da aposte e ganhe： If there’s one thing that all Manchester City fans can agree on it is that, if Nigel de Jong is hitting the post from long range efforts, that means the team is in dire need of a goal. De Jong doesn’t score. He just doesn’t, that’s not his job. If he’s clean through on goal, he passes it back to the goalkeeper (as we have seen on two occasions in his City career). On Saturday evening, at about five past seven, Nigel de Jong hit the post at Villa Park and City were in dire need of a goal.
da casino： Having fallen behind thanks to a gift of a goal – gift from the City midfield in trying to pass it out, I don’t agree with the general consensus that it was a terrible save by Hart that left Bent with a tap-in – City then fell victim to their age old problem of this season.
They couldn’t break down a stoic defence.
Barry tried with a header, Kompany tried with a header, Dzeko tried with a header, Kolo Touré blasted a couple over from corners (after also trying with a header), Tevez let a tap-in roll under his foot as it came suddenly to him, and there were also numerous shots from Tevez, Dzeko, Johnson, Silva, et al. None of them went in and, if we’re being honest, it felt like City could have played all day and not scored, the way Dunne and Collins were getting various body parts in the way of everything.
Who’d have thought it? Former player does well against his old club when his side are up against it… Though, it seemed that memo was forwarded to Gareth Barry too late, since he really struggled for the second time in this fixture. Frustratingly so, too, because he’s consistently been a great performer in City’s side this season and has been missed when he’s not there. But he couldn’t seem to sort his feet out on Saturday.
The biggest problem with the team, certainly that I felt anyway, on Saturday was that it was very narrow. When Adam Johnson came on, he offered that little bit of width that was needed and got one or two good, low balls into the box after dribbling his way to the by-line. But, it was just one of them days, and every goalbound shot was blocked or deflected and found safety. City couldn’t really have done much more and they didn’t play that badly; Aston Villa just defended very well.
One of the biggest (daftest) criticisms I read after the game was that £27m spent on Dzeko was a waste, when Aston Villa acquired Darren Bent for a fee that could rise to £24m. I’m not knocking Bent, I really like the guy (except for what he did on Saturday), and you can’t argue that he’s a good, solid, Premier League goalscorer, but the two players’ situations are entirely different.
Bent has slotted into a team from another that is playing in the same league, a league he has been used to performing in regularly. Dzeko, meanwhile, is coming from abroad and is off the back of a winter break: it seems pretty unreasonable to demand an immediate return on his investment on that basis, while not totally unwarranted to get one from Bent. And it’s not as if Dzeko hasn’t had his moments, because he has.
Nevertheless, the defeat certainly isn’t the end of the world and, hopefully, it was something of a reality check to a section of our support – the section that thinks all City need to do to win certain games is to show up: clearly, that’s not true. Leicester was one of them and it produced two close games. Aston Villa had been brushed aside with consummate ease over Christmas at Eastlands, then, one month later, City can force only two shots out of 24 on target against them.
Notts County this Sunday is another one to be wary of – they’re not to be underestimated.
Perhaps the biggest reality check has to come in the form of the league table. I said at the start of the season that, having failed to win a place in this season’s Champions League, finishing fourth or above was most crucial. I also said that a title challenge wasn’t beyond City, but nobody should be disappointed if the club fails to mount one. And, if the truth be told, the league table has been tricking City fans for a few weeks – we may have been flirting with first and second place for a while, but, the reality is, with two games more than United played and one game more than Arsenal, they were both always favourites to go back ahead of City.
I suppose it’s a mark of how expectations have changed around the club that I’m now disappointed to be sitting in third place. Being top of the league is fun and I’d like to do it again… I’d like even more to finish there at the end of the season, but that’s unlikely at best – and it always has been unlikely, even if I (and many other City fans) have been getting a little carried away with ourselves this past few weeks.
It’s been fun while it’s lasted, but let’s not all get disappointed if City finish in third place. All the other clubs around us have been there, done it, bought the T-shirt (and, in Liverpool’s case, now ruined the T-shirt), while we are still learning.
Fourth was my aim for the start of the season, though, being honest, I would probably be a little disappointed to finish there having been where we have been this season. Third, however, would be where I expect the club to finish right now and anything better is a bonus. Though, should United and Arsenal lose their games in hand and City be just a few points off the top come April, I will have everything crossed.
The title is unlikely at best, true. But sometimes the unlikely does happen.
Just don’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t.
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