Reaction, stats & ratings: Birmingham 3 City 1

I think it was the 'Return of the City Slackers' for this one.

Little urgency from the kick-off and too much laughing on the pitch for my liking. The MEN claims Sven read them the riot act after this performance, though it sounds more like they were threatened with Thaksin's wallet. With Lukas Podolksi's agent, Kon Schramm, recently claiming that City bid £15.9m for the player in January, a summer clear-out is at least looking likely.

There were plenty of threads about unlucky purple jerseys on the talkboards after this game, but the fact that Rob Styles was referring was possibly the worst omen of all. According to Premiersoccerstats, City's record when Styles has refereed is now W2 D4 L12. Mark Lawrenson is not exactly City fans' favourite pundit, but his comment on MOTD that the Sun Jihai penalty was the worst decision ever made was no exaggeration. It's hard to say whether Styles has a bias against City, but his Wikipedia entry at least shows that it's not just us that fall victim to his baffling decisions.

The other mystery of the game was why Geovanni has not been playing more this season. Despite coming on with just 18mins he still earned the highest score for an outfield player in this week's ratings, and managed to get a shot on goal after just 15secs on the pitch.

Yet for most of this season you felt there was more chance of Sven playing Tord Grip on the right wing than Geovanni. As his absence has clearly not been down a lack of talent the problem presumably lies off the pitch. With Geovanni's contract expiring in the summer you have to fear that he will be the first casualty of any clearout.

~ Almost a shocker of an own goal by Sun Jihai, but judging from these clips at mancityfans it would have still fallen well short of the worst own goal ever.

~ As an antidote to last week's Beckham Mania, here's a video of him playing in LA Galaxy's 4-0 drubbing by Colorado on Sunday. Judging by the clip, Beckham's hapless teammates are now almost as lazy as he is.


~ Sven's post-match interview
~ Getty Images photos
~ Latest Premiership table.

Player ratings

Ratings come from (in order): MEN; Fidel Castro, bobadji, xavi6, irblinx (Mancityfans), goat boy, Humlannitton (Bluemoon), Kevin Parker (OSC), Sunday Telegraph Opta, Setanta, Sky and Sky Your Rating and the BBC.

Hart: 6.4 (MOTM)
(6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 7.5, 7, 5.7, 5.5)

Sun Jihai: 4.9
(5, 2, 6, 3, 5, 7, 4, 7, 6, 6, 5, 4.7, 4.6)

Dunne: 5.1
(5, 6, 4, 6, 5, 6, 5, 4, 5, 5.5, 5, 4.8, 5.4)

Onuoha: 5.0
(5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 6, 6, 5, 4.9, 4.8)

Garrido: 5.6
(4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 6, 4, 7, 6, 5, 4.6, 4.6)

Vassell (Caicedo 59): 3.9
(5, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 4, 5, 4, 6.5, 5, 3.7, 4.6)

Gelson Fernandes: 5.8
(6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 7, 6, 6, 7, 6, 5, 5.4, 5.1)

Hamann (Geovanni 72): 5.4
(6, 5, 4, 5, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5.6, 5.1)

Ireland: 4.5
(6, 4, 1, 5, 3, 6, 4, 2, 7, 6, 5, 4.3, 4.9)

Elano: 6.2
(6, 6, 7, 6, 7, 7, 6, 7, 7, 7, 6, 4.8, 6.3)

Benjani (Mpenza 81): 5.2
(5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 4, 6.5, 6, 3.8, 5.2)

Subs:

Caicedo (Vassell 59): 5.1
(6, 5, 6, 5, 4, - , - , 5, 5, 5, 6, 4.6, 4.4)

Geovanni (Hamann 72): 6.3
(6, 7, 7, 8, 7, -, -, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5.5, 5.3)

Mpenza(Benjani 81)

Subs not used:
Isaksson, Corluka

Birmingham: Taylor, Kelly, Jaidi, Queudrue, Murphy, Larsson, Muamba, Johnson, McSheffrey, Forssell (Parnaby 70) Zarate (O'Connor 90).
Subs not used: Doyle, Jerome, Nafti.


