It’s strange, City suffered their heaviest defeat of the season so far when we went down 4-1 at Sheffield United this lunchtime and yet I reckon we’ve played a lot worse in quite a few of the 1-0 losses we’ve gone down to in the last seven or eight months (last Monday for example).
In the end, we were well beaten and could not complain about the outcome (we could about the margin of defeat though). After taking the lead, we stayed in the game for eighty minutes and if a shot had been three or four inches lower, we might have come back with a point – that said, our defence was more error prone than normal and they probably would have gifted the Blades a further chance somewhere along the line.
Sabri Lamouchi dropped Connor Wickham and brought in Kion Etete up front, Joe Ralls replaced Sheyi Ojo, Romaine Sawyers made way for Andy Rinomhota and Jack Simpson was on the left instead of Mahlon Romeo – I think that was all of the changes from the Sunderland game, but I’m still not sure what formation we started off with.
At times it looked like a flat back four with Perry Ng at right back and Simpson left back, but then Simpson would be operating in a back three with Ralls outside him and Ng pushed more forward on the other side. With Jaden Philogene given a roving role and Rinomhota getting forward at times, it certainly seemed to be a flexible approach as Etete was also doing more than his share of defensive work on our left.
Simpson’s cause was not helped by a hospital pass from Rinomhota which left him with little option but to bring down Iliman Ndiaye and earn a yellow card after only four minutes. Besides that, Simpson also suffered a shoulder injury which made it no real surprise when he did not come out for the second half – the surprise was what Lamouchi came up with by way of a replacement!
Before that though, City survived an early period of Sheffield territorial dominance with few alarms and then spent ten minutes or so showing that any nerves on show were not solely of the fighting relegation variety.
Ryan Wintle forced a sprawling Adam Davies to turn his well struck twenty five yard shot around the post and the home team’s edginess was showing when ex Cardiff loanee Tommy Doyle presented City with the ball in the United penalty area to prompt a scramble which ended with it anxiously being put out for a corner.
Sheffield didn’t escape though as the ball bounced around as the set piece was half cleared, but Max Lowe’s boot was level with Simpson’s head as they challenged for it and referee David Webb, rightly, pointed to the spot.
Maybe it’s a sign of how much threat we pose in home matches, but the five penalties we’ve been awarded in all competitions this season have come in away games. Of course, as all three of the spot kicks we’d been awarded in League games had been saved by the keeper, there was still a big challenge to be overcome before anyone could start celebrating.
Sory Kaba, who has taken penalties at his other clubs, was the obvious candidate to try and put us ahead. Although Kaba’s penalty was not too convincing as it went straight down the middle, Davies dived to one side and so the man who has only played for us since February became our top league scorer with six from twelve games.
City predictably took confidence from this unexpected lead and, for a short while, they continued to worry the home defence at one end, while Sheffield were not creating anything up the other.
However, although it may not have seemed significant at the time, one of the game’s turning points came when Ndiaye chased what was nothing more than a long punt forward and got clear of Kipre to hit an angled shot which brought Allsop into action for the first time.
The sequence was repeated shortly afterwards with Allsop’s save being a better one this time, but now Sheffield, who were not that impressive in all honesty, had a City weakness to play on and they were good enough to put this to their advantage – especially, as Ndiaye would show he had the beating of Mark McGuinness for pace as well.
Sheffield’s equaliser on twenty four minutes did not come from that route though, it was down to a combination of Manchester City’s James McAtee’s skill and poor City defending. The loan signing neatly created the space for himself to get a shot away from the edge of the penalty area which Allsop got a hand to as he dived to his left, but could not prevent entering the net.
At half time, Robert Earnshaw, who was one of Sky’s guest pundits, said that Allsop may have been disappointed with his part in the goal and, as the saying goes,there is the rub for City’s goalkeeper these days.
