From nowhere, Erol Bulut came up with a three at the back formation featuring a full back and a central midfielder which worked like a dream as a shadow side really impressed in winning their Second Round League Cup tie at Birmingham by 3-1.
It wasn’t surprising therefore to see a repeat tonight at Blackburn in Round Three, but this time it ended up like many would have feared when they saw the team and formation for the Birmingham match – a 5-2 loss which, by the sound of the commentary I listened to (no pictures still in League Cup games this season) sounded like a fair reflection of the differences between the teams as City gave as good as they got in a very exciting sounding first half which ended 2-2 before Blackburn, who’ve now scored seventeen goals in their three games in the competition, ran away with things after half time.
The City team was, if anything, even more experimental than the one which faced Birmingham as Erol Bulut made eleven changes from Sunday’s win at Sunderland. Alex Runnarsson was in goal, Ebou Adams and Mahlon Romeo were in the back three again with Jonathan Panzo making a first start since signing on loan from Forest. At wing back were Ollie Tanner and Keiron Evans, Romaine Sawyers captained the team and had Andy Rinomhota alongside him in central midfield and Callum Robinson and Rubin Colwill were on the flanks just behind attack leader Kion Etete.
It was on the bench though that City really emphasised the experimental theme. Vontae Campbell was the most experienced player of the nine subs, with only Joel Colwill and Cian Ashford having tasted first team action out of the remaking eight. If goalkeeper Matthew Turner, new signing for the under 21 side from Spurs, Malachi Fagan-Walcott (he’s a centreback), defender Luey Giles, left sided player Josh Beecher, strikerJames Crole and attacking midfielder Cody Twose came on, it would be for their senior debuts,
In the event, Beecher and Crole got their chance and they were joined by the younger Colwill and Ashford who had featured in the earlier rounds of the competition.
I’ve not seen the fifth goal (Sky Sports News showed the other six), but three of Blackburn’s first four goals were gifts from a City defence that sounded distinctly creaky all night. Despite giving away a penalty, it sounded like Ebou Adams was the best of the bck three and maybe he has done enough to convince Bulut that he can be used there in the league if injury or suspension cause two out of McGuinness, Goutas and Panzo to miss out.
City had threatened once or twice before the home side took the lead on thirteen minutes as a straightforward looking ball played from the halfway line sent Jake Garrett racing through and he was easily able to beat Runnarsson from just inside the penalty area,
City were level within five minutes with a fine goal as some lovely footwork by the elder Colwill set up Robinson who drilled a low shot into the corner of the net from twenty five yards.
It was heartening to hear that it was three young players with time to develop further were at the heart of most of the good things City did in the first period as Colwill, Tanner and Etete sounded like they were making a case for inclusion against Rotherham on Saturday.
Another young attacker seemed to be finding it hard going in his unfamiliar left wing back role and Blackburn exploited a gap where Evans should have been to score an easy second after Sawyers had lost the ball cheaply – Andrew Moran got to the bye line and pulled a low cross back for Arnor Sigurdsson to side foot in.
That effort looked like sending City in at half time a goal down, but Etete receiving a pass from Sawyers flicked the ball up a couple of times to tee himself up for a shot into the net from about fifteen yards – another very good City goal which means that Etete has already beaten the figure of three goals he scored last season.
The game was beautifully poised at halftime, but a sleepy start to the second period saw two goals conceded in the first nine minutes to effectively end the game as a contest. It certainly sounded like Panzo was looking as rusty as you might expect someone who has played so little football so far this season to do and he was culpable as he gave the ball away twenty yards from goal to leave Moran with a clear run in on Runnarsson and he scored easily.
Four minutes later, Moran was brought down by Adams for what sounded like a penalty which didn’t need multiple views by VAR to convince the authorities as to its validity. Runnarsson, diving to his right saved his fellow country man Sigurdsson’s penalty, but the respite was temporary as the resultant corner was half cleared to Moran who was given time to shoot past a goalkeeper who, with eight conceded in the two games he’s played so far, has every reason to wonder about some of the defending in front of him at Ipswich and now Blackburn.
The seventeen year old Beecher was brought on for the last half an hour (the youngest City player to make a first team debut since Adam Matthews nearly fifteen years ago?) and it was a mixture of defensive fallibility and attacking quality from him it seems- it sounded like he was at fault with the fifth goal as Markanday steered in a Moran cross, but also knocked over two or three very nice looking crosses.
Crole also got half an hour and came as close as anyone in maroon/plum in the second half with a shot from twenty yards o to the top of the Blackburn net, while Ashford and Colwill junior played for the last fifteen minutes or so.
So, it’s five conceded on two of our last three visits to Elwood Park and we go there again next month -with their scoring record in this competition and twelve scored in the league so far, Blackburn are finding goals easy to come by this season, so we’re going to need something a lot better from our defence if we are to avoid another disappointment there in a few weeks time.
