The following Sunday City faced what I suppose qualifies as a local derby when they travelled to face League Two promotion candidates Hereford in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup. A lot of the pre match publicity focused on Paul Parry's return to his former club and the early action certainly seemed to centre on him as he forced home keeper Brown into a great save and then picked up a rare yellow card for a poor challenge. However, if Parry's influence waned somewhat after this, the teams tended to increase and, as the game went into added time at the end of the first half, they had the edge in what was a tight, hard fought Cup tie - it was then that Kevin McNaughton scored a fine first ever goal for the club with a fine dipping volley from the edge of the box that Brown didn't even attempt to save.
McNaugton also played a key part in the goal that gave City control of the tie midway through the second half when his burst into the penalty area was ended by an obvious foul by a Hereford defender. Steve Thompson easily knocked in the resultant spot kick and it appeared as if City had come through a potentially difficult game with the minimum of fuss. However, Robinson got one back for the home side ten minutes later and this was the cue for a very tricky last few mninutes for the team in which they were grateful to Michael Oakes, on more than one occasion, for making sure they made it through to the Fifth Round for the first time in fourteen years.
Next up were QPR who were unrecognisable as a club from the one that City had so easily won at back in August. Since then the Londoners had been taken over by what seemed to be all of the people that run the sport of motor racing as well as some Indian guy was reported as being the fifth richest man in the world! According to the media, Rangers were now the richest club in the world and their new owners had flexed their financial muscles during the transfer window as they made a host of signings that meant that relegation ceased to be a consideration for them - indeed, for a time there was some talk of them making a late run at the Play Offs.
However, for all their new found status, Rangers were blown away that night by a City side who had been playing at Hereford just over forty eight hours earlier. With Steve McPhail crying off injured, Dave Jones finally decided to use Aaron Ramsey (who had been an unused sub since the Chasetown match) and the youngster made his first league start in central midfield alongside stand in captain Gavin Rae.
Ramsey's influence was apparent from the start as City looked to get at their opponents by adopting a higher tempo than normal. This quicker pace had no effect on the quality of football on offer though and Rangers could so easily have been behind already when Paul Parry was put through by an awful Delaney back pass on 12 minutes and squared the ball across goal for Joe Ledley to tap in. After that only visitng keeper Lee Camp kept the score down as he made a series of fine saves and with Hasselbaink and Whittingham both missing easy chances, City fans were just beginning to worry that their team was not making the most of their overwhelming superiority when Ramsey's fine ball found Hasselbaink in splendid isolation and he, surprisingly, then played in Ledley who had his second tap in of the match to put us 2-0 up on forty minutes.
While it needs to be pointed out that QPR were not helped by injuries to a couple of their defenders, the truth was that they were not coping with City's blistering first half display before that and those first forty five minutes were the best football I saw in the flesh from the team all season - it was a throwback to the excellent stuff we got used to for a short time during the fantastic start to the 2006/07 campaign.
Inevitably, the second half had to suffer in comparison to what had had gone before and once Parry had made it 3-0 when he capitalised on a lucky rebound after 57 minutes, City, to all intents and purposes, declared. QPR did get a goal back when Agyemang bundled in after Oakes had failed to deal with what looked like a pretty routine shot and the injury the keeper picked up in the process enabled City fans to have their first look at Peter Enckelman who impressed with one tip onto the bar and an enormous kick which flew from one end of the pitch to the other without bouncing!
City's fine win left them just one point off the Play Off positions in seventh place and capped a tremendous January which saw them take ten out of twelve league points on offer while also winning two FA Cup ties. In a stark contrast to what had been happening to him just over two months earlier, Dave Jones was, predictably, named Championship Manager of the month.
All of this made people like me who expressed their disappointment at the fact that, apart from Hull (who would make up for their lack of incoming transfers during January later on), City had made the least number of signings in the Championship during the January transfer window look like whingers. However, while it was hard to be too critical when results were going so well, Peter Ridsdale took things to ludicrous extremes when asked about new players during a question and answer session at Bryntirion FC a day after the QPR game - his response was to ask who could you possibly drop from the previous night's team to accommodate any new players! During the next month, that statement would be made to look ridiculous and within a fortnight or so, our Chairman had changed his tune significantly (more on that later).
One person who disagreed with our Chairman's contention that the eleven that started against QPR were undroppable was Dave Jones as Aaron Ramsey made way for the fit again Steve McPhail for the visit to Stoke at the weekend. This was the latest in a testing run of away fixtures because Stoke were in fourth place and were genuine contenders for automatic promotion who owed their lofty position to lots of goals from set pieces and the fact that they were such a hard side to play against.
