"This is a big moment for us" - Semi-final reflections

I think I'm going to leave today's sport pages out for at least the next couple of months.  Coming downstairs to see Yaya's gleeful face refreshing the memories of yesterday is the perfect kick start to the day.  I'm sure there are self-help books that advise something along the lines of 'find something that makes you very happy and leave it on full view, so that you get a positive start to the day.'  Done.

Weeks ago, when the tie was announced, a United 'friend' at work looked at me warily for a few minutes and then said 'I have a bad feeling about this.  It's coming.  It's about time you beat us,' and whilst there is a hint of a veiled jibe in there, he meant it and we both knew it to be true.  The 0-0 was drab but City should have taken more; City were the better team at the Swamp but something unbelievable happened.  If, as Mancini was suggesting, this is to be the turning point in City's history, then not a small part of it will be evidence that we can beat the best teams on the important stages.  One of the only criticisms that can be levelled against City this season is that when we have come up against the established sides we haven't always looked like we believe we can beat them.  If this can change, then it is those established sides that we will be attacking next season.

Ferguson played on this before the game - the hint that City players wouldn't be able to cope with the big occasion as well as United would - and for the first half-an-hour or so this looked like it was to be the case.  A bit of a blunder between Barry and Lescott on the edge of the box allowed United to pick their way through the City defence and Joe Hart made an excellent save - only to see a more presentable chance squandered seconds later.  But from then in, City pushed up and in the final stages of the first half looked the more likely to score.  Barry rippled the side netting, Balotelli smacked one at goal from as far out as possible, Lescott awkwardly volleyed over, and Kompany produced a smart curling shot around the post.  This little spell helped to settle the nerves.

City came flying out after the interval (apart from the obligatory 'make the opponents wait on the pitch' tactic) and the pressing of Gareth Barry, David Silva and Yaya Toure forced the goal out of nothing.  Barry chased the lost cause and then a complete shambles of mistakes pushed the ball to Yaya who, in his calm storm of power and poise, bounded past Vidic and stroked the ball home.

The fear of forty minutes of nerves and panic never came to fruition - with City still pressing before Scholes decided to spike Zabaleta in the hip - with Nani's deflected free kick the closest United could suggest to a comeback.

Yaya was magnificent; it seemed he has been saving all of his energy for this game and looked like he could hardly move by the end.  Whilst his work rate has been questioned at times this season, you can see these high pedigree players come into their own in the big matches.

Zabaleta and De Jong were typically busy on their returns to the side - and that added bite was something that was missing earlier in the week.  Balotelli kept his cool (apart from one little piece of 'mischief' at the end!) and held up the ball well enough for no one to mention the absence of Tevez.  From a man who doesn't celebrate, it was heartening to see him get so involved in the post match jubilation.

It was celebrated like the cup final itself but, if Mancini is right, then something else was being celebrated here.  A big party to mark the moves to 'change the history of the club'.  However, as Mancini and the City fans are equally aware, there is still another game to win if we want to banish the 'typical City' moniker from this cup run.

Topical City: False Dawn Shinawatra

The third issue of monthly City fanzine, Topical City, is out now.  If you wish to read it, as you should, then follow this link and click on either the flash or non-flash version of the magazine.

This month I have written an article on the first day of the 2007/2008 season - the first competitive game of Shinawatra's reign at the club - and try to argue that this was the first day in the modern era of the football club.  The article starts below and can be read in its entirety in Topical City magazine.

11^th August 2007.  The opening day of the season had taken us away to East London and a game against West Ham at the Boleyn Ground.  As we stepped out of the tube station and into the late summer sunshine, those usual feelings of trepidation and doubt were outweighed by something different, something new.

The previous season had ended with a long slog of drab, hopeless football.  Stuart Pearce’s trusty Beanie Horse had run out of luck and City had not scored a home league goal since New Year’s Day.  There was a tangible sense of impending doom about the club.  If the lucky horse no longer delivered, what hope was there for the season to come?

Step up, the ‘fit-and-proper’ saviour, Thaksin Shinawatra.  The FA agreed that our new charismatic owner needed a break from ‘politically motivated’ bitchiness, and the former Thai Prime Minister came in and injected, that vital football fan ingredient, hope into the football club.  The week before the start of the season, after showcasing his new football team against Valencia at home (a David Silva goal settled the tie – I wonder what happened to him?), Thaksin treated the City fans to a party in Albert Square.  Whilst those who went down into central Manchester after the game were guzzling down the complimentary Thai Green Curry, Shinawatra took the microphone and serenaded the dumbfounded Blues with the club anthem, Blue Moon.  

