The scoreline looks pretty close, doesn’t it?

A tight affair? A tense match decided by one single goal which could have gone to either team?

No, actually. Don’t let the result fool you; don’t let any optimistic blinker-wearer tell you otherwise. Only one team was in this game, and only their own laid back demeanour and occasionally hilarious profligacy stopped them scoring a damn sight more.

City were dreadful, although that doesn’t stop me saying that West Bromwich Albion were the most polished, sporting and admirable team to visit the KC this season. I hope they go up.

Before and after their 58th minute goal, they showed all the qualities you would expect of a proper Championship side which doesn’t feel it belongs there. Fine players were on show – you can’t look at a starting XI which contains Phillips, Kamara, Clement, Koumas and Greening and not think they should be at a higher level. They sprayed the ball intelligently, constantly created space and outlets for one another, fought their corners and chose to play the game entirely the right way.

As for City’s XI, Phil Brown’s expected recycling of players after the inedible slop pitifully served up against Leeds didn’t happen. Hindsight is all well and good, but with Albion in town, there should have been starting places for Bridges, Duffy and Welsh; all fit, all fresh and all determined to prove a point. None made the XI, as Mr Brown decided that Windass and Parkin – possibly the most immobile, leaden-footed pairing of centre forwards in the history of association football – should get another go, while Livermore did return in place of France, who dropped to the bench. Duffy didn’t even get that far, which even his more hardened detractors would admit was unfair. Welsh? God knows where he was.

So, the team expected to do the de-Bagging was Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Delaney, Dawson; Ashbee, Marney, Livermore; Windass, Parkin, Forster.

Forster and Turner were superb.

The two most maligned signings of the wretched Parkinson era are now coming to the fore, perhaps giving our softly-spoken ex-boss a modicum of belated vindication while the rest, just about all established players given less of a tough time by the fans, fell way short of any standards reasonably expected of a man in a City kit who is paid to wear it and sweat in it.

It was goalless for a long time, although it shouldn’t have been. Phillips, a wonderful goalscoring artist over the years, contrived to miss the target from eight yards after an Albion free kick was backheaded badly into his path, leaving him way onside and with Myhill not even in much of his way. Too much time on his feet, and he poked the ball well wide, to much amused merriment from the heaving throng round the KC. Meanwhile, City’s defence began to hold the first of numerous mini-inquests of the day.

City got a corner which Marney curled on to Delaney’s head but the chance sailed over. Parkin scuffed a shot well wide after Ashbee’s positive clip forward had been brought down and set up by Windass. Forster shot straight at Kiely – top keeper – after a lung-bursting surge by Delaney, in the absence of anyone fit or bothered enough ahead of him to do the same.

And that’s it. Worth 20 quid or more of anyone’s money. The rest of the first half was nondescript, certainly in the City camp, while Albion took a short while to recover from Phillips’ awful miss but still looked like they could sponge up any half-hearted City attack with ease and then go up the other end and score whenever they felt like it.

There was such an obvious class difference. City should aspire to be West Bromwich Albion in terms of talent on the pitch, ambition off it, and an attitude to each individual match which is bang on. Albion showed respect, but chose the acquisition of respect from City as their priority. They got a transit van’s worth, and quickly, and as a result the game was all theirs.

Actual chances in the first half – aside from the chucklesome Phillips miss – came in the last ten minutes as the gear was moved up. Chaplow, the hairless ex-Burnley player, shook off the delirious attentions of Parkin as he hared down the inside left channel but toed his shot into the side netting. Then both Delaney and Livermore kicked fresh air as a long ball landed dangerously, and Koumas thundered a terrific shot against Myhill’s near post and out.

Half time, and an air of inevitability. Nobody thought we were going to win this. Nobody.

In an effort to lighten the gloom for a moment, a quick word here for a special visitor to the match. A collective of AN dignitaries – Les, Andy, McVie, Cropper, Cactus Jack, Whiting, thebigbee – had gathered with other City-daft acquaintances to welcome our Nordic companion Heddis to the game. With a *PALC badge for his lapel, a bed at the Campanile for his head and Danny L’s perennially unused season ticket for his fist, he cut a happy and jovial figure, not to mention a capable one in the Bass drinking stakes, which added to his kudos, as did his obvious ability to speak better English than Cropper. There was then a genuinely beautiful moment when he was introduced to batfink in the East Stand immediately prior to kick off and a manly hug – PALC – was exchanged. Our mighty bearded philosopher was overcome with the moment, to the extent that one or two extra meffs would have almost certainly had their faces caved in at Piper later that night as compensation for the temporary lapse in machismo. Heddis, we salute you, and have a safe trip home.

Oh yeah, the second half. Yes. And what a load of cobblers it really was. We lost Marney to a knock which had required some treatment in the first half, so France was restored to the fray. The first chance went to Albion, natch, as Kamara pinched some room from Dawson to get a left footer in which swerved and dipped a bit but was well held above his head by Myhill.