City became the latest team to suffer at the hands of Stoke's very basic but effective approach as they slipped to their first defeat in nine games in a match poor quality in which they never hit the sort of heights they had been showing in recent weeks. The goal with which Stoke took the lead on 39 minutes summed up a scrappy first half as Roger Johnson put through his own net for the second time in successive away league games as Lawrence's low corner bounced off him - however, the real blame for the goal went to Paul Parry whose air shot from a position about two yards in front of Johnson gave the centre back no chance of getting out of the way of the ball.
There was also an element of luck about Stoke's second goal twelve minutes into the second half as well as they broke quickly from a City corner and Fuller went down in the penalty are under McNaughton's challenge. Premiership referee Steve Bennett wasted no time in pointing to the spot - it was the sort of decision that away sides don't tend to get and Fuller easily beat Oakes to double the home sides lead. However, City struck back quickly when Parry touched on Whittingham's free kick and Hasselbaink scored from point blank range. City should have been level within another minute, but Hasselbaink shot straight at Simonsen when clean through and, apart from a Whittingham "goal" apparently disallowed for a foul on the keeper, that was it - City could, maybe, complain about not getting the rub of the green on some of the big decisions, but the general consensus was that Stoke deserved their 2-1 win.
Seven days later, City had the chance to put things right with a home game with Norwich. A Wales Six Nations match at the Millennium Stadium meant a Saturday lunchtime kick off which went some way (but not much way!) towards explaining the very disappointing crowd of 11,937. With Norwich on an unbeaten run of ten matches, this really wasn't the best time to be facing them as the confidence they had gained over the past couple of months shone through to make them one of the better sides to visit Ninian Park during the season. The visitors edged the first fifteen minutes and gained their reward when Ched Evans the Welsh teenager on loan from Man City scored with a low shot from the edge of the penalty area. City huffed and puffed after that without looking too dangerous until added time at the end of the first half when Ledley and Hasselbaink set up Gavin Rae who scored with the aid of a couple of very slight deflections.
The second half was more even, but, a Parry header that Marshall did well to save apart, City never looked like scoring. However the same could now be said for Norwich and you got the feeling that both sides had settled for a point until two minutes from the end when Evans got possesion about thirty five yards out and rifled an unstoppable shot past Oakes. It was a goal fit to win any game, but that was of no consolation to City fans as the team's impressive run of five consecutive home wins came to an end and their Play Off hopes receded further.
At least City managed to end their two game losing run at Coventry three days later, but that was where the good news ended. Coventry had sacked manager Ian Dowie the previous day so it was difficult to know what to expect from them, but, as it turned out, they were there for the taking and so a 0-0 draw represented two points lost rather than one gained. Apart from the opening minutes, City, with Enckelman making his first start in place of Oakes and Ramsey, surprisingly, replacing McPhail, dominated throughout - on another night, Paul Parry might have had a hat trick, but they were foiled by some quality goalkeeping from Marshall and their own wayward finishing.
The closing minutes saw a first team debut for young winger cum striker Jon Brown who at 17 became the latest youngster to come through the Academy and into the side when he replaced Whittingham, but it was another substitution that caused most comment as the in form Joe Ledley limped off with a hamstring injury that would keep him out for nearly a month.
Maybe it was the Ledley injury that prompted Peter Ridsdale to come out with statements that appeared in the press on the day City faced a home Fifth Round FA Cup tie with Championship rivals Wolves to the effect that it would take a miracle for the team to reach the Play Offs
http://tinyurl.com/3w46yu
These comments represented something of a departure from his "who could we drop?" stuff after the QPR match and made for depressing reading. You had to wonder also as to the wisdom of, effectively, putting additional pressure on team and manager by his emphasing of how important a good FA Cup run was in terms of summer transfer activity.
However, as it turned out, I needn't have worried. City started superbly against Wolves and effectively ended the game as a contest in the first ten mnutes. Only around ninety seconds had been played when Hasselbaink touched Ramsey's pass into the path of Peter Whittingham who found himself in the clear about forty five yards out. Faced with the prospect of the young Welsh giant Wayne Hennessey coming out to meet him, it would have been easy for Whittingham to panic as he approached goal, but he was coolness personified as he side footed the ball in to send the vast majority of another disappointing crowd of 15,339 into raptures.
It didn't take too long for City to double their lead as Hasselbaink scored an outstanding second. The veteran was responsible for starting and finishing a flowing counter attack that saw Parry's cross knocked back by Whittingham into the path of Hasselbaink who sold a defender an outrageous dummy before curling a glorious left footed shot from the edge of the penalty area past the helpless Hennessey.