Match stats

Bit short of time this week so I'll have to direct you to the Daily Telegraph's excellent stats, while you can also find match details at the BBC and Setanta.


Match reports


Birmingham 3 City 1


Birmingham grateful to Zarate for mastering clash of Styles (Jim Foulerton)
Manchester City, it has to be said, were awful and Sven Goran Eriksson did not spare his players. "The referee got it completely wrong with their penalty, I've never seen anything like it but we cannot just blame him," he said. "We must blame ourselves because we gave the ball away so many times and if we want to play in Europe we have to do a lot better than that. We will talk on Monday but if we play like that next weekend against Chelsea it will be a very unpleasant day."


Zarate beats the Tevez prescription (Simon Burnton)
Styles seems to have quite an active subconscious because these things keep happening. This was the third successive league game in which he has sent a player off and gone on to award that player's team a controversial penalty - and he also found time to offend the manager of Ghana last week. But this decision must stand alone; adjectives simply do not exist to describe its absurdity.




Birmingham City win allays relegation fears (Colin Malam)
Appearing to respond to the taunts of the crowd, Styles then awarded 10-man Birmingham a laughable penalty as if to ensure they got the win they deserved. With Arsenal coming back from the dead at Bolton and Fulham drawing at Derby, Birmingham now have a four-point buffer.
While Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson agreed that Styles got Birmingham's penalty "completely wrong", he refused to blame the referee for the defeat.
"We must blame ourselves," he said. "If we want to speak about Europe we can't lose as many balls as we did today. We must be better than that with Chelsea coming to Manchester next."



Zarate kid fires for McLeish (Philip Dorward)
'The referee got it completely wrong and I've never seen a penalty like that. But before blaming the referee we should blame ourselves. If you concede two goals as we did today we will never win a Premier League game,' said Eriksson.
Contrasting Birmingham's busyness was Man City's dizziness. Benjani set the tone in the 10th minute when he rattled the post with the goal gaping. There then followed one-way traffic. Elano cleared Raidi Jaidi's header off the line. Two more Sebastian Larsson crosses caused Sun Jihai to shin over his own crossbar and Richard Dunne almost lob Joe Hart.


Mauro Zarate keeps Birmingham on survival course (Brian Doogan)
Birmingham were superior in almost every facet, though they might have fallen behind early on when an incisive pass by Elano, perfectly measured for Mwaruwari, yielded a quick chance for the City striker. Jaidi managed to apply just enough pressure to throw his aim, however, and his shot struck the post. Larsson’s crossing ability hauled Birmingham into the game and twice in rapid succession he panicked Richard Dunne into elementary errors.

Revealed: how City fans have been messed around the most

I was at the Sky Sports site the other day and noticed that their fixture lists include a record of when games are rescheduled.

After scrolling through City's fixtures I discovered that our games have been rescheduled a staggering 21 times so far this season, including 13 home games. We've had more league games moved than any other club, and when FA Cup, Coca-Cola Cup and European games are included only Everton fans have had to put up with as many fixture changes as us.

Here are the number of fixture changes for each club this season (if anyone has difficulty reading this table I've published it in a different format at the bottom of the page):



And here are the fixture changes in full:

Aug
Sat 18
City v Man Utd (moved to Sun 19)

Sep
Sat 1
Blackburn v City (moved to Sun 2)
Sat 15
City v Villa (moved to Sun 16)
Sat 29
City v Middlesbro (moved to Sun Oct 7)

Oct
Sat 6
City v Newcastle (moved to Tue Jan 1)
Tue 30 (Coca-Cola Cup)
Bolton v City (moved to Wed 31)

Nov
Sat 3
City v Sunderland (moved to Mon 5)
Sat 10
Portsmouth v City (moved to Sun 11)

Dec
Sat 8
Spurs v City (moved to Sun 9)
Wed 26
City v Blackburn (moved to Thu 27)
Sat 29
City v Liverpool (moved to Sun 30)

