Match Details

Branch

Mellon (off 79)

Reports

An absolutely cracking game on Saturday and there is a full match report on the London Clarets site. Click below.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/2593/0001b ia1.htm

I am not sure where Tim gets his 90 minutes of non-stop excitement from as I felt the first half was a bit scrappy, particularly the last 15 minutes when the match ground to a a bit of a stalemate, although its true there were chances at both ends, although it was difficult to see at the far end how good the Clarets chances were. I guess Tim might have understandably swept away by the exceelent atmosphere at the game which rarely slackened.

Anyway, as I suspected, Stan went into the game trying to win this one with Glen out at right wing back and Weller benched despite starting in a winning line-up last week. Otherwise it was business as usual with Branchy once again covering acres of the pitch and looking like the Clarets main threat.

It looked to me as if City had the better chances, the first one being set up by a weak header back from Thomas which NTG did well to save looking very zippy coming off his line. City also rattled the woodwork with a free kick and blazed over centre goal with no defender in sight.

I was fairly unimpressed with City's front pairing of Johnson who seemed pacey but kept falling over and Horsefield who looked an expensive acquisition at ú2.5 million. The City midfield looked good, held the ball well and got forward well in support of their attack. In defence I thought the former Premiership stalwart Burrows looked very poor and in a way it was disappointing that Glen didn't take more advantage of this. In truth, in his wing back role, Glen often received the ball in positions too deep to cause any damage and was often forced sideways across the pitch allowing the Blues a chance to marshal their defence.

By way of contrast Branch's running was far more direct and he produced our one venomous on target effort with a long range shot in the first half, although there looked to be an opportunity when he muscled Edgehill off the ball and headed towards the bye line, but opted to go for his nutmeg trick instead of pulling the ball back to the unmarked Payton. However at the moment there is no guarantee that Payton will polish off these nuggets.

At half time it was 0 - 0 and considering we were away, it was OK.

Strangely the second half started well for Burnley as we mounted a threatening attack involving a lot of Clarets players which swept forward and went from side to side. Indeed it resulted in defender Mitchell Thomas being put in down the right hand corner only for him to slice his attempted cross in high into the stand behind the goals. This may well have had a temporary deflating effect as City got their opener immediately afterwards having brought on Lazaridis for Burrows and Adebola for Mr Dropdown.

Lazaridis exploited the space behind Little, beat a couple of players, and got to the bye line having drawn the entire defence. The pull back found Adebola who simply had to avoid hitting NTG from five yards out to score. Almost immediately number two came in similar fashion with this time O'Connor neatly slotting in.

To his credit Stan quickly rumbled the problem and dragged off the by-passed Little and re-instated Weller, but City were rampant and were slicing through the Clarets mdifield, where they looked to be simply overwhelmed at times.

The City crowd were in full voice now, nevertheless as we have come to expect, the boys picked themselves up and mounted a fight back, although at times they were getting the run round at the back with Adebola leading the way. He looked big strong and tricky. A bit of a poor man's Kanu and obviously was playing with a point to prove.

Thankfully we managed to get a corner which became a sequence with City looking increasingly edgy at each one until Coxy went up in knot of players and forced the ball over the line with Bennet looking to get a full hand on his header but unable to keep the ball out.

City managed to miss two or three really good chances to finish the game whereas a lot of the Clarets approach work often fizzled out when they had built up threatening positions. Payton got the ball at close range swivelled but miss hit his finish which seemed to sum up his day.

Eventually Sub Burchill burst clear and wellied a cannonball effort into the roof and we thought it was all over. However the Clarets continued to press forward and a strong run into the box from Mullin wasn't cleared properly and coming in on the far side Weller smacked a belter into the roof of the net, which left two minutes to find an equaliser.

Instead of creating a chance, the half began as it started with Thomas once again slicing the ball into the stand from exactly the same position as he had at the start of the half which allowed City time to run down the clock. With only two minutes of time added on, its usually five when we are winning, City played out time to clinch the points.

It was a great game, very competitive, played in a brilliant West Midlands atmosphere, as you would expect from the other main ancient bastion of football. I thought the facilities at the City ground were excellent and I for one didn't mind being kept in at the end if it meant that we were not going to get banjaxed by the local nutters on the way back to our transport.

I thought Stan's post match remarks were a bit off the mark blaming the defence when really it was a fantastic burst of power play from the opposition which exploited Little's defensive inabilities and the lack of pace in our back three. Playing at full throttle City looked the far superior team, however their problem appears to be finding the gears and shifting up through them. When they were in first or second they didn't look that much better than Burnley and looked vulnerable at the back, particularly down the flanks. One can see how they can lose away games if they are put under pressure and their forwards are not firing on all four. However when they shifted up to top, they were unstoppable.

Against sides like Birmingham you can't afford too many mistakes and I am afraid Thomas made one or two bad errors on Saturday and didn't look his normal self which made the other two a bit more edgy especially early doors in both halves. We paid in the second when City brought on the players to exploit this deficiency. Its a bit difficult to criticise the forwards when you have to score four to win, but to me the Guvnor didn't look sharp enough and we struggled to find clear cut chances in the box, with the two goals scored by defenders. Its hard to determine if the midfield are not setting him up or he is not finding the space. Perhaps we'll find out if Moore arrives, as Robinson seemed no better when he came on for Payton.

This may seem a bit critical, but part of the exercise is to measure ourselves against the best and in all areas of the pitch we are still some way short of being genuine contenders.

Even so, we've improved a lot even since the start of the season to be even taking the field on more or less equal terms with this kind of opposition, but right now there is not sufficient quality or depth in the squad and there are too many old buggers to be a really serious contenders for promotion. When the tempo goes up its a bit too hot for one or two. Our only realisitic hope for a top six finish is that other sides fall apart, however the opposite is more likely to happen.

Nonetheless there is no disgrace at being turned over by a better side than you and Birmingham have been consolidating their position on and off the pitch for some considerable time. By way of comparison we are new kids on the block and we need to build up in a similar way, without losing our momentum.

Having seen all three West Midlands sides away I can tell you that there are now some great home games in prospect in the second half of the season with big crowds and with the Clarets fully capable of competing on equal terms.

UTC

Igor

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