Truth be told, the rest of the match didn't offer much of a spectacle -City were prepared to allow an awful Wolves team plenty of possesion, but, apart from a moment in the second half when Glenn Loovens retrieved his own error by clearing off the line, they never did anything with it and it was City and Paul Parry in particular who were always more likely to come up with the game's third goal.
With Premiership sides knocking each other out and a healthy number of Football League sides doing their share of giant killing there was an unusually open look to the competition as City awaited the draw for their first FA Cup Quarter Final since winning the tournament in 1927 (what an indictment of the club's FA Cup record in the last 81 years that is!). Chelsea and Manchester United were still there to represent the big four, but there were only two other Premiership sides involved - when you consider all of that, an away match at the winners of the Sheffield United/Middlesbrough tie was about as bad a draw as City could get!
The last couple of minutes of the Wolves game saw Trevor Sinclair return to action after more than three months out with a knee injury when he replaced Whittingham, but if ever a match proved what a disadvantage City were under by running with such a paper thin squad it was the one a week later at Sheffield Wednesday.
Sinclair was there to take his place on the bench, but, with Darren Purse recalled to the team because Glenn Loovens was starting a two game suspension for picking up ten bookings during the season, City were really down to the bare bones to such an extent that he only had Michael Oakes, Jon Brown and Steve Thompson there with him! Dave Jones could have included a youngster to get his quota of substitutes up to five, but he reasoned that there was no point in doing that if he had no intention of using that player. I don't know, maybe our manager was tryiong to prove a point to the board, but, speaking purely as a supporter, it was embarrassing to see my club being turned into something of a laughing stock in this way.
As for the match, City's miserable February, as far as league results were concerned anyway, continued with a 1-0 defeat against a team that had been in and around the bottom three all season. Perhaps the result was hard on the team because they were definitely the better side while the game remained goalless as Ramsey hit a post with a long range effort and home keeper Grant made a couple of fine saves. However, once they had given away a sloppy goal on forty one minutes when the unmarked Showunmi headed down for Tudgay to easily beat Enckelman from close in, City never really looked like avoiding a third defeat in four league matches.
The second half saw Wednesday, who included Graham Kavanagh in midfield, holding on to their lead easily enough and it wasn't until the last couple of minutes when Darren Purse wasted a good headed chance that City really threatened.
Dave Jones' lack of options had been reflected as he only swapped Thommo for McPhail in a losing cause, but at least he was able to select a full allocation of substitutes for the home match with Leicester a week later as Darcy Blake and Ricky Scimeca returned after injury. Scimeca really had been through a rough time in the past year or so as he struggled to overcome a groin problem. I had seen one of his attempted comebacks end when he lasted only ten minutes of a reserve match with Bristol City back in September and things got worse for him after that as he was contracted the MRSA virus whilst in hospital recovering from an operation. For a while, whether he would play again appeared to be the least of Scimeca's concerns and, although he had gradually recovered, the whole experience had got him down so much that the club decided around Christmas that the best thing he could was to take a break abroad for a while.
Scimeca did make his long awaited return to first team action for the last ten minutes against Leicester when he came on for Peter Whittingham, but that was the only good thing to come out of another miserable defeat in which City's performance vied with the one in the home game with Charlton for the "award" of the worst I saw from during the season!
City really were awful against Leicester. Keeper Enckelman and the two central defenders (Purse and Johnson) played as if they were complete strangers as an ordinary visiting team completely dominated the first half and the unease at the back was the main factor behind City presenting Leicester with a host of chances that they wasted as they showed lack of ability in front of goal that would eventually see them relegated. However, if the visitors were getting worried about their inability to make their superiority count, they needn't have bothered because even more help was at hand as City presented them with the most farcical of own goals on twenty seven minutes as Darren Purse volleyed keeper Henderson's long clearance into his own net with no opponent within ten yards of him! Purse said after the game that he had been trying to knock the ball into "Row Z", but to be fair to him, he was given no help by Enckelman who, seemingly, did not give our captain a shout as he found himself stranded in no mans land when the ball rolled past him.
Things improved after that to the extent that City stopped presenting Leicester with chances, but this could well have been because the visitors sat back safe in the knowledge that their opponents were never going to get an effort on target never mind score! After the game Dave Jones commented that his side could not even pass water in this game and it was odd that a team who usually passed the ball pretty well even in losing causes struggled so badly in that department in this match - perhaps it may have had something to do with the fact that Steve McPhail, who had been an injury doubt right up to the kick off, looked a long way short of being fit as he was replaced by Steve Thompson early in the second half.
TBC