Jan
Tue 1
Newcastle v City (moved to Tue 2)
Sat 19
City v West Ham (moved to Sun 20)
Tue 29
Derby v City (moved to Wed 30)

Feb
Sat 9
United v City (moved to Sun 10)
Sat 23
City v Everton (moved to Mon 25)

Mar
Sat 15
City v Spurs (moved to Sun 16)

Apr
Sat 5
City v Chelsea (moved to Sun 6)
Sun 6
City v Chelsea (moved back to Sat 5)
Sat 19
City v Portsmouth (moved to Sun 20)

May
Sun 11
City v Newcastle (moved to Sat Sep 29)


It's hard to tell what precise effect this has had on attendances, but it does make this season's average gate of 42,068 - up 5.2% on last year - all the more remarkable.

Of course, there is an upside to all this too. The table also provides some indication of how this season's £900million TV money will be shared out.

It's unclear what the exact formula for payments will be as details have not yet been published, but if it's similar to the last TV deal then around £142m will be shared out depending on TV appearances. That should net around £10m-£11m for City, on top of an estimated £31m that will be automatically allocated to each club. With merit payments now worth around £670,000 per place, an 8th place finish would earn us £8.7m. In all, that would add up to nearly £50m in TV money for this season, compared to £22.4m last year.

But, as always, it's the fans who pay the price.


~ Here's a link to an interesting site called The Right Result (originally posted by Doctor Congo at Bluemoon), which shows what the Premiership table might have looked like had referees made correct decisions.

~ Finishing off the table theme, the latest figures for arrests at football matches have just been released. The full figures haven't been put on the Home Office website yet, but you can read the full 2006-07 figures, which break down every type of arrest for each club, by clicking here.

~ I notice that a new statue of Southampton legend Ted Bates was unveiled last weekend after the original one was pulled down following complaints from irate fans. If you missed it first time round, I wrote this story about the fiasco back in May.

~ I'm pretty much tabled-out for this week so I'll be running the all-time City managers ranking next week. I'm also finishing off the first of the Tabloid Tales series which I'll be running early next week.

Player ratings after 30 games

Below are the ratings and squad details for the season so far (cup games are not included):



And here's the match-by match breakdown for games 21-30 (substitute appearances are in italics). Ratings from the other games, and other squad details, can be found in the Stats & Squad section:




21 - Newcastle 0 City 2
22 - Everton 1 City 0
23 - City 1 W Ham 1
24 - Derby 1 City 1
25 - City 1 Arsenal 3
26 - United 1 City 2
27 - City 0 Everton 2
28 - City 0 Wigan 0
29 - Reading 2 City 0
30 - City 2 Spurs 1

Reaction, stats & ratings: Bolton 0 City 0

Unusually for a City fan, Bolton Wanderers have always occupied a special place in my memory.

When I was a kid my Dad, who was a match reporter for a Sunday newspaper, would take me up to Burnden Park and get me in the press box. The experiences provided some early lessons in life. After borrowing my Dad's press pass and using to get past two lines of uniformed stewards, I learned that the difference between being important and not being important was often a 4" by 3" piece of card.

Burnden Park was also where I had my first Roger Melly moment, watching the then Bolton manager Ian Greaves machine-gunning expletives into his conversation with journalists (being a weird kid I timed it on my digital watch and can exclusively reveal that, off camera, Ian Greaves talked at 14 swear words-a-minute).

But there was also an important football lesson to be learned at Burnden Park back in the late 1970s. At the time Bolton were challenging for promotion from the old second division. They were winning games and playing decent football. But most importantly, in Frank Worthington they had a player that set the pulses racing whenever he touched the ball. They also had Willie Morgan, disgarded by Man United as too old, dazzling down the left wing, and the combination was to prove irresistible to the fans who were flocking back to the ground.

It was a lesson taught by the great Bob Lord at Burnley two decades earlier. His formula was to invest heavily in the youth set-up, pay top money for the best manager you can find and ensure the team played exciting football - a formula that took his unfashionable club to the league title in the 1959/60 season and the runners-up spot and FA Cup final in 1961/62.