There are those who are blaming Allsop for every goal we concede lately, but I can’t think of a single one that he’s been one hundred per cent to blame for (i.e, he’s committed an absolute howler). However, increasingly, I find myself thinking the same as Earnie – there are more and more goals being conceded that Allsop might feel he could have done better with.
Allsop was less of a culprit than McGuinness for me though as the centreback turned too early and easily to make McAtee’s task simpler.
To be honest though, the equaliser came somewhat out of the blue and City were playing with a calmness which angered well – Lamouchi’s tactics (as far as I could work them out!) were working and we would have gone in at the break ahead if it wasn’t for a fine save by Davies as Ralls looked set to cash in on some dozy United defending – the keeper showed the speed his team mates lacked as he raced off his line to give the City captain little room to work with.
So, 1-1 at the break with things going a lot better than most expected. Lamouchi had a decision to make regarding Simpson and, correctly in my view, he decided it was too much of a risk to let him continue. With Callum O’Dowda fit again, it was a bit surprising to see him only on the bench in the first place considering all of the problems at left back/wing back against Sunderland, but now he could come on to operate in the position he has largely looked good in over the last few months. Instead, the Irish international came out to play on the left of a back three – I can’t say for sure that this is a position O’Dowda has never played in before, but, even if he has, it was a huge risk putting someone there for the first time this season against a team that is, in all likelihood, going to be playing in the Premier League next season.
Completely unsurprisingly, O’Dowda looked like a fish out of water as Ng stayed out on the right and Ralls took the wing back role – moving either of those players into a position they were very familiar while playing O’Dowda at wing back was, surely, the more sensible way to go?
O’Dowda soon picked up a yellow card for fouling McAtee, but he didn’t suffer too much by way of comparison with fellow centrebacks Kipre and McGuinness who both found it hard going in the second half.
That said, on an afternoon of expensive defensive mistakes, I’d rather give Doyle praise for a marvelous cross into the defensive “corridor of uncertainty” which took both defenders and goalkeeper out of the equation as home centreback Jack Robinson dived to head his side ahead on fifty three minutes.
Forced to chase the game now, Lamouchi decided to sacrifice Etete for Wickham and, with a single exception, the change didn’t work although, to be fair, it came very close to doing so. Etete showed commendable industry and a good team ethic which you weren’t likely to get from Wickham, but the experienced striker does give you more of a goal threat. Wickham showed this when City’s one really dangerous attack of the second period produced a frantic scramble which ended with him crashing a shot from fifteen yards off the crossbar with Davies well beaten – just that little bit lower and City would have been level with about a quarter of an hour left in a stadium that would have got very nervous.
Instead, the game got away from City in the last ten minutes as United used all five substitutions available to them and Lamouchi, for some reason, stuck with the two he had already made.
On eighty minutes, the pass behind the back three for Ndiaye to chase ploy worked again, but only after McGuinness got to the ball first then left his back pass well short of Allsop and United’s top scorer neatly side stepped the keeper and walked the ball into the net.
This season is in danger now of ending like his first one at this level did for McGuinness as an encouraging six months or so was followed by a final few weeks where his form fell away.
A fourth goal soon followed as City showed how far their standards have dropped when it comes to attacking and defensive set pieces – Allsop claimed a foul as he missed a corner (I didn’t see one and this became another “he’ll be unhappy with that one” goal for our beleaguered keeper) and the ball bounced around before the offside looking sub Ciaran Clark whacked it in from about a foot out.
Defeat for City then, but subsequent results ensured no great harm had been done to them. Apart from a very creditable 0-0 home draw for Reading against Burnley and a 1-0 win for Blackpool which gave them some faint hope, but all but relegated Wigan, everyone else at the bottom lost. Swansea did us a favour by beating Huddersfield 1-0, Luton were 2-0 winners at Rotherham and, after claiming QPR had turned the corner following their draw at West Brom on Monday, Gareth Ainsworth may wish to revise his thinking after a 3-0 home loss to Coventry.