To read on, turn to page eight of the new issue of Topical City magazine.

City 1 - 0 Wigan: Match report

It looked like it was going to be one of those days when Conor Sammon pushed the ball seemingly past Hart and into the bottom corner with seconds remaining - but some marvellous late turn of the ball sped it past the post and ensured a welcome three points for City.  Wigan's second half performance meant it was a close run encounter, but the victory allows City to consolidate a top four position with Tottenham and United both facing difficult games today.

City played some impressive stuff at times in the first half - quite often just a pass or touch too many in some scintillating, quick-flowing moves.  Silva was at the heart of most of them - finding room to manoeuvre down the left hand side - but the multiple one-twos between Tevez and Balotelli were also a joy to watch.  As the person who sits behind me was at pains to point out to the whole stand, all this pretty football is pointless without an end product, and City were perhaps guilty of trying to walk it in at times but, as a show of quality and growing understanding between our players, this style was good to see.  

Perhaps strange then that our only breakthrough of the game came through a comedy of errors on the part of the Wigan back line.  A slip from Caldwell gave Silva the space to roll a shot in at the near post and Al Habsi will want to forget the rest.  A howler of the first degree.

Wigan had their moments in the first half, with Victor Moses getting quite a bit of joy with his speed and trickery against Zabaleta, but it was in the second that they started to cause City the problems.  Sammon's late miss was one of four fairly presentable chances in the half - McCarthy's drive from the edge of the box, Alcaraz's knock against the post, and Rodallega's weak finish from just outside the box.  Whilst Wigan fans will be encouraged by the style of play they were putting together, their impotence in front of goal will worry them just as much.

City will be worried they let such a promising start descend into such a close encounter but the three points are what matters and City had to return to winning ways in the league here.

Again, there is concern over the form of our captain, Tevez.  A series of head down runs into crowds of players and the occasional sulk counters his fantastic work rate - and he will need to be a little less greedy if he is going to be part of an effective team display.  He has been out of sorts since the derby game and, if he is to feature, City will need more from him in the coming weeks.

Lescott had another good game at the back and is on a fine run of form - which is ideal in the light of the Kolo revelations (a man, it could be said, that he had already taken the place of).  Kompany's return was very welcome, as the announcer said at every opportunity, despite only missing two games - and it was good to see De Jong back in action too.

City will need these players back for the run of games in March - starting with the long and chilly trip out to Kiev on Thursday.  With the temperatures still knocking around minus ten, I'm sure a good number of players will make the most of the snood before it is banned from our pitches.

City 1 - 1 Fulham: Return of the draw specialist

Fulham earned their point yesterday in the face of a rather flat City performance - extending our poor recent home form against the London side (one victory in the past eight seasons).  As a frustrated Mancini is probably all too aware, these are the sorts of games that we should be winning in the race for a Champions' League spot.

There was a moment about half way through the second half when Pablo Zabaleta ran some thirty yards to block a defender's clearance, before turning (possibly in the direction of Jerome Boateng - who had just backed out of a challenge he was clear favourite to win) and gesturing that the team needed more aggression and desire.  In some ways Zabaleta's frustration summed up the afternoon.  

Even though it is a weak excuse, the team certainly looked jaded and this could be symptomatic of games every three or four days since the Manchester derby with a squad that is getting more and more depleted.  By contrast, Fulham have just returned from a break in the Algarve.  City will get very little sympathy for such worries, with the strength of the squad we have, and I am not suggesting that this should excuse the performance yesterday, but it probably is starting to have an effect on the players who have to play all the games.  Regardless, if all the players had the same attitude as Pablo Zabaleta, then City would always out-compete teams.  

I would argue that only four outfield starting players performed to an expected level yesterday: Zabaleta, Lescott, Barry and, despite Mancini's comments after the game, Mario Balotelli.  Despite the odd frustrating moment, Balotelli actually worked quite hard for the team yesterday - often doubling up as a left-sided midfielder and covering Kolarov.  Balotelli's was more of a team performance than he put in against Aris, for example, and I thought he looked more settled, rather than trying to pull off the outlandish all the time - which has often been the case as he has tried to impress.  His goal was brilliantly taken and he was our main attacking threat, as Tevez had one of those days when he tries to run through people, on his own, and without realising there is too much of Hangeland to run through.    