Mr Brown summoned Elliott, who can presumably manage a full half at a wheezy push if required, given that it was on just 54 minutes when the manager decided, as had we, that the second episode of Windass Returns was as much of a stinker as the first, and St Stuart was needed. I hope Deano settles soon and proves he still has some clout at this level, as the initial signs are alarmingly showing a player who is decrepit, slow and overawed at his surroundings. Don’t tarnish your reputation as a hero, Dean. Please.

So, Elliott scampers on. The swap was pretty much straight, as he formed part of this three-pronged strikeforce which would have undoubted potential were the personnel involved the right ones. Elliott grafted, Forster certainly did, but Parkin looks shot. Lately he has had fitness troubles which have provided some mitigation for his lack of activity, but against Albion he looked not only unfit, but a disinterested, workshy mess. He’s a meagre shadow of the brute who came in this time last year to arsekick and splashdown his way to heroism.

For now, the Beast has ceased to be. He needs to be removed from the firing line – there was some real vitriol going his way from the East Stand – until both his fitness and his attitude take a turn for the better. His departure for Bridges with 20 minutes left got cheers, and not just because Bridges was coming on. You could have replaced Parkin with 64 year old Chris Chilton and his plastic hip and there would still have been a register on the clapometer.

Compare with Albion’s first two substitutions – the removals of Phillips and Koumas together, on the hour, immediately after they scored. Koumas, a player who Marney should look at if he wants an example of what the creative dynamo of a Championship team should look like, had just set up the goal. His last touch of the ball was a delicious, deft one which sold Dawson and Ashbee down the river and gave Kamara all the time and room he needed to jab a simple shot over the sprawling Myhill.

How abject must City have looked to the Albion hierarchy to have given them the confidence to replace Koumas and Phillips at this point? Of course, the small matter of Gera and Ellington being the substitutes helped – it’s a squad game, and what a fine squad Albion obviously have. Gera is an excellent player; Ellington a fearsome one when he feels up to it. With both making willing runs for the string-pulling simplicity of Greening’s expert dictation of the game, Albion didn’t have a care or worry in the world, because of us.

Elliott got his angles hopelessly wrong when his forehead met another pleading cross from the indefatigable Forster, and the pace of the header was not matched at all by the direction. Albion popped back up the other end and Ellington had two headers in succession blocked by an overworked Myhill, before Chaplow thumped the third chance over. Greening tried a Scholes-esque edge-of-box volley from a corner which momentarily looked dangerous until it was deflected wide. Then, just when it seemed City’s fortunes could sink no lower, France took his second whack on the leg since his half time introduction and left the field sadly on a stretcher. Thanks to the Albion fans – of which there were plenty – for joining in the applause. So, City were not only clueless, breathless and goalless, but now also down to ten men. Against West Brom. Thank goodness they decided to go easy on us…

They should have had a second when Myhill and Delaney, presumably using semaphore or telepathy, decided that the other should deal with Gera’s dangerous set-piece. Of course, as a result neither did, and only Koren’s moment of panic in front of goal spared serious blushes, although the Tiger Nation made their feelings on such ineptitude perfectly clear. Gera then centred another perilous one which the defence could do nothing about, and Kamara’s sliding arrival failed to find the ball by mere centimetres.

Kamara was subbed and Kiely flattened in the injury time period, by which time everyone not of a throstly disposition was feeling thoroughly fed up. The whistle was a blessing, as a 1-0 defeat to this very good side was immensely flattering, as we should have been hammered. And we deserved to be. This was an educational game – Albion’s grandiose status and manner of play taught us about our own considerable shortcomings to every extent possible, and it wasn’t pleasant.

I usually look for positives here, but I’ve mentioned them already – Turner is now easily our best defender and is missing nothing; Forster’s energy for a 33 year old man is remarkable and encapsulates a professional commitment to the Tigers cause which lesser personalities would have had sorely tested after their mate in management was sacked.

Well done to the pair of them. Raspberries to the rest, as substitutes aside, they were shambolic. Delaney had his worst game since turgid displays from the Irishman were a weekly event in League Two; Myhill’s growing indecision is costing us both goals and confidence; and our full backs are one-trick ponies (Dawson with pointless diagonal balls; Ricketts with striding runs which invariably result in the ball being lost) and schooled professionals like those at Albion suss everything they try with some ease.

Marney is talented but infuriatingly inconsistent; Ashbee is currently way out of his depth as a footballer if not a leader, and was especially bad against Albion; and while Livermore is more assured than most in possession and position, he’ll never instigate a spot of luck or deliver a moment of inspiration to win us a match which we don’t deserve to win. That’s something the likes of Duffy and Bridges can do, except the manager won’t even pick them, preferring a 37 year old with no stamina and a beached whale of a player whose head is all over the place. We miss Barmby. We miss McPhee.

At least the suspension of Ashbee after another yellow card will surely herald the long-awaited return of our best footballer. If it doesn’t, Welsh should ask for a transfer.

It’s not a dead campaign, of course, although a dip in form coinciding with an awfully tough month of games is hardly ideal, and the character of players and manager will be severely tested now, especially as we now have no home game for three weeks and have to try to rob points at Derby (runaway leaders) and Barnsley (on life support, like us) in the interim. The ride undertaken by the Tiger Nation gets ever more bumpy and ever more thankless. (MR)