For me, Bolton are a classic example of a golden rule of football: that being efficient and hard-working is never going to be enough in football, even if it get results. Despite four seasons of top-eight finishes their average attendance slumped from 26,800 to 23,600 and this season stands at 20,400.

City too had been suffering a similar slump in attendances that reflected the lack of excitement on the pitch, and before the takeover were on the type of downward spiral that looks like sending Bolton down this season. But now our game plan appears not too dissimilar to Bob Lord's. Our academy is arguably the best in the country, we're paying top dollar to a big name manager and we're trying to play attractive passing football.

But despite our recent spending, and the early-season flashes of brilliance from Elano, we still desperately lack that special player - a Shaun Wright-Phillips, Kinkladze or a Peter Barnes to get the adrenalin pumping, and to get us talked about and watched by neutrals.

It appears that Thaksin and Eriksson recognise this need too, so now all we can do is wait for the summer transfer window to open and hope.

Just please God, not Beckham.


~ This was another weekend that helped our chances of European qualification through the Fair Play league (there's a guide to how European qualification works here).
The official Fair Play table was last updated on March 4, and since then we've only picked up two bookings.
Behind us in the Fair Play table are Wigan (7 yellows & 1 red since Mar 4), Reading (5 yellows), Fulham (4 yellows), West ham (6 yellows, 1 red) and Portsmouth (4 yellows).

~ Match highlights
~ Sven's post-match interview
~ Getty Images photos
~ Latest Premiership table.

This week on Purely Man City

Tomorrow I'll be publishing the players ratings for the first 30 league games, and later in the week will be running an all-time ranking table for City managers.

I've also been writing a series of articles called Tabloid Tales. The first one, which I'll publish either later this week or early next week, looks at Micah Richards's recent dealings with agents and how they might have shaped his treatment by the tabloid press.

Player ratings

Ratings come from (in order): Manchester Evening News; Fidel Castro (Mancityfans), sky tot (Bluemoon), Kevin Parker (OSC), Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph Opta, Setanta, Sky and the BBC.

Hart: 6, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 8, 7, 6.5 (av: 7.2 MOTM)
Nothing too exacting from shot shy Bolton on a day that was horrible for the keepers. (MEN)
Good in the air and saved us with a magnificent save from Diouf. (Fidel Castro)
One good save and some good punches. (sky tot)

Corluka: 6, 7, 7, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6.0 (av: 6.7)
No errors in concentration like last match as he returned to his controlled self. (MEN)
(Nearly) back to his best. (Fidel Castro)
Better today, but didn't get forward enough. (sky tot)

Onuoha: 7, 8, 8, 6, 6, 7, 6.5, 7, 6.4(av: 6.9)
One great clearance in the first half and continued to press his claims for rest of season. (MEN)
Dunnesque with less hoofing. (Fidel Castro)
Best performance so far. (sky tot)

Dunne: 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6.5, 8, 6.9 (av: 6.8)
Calm and composed even when the bombardment came and set great example. (MEN)
Great defender, shame about his hoofing though. (Fidel Castro)
Another solid performance. (sky tot)

Garrido: 6, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 7, 6, 5.7 (av: 6.3)
Looked as though he might be overwhelmed but fought back gallantly. (MEN)
Apart from being painfully slow had a very good game. (Fidel Castro)
Solid game. (sky tot)

Vassell (Caicedo 58): 6, 4, 5, 6, 5, 5, 6.5, 5, 5.7 (av: 5.4)
Easy to see why he was brought in and put his body on line all afternoon. (MEN)
Didn't know he was playing. (Fidel Castro)
No threat again. (sky tot)

Gelson Fernandes: 7, 8, 8, 8, 6, 7, 6, 6, 6.4 (av: 6.9)
One of the big improvers this season and mixed it well with Bolton midfield. (MEN)
A few stray passes but was working for 3 out there, seeing as Johnson and Ireland decided to hide all game. (Fidel Castro)
Would have been a 9 but some stray passes. (sky tot)