Taking Tevez out of the equation, our top three performers this season were missing - Kompany, Silva and De Jong - and Mancini will be hoping their calming, creative and crushing respective influences will be returning soon.  Without Silva there is a noticeable lack of verve and impetus from midfield going forward - and City's midfield struggled to offer many scraps for the strikers.  Yaya Toure cut a particularly frustrated figure after the Fulham midfield kept him well shackled - after being a very influential figure in the excellent performance at Craven Cottage, he was almost anonymous here.  

Fulham did play very well though and their goal was of top quality - fans around me were trying to pin blame on moments up to a minute earlier, but the speed and precision of the move and Andy Johnson's delivery deserved the moment.  

Overreactions abound, as ever, when results don't go the way you want them to, but this is just one result in a string of very good home results and performances - and, despite what you may presume reading some of the reactions across the internet, it was still a point.  

On an entirely different note, the atmosphere was about as flat as the performance yesterday.  I know the tiny Fulham following support didn't help matters (the South stand had already decided it would be better to pick on other stands rather than the away fans they could hardly see by about five minutes in), but the home support was hardly conducive to a passion-filled performance from the players.  I know there is a little of the chicken and the egg about this - should the players excite the fans to an extent? - but it was pretty flat following the atmosphere against Aris.

Maybe the City fans were just a little bewildered due to the slightly peculiar 'televisation' of our half-time.  I may be a bit old-fashioned/grumpy, but one of the bonuses of going to live football is that you escape fifteen minutes of football punditry in the break.  This is nothing against the people involved - I'm sure what they had to say was quite interesting, and I don't mind having endless replays on the big screens, but I'd rather hear the murmurings of the crowd at half-time than long pieces of punditry on what was a quite uneventful first-half anyway.  Oh well...  

City 3 - 0 Aris: The Fantastic Four unleashed

Mancini unleashed City's dream attacking quartet for the first time as the Blues eased past Aris Thessaloniki last night.  A front four of Tevez, Dzeko, Silva and Balotelli is about as good as it gets, and was more than enough to get through an Aris side who came to stifle but were unprepared for the number of attacking players that would be coming at them.   Speaking of this formation - on one of the first opportunities he has had to use all four together - Mancini said:

"I thought we did well and in the first half I was very pleased.

The problem comes when we don't have the ball. If we don't close down every situation, it could be difficult for us.

We can play this formation but not often, unless we improve."

Optimistically, the answer to the 'problem' could be a fit Nigel de Jong.  Although, in the first half especially, there was an effort from all the front four, Balotelli included, to get back and cover the wide midfield slots.  So whilst Mancini's words are obviously a warning to City fans not to expect to see this fantasy quartet too often, he had probably seen enough last night to see that it can work against teams who come to defend.

Aris, unfortunately for their excellent travelling fans, were not a particularly difficult obstacle to overcome.  After the blistering pace of the opening quarter of an hour, City rarely had to up the tempo beyond comfort to see out the tie and book an altogether more difficult encounter against Dynamo Kiev in the last 16.

The Aris fans were fantastically orchestrated from the bottom of the stand and moved as one the whole night.  There was perhaps only a three second lull after Dzeko opened the scoring before they started up again.  Although my favourite piece from their repertoire was a Poznan-esque move to the sound of what I am pretty sure was 'jingle bells' - an ultra masculine, intimidatory form of jingle bells.

Dzeko's two brilliantly taken goals mean that he has now scored 4 in 7 starts - which shows what a farce all the snap judgements have been.  He was always going to need time to bed in, yet, as a 'settling in' goal ratio, that is not a bad return - and by his own admission, 'we ain't seen nothing yet.'

The injury to Kompany is the only worrying thing to come out of the night.  He has been colossal for City this season and was putting in another fine performance before the knock on his hip.  Early murmurings suggest he may be fit for Sunday, which would be a relief - but early murmurings rarely have the full story when it comes to knocks and injuries.  Here's wishing him a speedy recovery!

