalty claim that looked a trifle ambitious, but Mr Beeby was not about to fall for it and the match was drawn.

A good point – a better performance. With some sharper play in the final third, we’d have won the game comfortably. Some of this is due to Palace, a team cripplingly short on confidence and with a manager on borrowed time, but most of it is because we just looked better than them. Two years ago, we were flicked aside 2-0 at this ground. A year ago, we scrapped our way to a valuable draw. This time around, we leave disappointed with a solitary point.

We are a work in progress, that much is apparent. With the necessity for points to survive that formed the backdrop to Phil Brown’s first season at City now removed, the greater freedom he has is allowing us to see what he has in mind. Pleasingly, it seems our manager favours an open form of play, easy on the eye, effective with the right personnel.

We can switch with reasonable fluidity from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2. We have what looks to be the right blend of steel and creativity in a midfield that, for the first time we returned to this level, is capable of holding its own against most side. Phil Brown is doing a lot of things right.

And as we pause for breath with an international weekend approaching, we can look at a good start to the season – 15^th, with 12 points from ten games. Solid. 15^th would be progress after the horrors of 2006/7, but one fancies we could be a couple of places better than that in the final reckoning. (AD)