Johnson: 7, 5, 5, 7, 6, 7, 6, 5, 6.5 (av: 6.1)
One or two terrific blocks on the edge of his own box but couldn't get forward enough. (MEN)
Far too quiet. (Fidel Castro)
Went missing for a lot of the game. (sky tot)

Ireland (Elano 58): 6, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5.7 (av: 5.5)
Saw one shot cleared off the line by Gardner and hit another chance well wide. (MEN)
One good shot in first half, can't pass for shit and didn't get involved nearly enough. (Fidel Castro)
Unlucky not to score, but again no cutting edge. (sky tot)

Petrov: 6, 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7.0 (av: 6.3)
His dead ball delivery was excellent but the pace wasn't all there after his three-match break. (MEN)
Few good crosses, but nobody there to get on the end. (Fidel Castro)
Some great crosses. (sky tot)

Benjani: 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6.0 (av: 5.7)
Struggling for chances and most of his best work outside box. Lacked vision on occasions. (MEN)
Thought he had a good first half, but in the second half he lost every challenge, couldn't hold the ball up and was tripping over his own feet. Ireland and Johnson offered him no support whatsoever though. (Fidel Castro)
Good 1st half, faded 2nd half. Should have scored. (sky tot)

Subs:

Elano (Ireland 58): 6, 7, 7, 6, 7, 6, 7, 7, 5.9 (av: 6.5)
Lively almost scored within seconds of coming on. (MEN)
We finally started playing a bit of football when he came on. Unlucky not to score, but I was impressed with some of his touches and passes. (Fidel Castro)
Nearly scored, we looked more dangerous. (sky tot)

Caicedo (Vassell 58): 6, 6, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6.5, 7, 5.7 (av: 5.9)
Had glorious chance to open his account and steal points. (MEN)
So unlucky not to score, plus we looked more of a threat going forward with him upfront helping Benjani. (Fidel Castro)
Unlucky not to get his 1st goal. (sky tot)

Subs not used:
Isaksson, Jihai, Castillo

Bolton: Al Habsi, Steinsson, Cahill, O'Brien, Gardner (O'Brien 45), Diouf, Nolan, Campo (McCann 63), Guthrie, Taylor (83 Giannakopoulos 83), Davies
Subs not used: Walker, Rasiak

Match stats

The stats (below) are compiled from a live commentary. For more detailed stats, including a breakdown of each player’s passes and tackles click here (and trawl to the bottom off the page), while you can also find match details at the BBC , Sky and Setanta.





Match reports



Bolton 0 City 0


Snow fun at the Reebok as Bolton draw blank again (Mike Rowbottom)
The ball was coming down with snow on it in a literal sense at the start of the second half as a minor blizzard ensued, and you sensed that if City – so good at home, so indifferent away – were to weaken, it might be then. To Eriksson's satisfaction, they didn't, and they are pressing on to the end of their campaign, refusing to acknowledge that a Uefa Cup place is beyond them.
Perhaps the most warming aspect of the afternoon for City was the encouraging form of the Brazilian midfielder who lit up the early part of their season, Elano, after he came on as a second-half substitute.


Optimism papers over the cracks at Bolton (Alyson Rudd)
Nolan was unhappy at how Corluka reacted after being fouled. “He made a meal of it – that’s what these foreign lads do when they come over here. We just get up and get on with it – that’s the English mentality – but from him I sort of expected it.”
That is perhaps an old-fashioned view of overseas talent, but there has been conjecture about the way Manchester City’s foreign signings, in particular Elano, were so effective at the start of the season, but have faded. The Brazil playmaker came off the bench, however, and gave a gutsy display. “He is a very proud man,” Sven-Göran Eriksson, the City manager, said, “and wants to show me that he should start the game this weekend against Birmingham.”


Campo and Nolan hint at Bolton's lack of harmony (Steve Bierley)
Manchester City began the season in a state of transition and still look that way. Benjani appeared no more comfortable in the lone striker's role than any of his predecessors while, until the arrival of Elano on the hour, the central midfield lacked creative impulse. Martin Petrov remains City's best attacking option but there is an obvious need to find a balancing right-sided player of similar pace. "Next season all our new players will be better, because they will know what the Premier League is about," said Sven-Goran Eriksson. A change of formation might also help.