City 5 - 0 Notts County: Match report

There seem to be two schools of thought amongst managers when it comes to tackling opponents from a number of divisions down.  The first one is you take a pick from your promising young players and reserve players with something to prove and hope their desire to show their worth overcomes the motivation deficit that can be apparent when playing 'weaker' sides.  The second is that you pick a strong side who may find motivation difficult, but will have sufficient class to see out the fixture in the end.  Yesterday's game was very much the latter.  Energy comparisons in the first twenty minutes between, say, Yaya Toure and Neal Bishop would undoubtedly reflect badly on the City man.

Yet, to an extent, this is to be expected.  Whilst this was a huge occasion for the County players - people like Yaya, whilst complacency may be the wrong word, would see it as a necessary complication on the way to a bigger prize.  Thus, for the first twenty minutes, County were on top.  First to every ball, stifling City's attempts at patient build-up, and creating openings as well.  Hawley's shot against the post was a little too close for comfort.

After that initial surge, however, City began to take control - and largely in a completely new way.  Vieira said after the game that the team's height should make us more effective at set plays than we have been, and most of our attempts before the break came from teasing free-kicks from Kolarov or corners.

Balotelli should have had a penalty.  His reputation is beginning to precede him now and whilst he may not be ideal to referee, if someone stands on your ankle in the box then it is still generally a penalty.

The late flurry of goals in the last ten minutes may have been less than charitable in the face of the effort from the away side but, for the hopeful, it did offer some glimpses of Tevez and Dzeko working together as a partnership.  The excellent quick feet of Dzeko that set Tevez clear for his goal was quickly repaid by the cutely placed cross Tevez laid on for Dzeko to grab his first goal in front of the City fans.  Striking partnerships are things that take time to fully develop - as an acute understanding of each other's game is vital - and this can only come with games.

If City can overcome Villa in the 5th round, Everton await us.  Without getting too ahead of ourselves, Everton are something of a bogey side at home - but, to end on a wonderful FA Cup cliché: as Notts County proved, and Leicester before them, there are no easy games if you want to go all the way in cup competition.

Derby day reflections

They are hard moments to take at the best of times, but with the quality of Rooney's goal came the horrible realisation: I am never going to escape it.  Last season's goal from the time beyond time was similar - no matter how hard I tried, there was always a 'highlights of the season' montage where Michael Owen's detestable, shocked face jumped out the screen at me.  And that goal was only remarkable for the circumstances.  Rooney's bit of magic - variously the best goal of his career or the best goal ever scored at Old Trafford etc - came amidst a fairly anonymous performance, but at the top level, as this game undoubtedly is, these little bits of quality decide games and it is just unfortunate for City that it was at the other end.

It is difficult to offer any impartiality during the passions of the derby, so to quote The Independent's Ian Herbert "City were the better side, in fact, even if United's capacity never to know they are beaten won through."  Although City will obviously be disappointed to let United extend their advantage at the top, the performance was encouraging.  Both sides lined up in the same formation, but there wasn't really the defensive approach that has become the norm against the top sides this season.  Statistics-wise, City created marginally more chances than the hosts, and a considerably greater amount if you take away wild long range efforts by Nani.  The main difference was the final finish.  Whilst Rooney plucked out a bit of brilliance from a quiet performance, our main goal-threat had a quiet contribution upfront too - there aren't too many obvious goal threats in the team when Tevez is limited (the next three highest goalscorers this season were unavailable: Balotelli, Johnson and Adebayor) - so whilst Silva was excellent again in the role of creator, that final finish eluded us.

It was a return to strength defensively and there were excellent performances from Vincent Kompany and Micah Richards.  The general rule for a successful defensive partnership at City seems to be Kompany plus one - and Lescott has impressed in his last few appearances alongside the Belgian.  I felt he was a little unlucky to lose his place to a returning Kolo last time, but it shows that the position as Kompany's partner is up for grabs.

Micah is continuing his improvement under Mancini and appeared to play with the confidence that was synonymous with his burst on to the footballing scene as a teenager.  If he keeps up his concentration and his fitness, then this renaissance is very good news for both City and England.

The result will probably spell the end of vague title speculations in the press and this has to be a good thing for City's season.  If City keep playing the way they have been, they can remain in touching distance - and this will probably be the best way to achieve the real target - Champions League football - and if that is achieved, we can start looking at the next steps.