Who'd Be A Football Manager ?
I can barely bring myself to put some words together about City's performance at the weekend against Blackburn. I thought we'd reached this season's low point against Bolton, but boy was I wrong.
It's at times like this, that once the initial frustration and utter disbelief that any team of professional footballers, let alone the from the club that you support can turn in such a dire performance, that you have to feel a bit of sympathy for the manager, no matter what your underlying opinions of him are.
Pearce may well have had a feeling of impending doom judging by his pre-match interview, during which he looked decidedly uncomfortable and tetchy. The first forty-five minutes did absolutely nothing for his well-being and overall demeanour as he, with the rest of us, witnessed a "performance" that at best can be described as gutless, although the description was a lot more colourful from the regulars in the Colin Bell stand and no doubt other parts of the steadily emptying stadium.
The second half was a marginal improvement, but that said, relative to the first half it was still an awful spectacle and a huge relief when the the game ended and we only lost by three goals, with Psycho looking just as bewildered as the rest of us in complete disbelief of what we had just witnessed.
It's true that the manager carries the can for the fortunes and failures on the pitch and rightly so, but he can only do so much and when the whistle goes for the start of the game, it really is down to the players to take control and responsibility; something that seems to have escaped the attention of our squad.
One can only imagine the post-mortem of Clough or Ferguson-like proportions in the dressing room afterwards. I was half expecting a gesture from the club offering a refund to long-suffering supporters having to endure spectacles like this on an increasingly regular basis, but then I quickly came to my senses.
Having said that, it's not such a bad idea, particularly if it were funded out of the players' wages. I'd guarantee we wouldn't see many performances like that again if they had to cough up.
2 comments:
I think the finger CAN be pointed at the manager he picks the team and for my money you cannot pick half fit players. The likes of Jordan, Trabelsi and Sinclair were no where near 100% fit. Miller, Johnson and Beasley should have had preference. And why has Samaras started the last two games on the bench ?.
Twice, Steve Jordan got left on his own with no backup. Every other time Blackburn played the ball across the pitch, but they obviusly fancied Steve as easy meat, dodged the tackle and made the cross.
I was unhappy with the ref over Ouijee's injury. City were battering the Blackburn goal at the time, but as soon as the wimp went down with a broken ankle, they let them off the hook and went back to sleep. (Seriously though - the man was off the pitch - why didn't the ref play on?)
Same with the free kick goal. They made the play for an early free kick - ref wouldn't have it (after we'd got possession). Then he gave it to them again - what's that about? You use it or lose it. Crap positioning of the wall from Nicky though - Kaspar would have got that.
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