Tension tells on Bolton after Man City draw (James Mossop)
For cold, abject, footballing poverty you had to join the shivering thousands as they watched their Bolton team slide closer to the doom-laden prospect of relegation from the Premier League.
The entire match was a shocker with Manchester City contributing to the misery at a time when they have targeted a top 10 finish. A point apiece was more like a point of nothing.


Aimless Bolton Wanderers give Gary Megson cause for concern (Paul Rowan)
While Bolton Wanderers dominated for much of a bitterly cold afternoon yesterday, they still gave the impression that hell might freeze over before they manage to score another goal in the Premier League. They drew a blank for the third league game in a row and their manager, Gary Megson, will hardly have taken comfort from breaking a run of five successive league defeats, so blunted were his team in front of goal.


Bolton spirit wanes as Campo fails to look back in anger (Duncan Mackay)
The loss of Nicolas Anelka is beginning to look like it might turn out to be an expensive folly. Bolton may have got £15 million from him, but they stand to lose double that if they are relegated. For all the possession they enjoyed, they had to wait until the final minute before they managed a serious effort on target, Davies rising to head a cross towards the bottom corner only to have his celebrations cut short when Martin Petrov booted it clear.

In pictures: City's managers from 1889 to the present

I'm going to be adding a history section to the main site in the next few weeks, so have been sifting through online archives for some new image galleries (the existing image archives can be found here).

Below are the 34 people to have managed City, excluding caretaker managers. There's a few pictures I haven't been able to find so if anyone knows where I can locate any of them please let me know.

I've also been compiling an all-time ranking table for City's managers which I'll be publishing next week, while an historic gallery of City's chairmen will be added soon.

(Click on the image for the full-size picture)



Lawrence Furniss (1889 to 1893)



Joshua Parlby (Summer 1893 to summer 1895)


Sam Ormerod (1895 to June 1902)


Thomas Maley (Jul 1902 to Jun 1906)


Harry Newbould (July 1906 to Jul 1912)


Ernest Magnall (Sep 1912 to summer 1924)


David Ashworth (Jul 1924 to Nov 1925)



Albert Alexander Snr (Nov 1925 to Apr 1926)


Peter Hodge (Apr 1926 to Apr 1932)


Wilf Wild (Mar 1932 to Nov 1946 & 1947)


Sam Cowan (Dec 1946 to Jun 1947)


John Thompson (Jun 1947 to Feb 1950)


Les McDowall (Jun 1950 to May 1963)


George Poyser (12 Jul 1963 to Apr 1965)



Joe Mercer (Jul 1965 to 9 Oct 1971)



Malcolm Allison (9 Oct 1971 to 30 Mar 1973)


Johnny Hart (30 Mar 1973 to 16 Nov 1973 & caretaker April/May 1965)


Ron Saunders (24 Nov 1973 to April 1974)


Tony Book (9? Apr 1974 to Aug 1979)


Malcolm Allison (Aug 1979 to 8 Oct 1980)


John Bond (18 Oct 1980 to 29 Jan 1983)


John Benson (3 5? Feb 1983 to 7 Jun 1983)


Billy McNeill (Jun 30 1983 to 22 Sep 1986)


Jimmy Frizzell (21 Sep 1986 to May 1987)


Mel Machin (May 1987 to 30 Nov 1989)


Howard Kendall (Dec 1989 to 5 Nov 1990)


Peter Reid (11 Nov 1990 to 26 Aug 1993)


Brian Horton (28 Aug 1993 to 16 May 1995)


Alan Ball (2 Jul 1995 to 27 Aug 1996)


Steve Coppell (6 Oct 1996 to 8 Nov 1996)


Frank Clark (9 Dec 1996 to 17 Feb 1998)


Joe Royle (18 Feb 1998 to 21 May 2001)


Kevin Keegan (21 May 2001 to 11 Mar 2005)


Stuart Pearce (11 Mar 2005 to 14 May 2007)



Sven-Goran Eriksson (6 July 2007 to present)