Manchester City v Scunthorpe United

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

League Cup

Manchester City :
Given, Sylvinho, Kompany, Zabaleta, Lescott, Wright-Phillips, de Jong, Barry (Johnson 72), Ireland (Weiss 59), Tevez (Benjani 79), Santa Cruz
Subs not used:
Bellamy, Bridge, Richards, Taylor

Scunthorpe United :
Murphy, Byrne, Mirfin, Williams, Jones (Canavan 46), O'Connor (Hooper 68), Woolford, Josh Wright, McCann (Togwell 77), Hayes, Forte
Subs not used:
Lillis, Andrew Wright, Spence, Sparrow

SULSESC REPORT

by Dave Payne at City of Manchester Stadium

THIS is my first match report for SULSESC and I'm sorry I am not reporting a win.

It all started on Tuesday night before the game during our darts match against Gillingham (which we also lost), as we were all discussing the thrashing that Man City were going to hand to Scunny.

By Wednesday morning, I had plenty of advance warnings that everything was going to go bad. I was stuck in the tube at Baker Street for at least half an hour due to a broken down train. Then the coin pocket of my wallet broke during the ticket check at Euston, scattering a few coins all over the platform.

Now to the game itself. Who wouldn't be impressed by the line-up of Man City on the day (Given, Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott, Sylvinho, Wright-Phillips, De Jong, Barry, Ireland, Tevez and Santa Cruz)?

Three minutes into the game and after easily giving away the ball in midfield (sorry, Grant McCann), a pass from Wright-Phillips allowed Ireland to score the first goal.

Slowly we started to play some attractive, passing football and after a good build-up from Scunny's half of the pitch, we came back into the game with a well worked goal. Williams darted past Kompany and passed the ball to Forte for a simple tap in.

The Scunny fans began to make some noise, finally quieting the City fans' banter we had endured for more than 20 minutes. Scunny continued to press City and we almost went up, after some more good passing football. Hayes headed the ball straight into Given's hands (to me, the header seemed to be more like a defensive header that Jones and Mirfin would have been proud of).

Then the inevitable happened, an unmarked Santa Cruz scored a header 10 minutes from half-time.

We were all gutted to hear that Jones had to be replaced at half-time due to an injury. I feared the floodgates would open, and City started the onslaught by scoring another unmarked header, this time it was Lescott.

The City fans were loud again and some Scunny fans replied by showing their Moobs (Man Boobs) in defence of a female Scunny fan that had been quite vociferous at the City fans. Somehow, a pale blue beach ball found its way from the away side of the ground to the pitch.

On the 70th minute, Tevez made it 4-1 (quite an easy goal) and seven minutes later Michael Johnson (who had replaced Barry) made it 5-1.

The result wasn't a surprise to many, but could have been worse if it hadn't been for a brilliant tackle from Byrne on Tevez early in the second-half and for a goalline clearance from Canavan (who replaced Jones) which denied Ireland a second goal.

In my opinion, we gave the ball away too easily in midfield, as we did at Peterborough four days earlier. We definitely need to strengthen our midfield (and defence too) during the January transfer window and thanks to the good cup run and attendance on Wednesday, Scunny will pocket approximately £200,000 pounds, which summed with the TV rights for the Coventry match on December 6 (another £100,000) should give the Chairman and Nigel the necessary funds to purchase a holding midfielder and perhaps another defender.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the SULSESC members who have made me feel welcome the last couple of weeks.