On Tuesday, the under 21s (actually, the team selected was almost completely, an under 18 one) were beaten 1-0 at Leckwith by a Millwall side which have yet to lose so far this season.
The most influential moment in the game came after around a quarter of an hour when Alyas Debono, a first year scholar, was sent off for a lunging tackle after the ball had got away from him around the halfway line. It was probably the right decision if you go by the way the game is being refereed at Premier and EFL levels these days, but it seemed a harsh call by a ref who didn’t impress me much and only showed a yellow card to a visiting player for a foul which looked no better than Debono’s.
Once it became eleven against ten, City were reduced to trying to get to the half time interval without conceding, it was a little like the first team’s game at Sunderland with the difference being that he under 18s conceded when Leahy glanced in a header around the thirty five minute mark.
However, City came out with a much more positive outlook after the break and spent most of the second half on he front foot.
In the eighty ninth minute, it looked like City had got a deserved reward for their second half efforts when Tanatswa Nyakuwha was hauled down in the penalty area. It was a nice piece of play from Nyakuwha to win the penalty and he stepped forward to take the spot kick. The problem was that for the fifteen minutes or so before the penalty incident, Nyakuwha had looked out on his feet to me and so it was that much of a shock to see the spot kick saved by Millwall goalkeeper Wady as Fin Johnson stabbed the rebound from the save just wide.
A really good effort in the end by a very young City team (possibly the youngest one we’ve fielded at this level), but particularly worthy of praise for me was Kyle Kenniford in midfield and another first year scholar in Dakarai Mafico playing at left back which I understand was an unfamiliar position for him.
Finally, if the person calling themselves Bluebirds over Pembrokeshire is reading this, I belatedly received your message in the Feedback section this morning and have just replied to it.
Paul, compadre,
Thanks as ever.
Oh dear… the sands of time are running out for me at 76… I think it’s time to take at least a temporary leave from this game of association football that I have loved since my first visit to Ninian Park in 1955-56. The game of soccer today bears no resemblance to the game I fell in love with as a little kid.
It has lost its way.
The events of last night have so pushed me over the edge, that I am abandoning soccer for the other brand of football… that is at least until the 2023 Rugby World Cup tournament is over. Gee… that Ireland v South Africa game gave me a ‘high’ that no game with the round ball has given me in recent months… maybe YEARS…
I think I have told you before Paul, that I fell in love with the buccaneering playing style of Manchester City way back in the mid-late 1960s… when Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison were at the helm.
That love affair was fully consummated when I got a ticket to be one of the lucky chosen to be at a packed Maine Road in November 1972 to see City outclass Frank O’Farrell’s United…
https://youtu.be/xC3fSj5cc3g?si=V5I4N-LNZPT_Kzm2
And I have always had a soft spot for City since those days… and then we come to Guardiola. Yes, he’s clearly some sort of genius… but genius at WHAT…?
Certainly not press conferences… am I the only person who is irritated beyond belief by his nonsensical answers to questions re how players performed? Like last night’s ‘very good’ assessment of Jack Grealish. (Yes, I get it that he does not want to denigrate individuals in public, but all he has to say is ‘we are a team: I never talk about individual performances’.)
I watched all 96 minutes of the Newcastle game… and very nearly fell asleep. I cannot stand this nonsense any more. Constant playing the ball square and backwards… Grealish as almost always, negative in his attitude… always safety first, playing the ball back or square to the nearest player, and seemingly incapable of getting past his young opposing full back on the outside. Several runs into space behind the Newcastle lines, by the likes of Alvarez, ignored by midfield team mates who always played the ball square instead of over the top… gee how the heck the magnificent Haaland puts up with it, I know not. (I however DO know that were he playing for the red shirts of Liverpool, Man Utd and maybe even Arsenal, he would have scored even more last season than his year’s eventual phenomenal haul.)
I regard Pep’s tactics as ‘anti football’… and gee, was I pleased when the Magpies scored their winner… even if they are owned by a state run by a murderous tyrant.
But Pep has alas infected all sorts of managers. What was that yesteryear programme on the telly called… something like ‘Make Me A Star’…?
Well, were they on it, all these often fifth rate managers with fifth rate teams, would be intoning the same words… ‘Tonight Matthew I’m going to be… Pep Guardiola’.
Oh dear me… for godsake… be YOURSELF. Please don’t ape the architect behind the Irlam Globetrotters. (Oh no, that nickname I coined is so inapposite… not just because Irlam is a red area of the city… but more importantly because it is an insult to the Harlem Globetrotters… because they really ARE entertaining.)
But ape Pep they do.
Arsenal beat Brentford because of a stupid pass back in his own third. Chelsea were lucky to beat Brighton as Sanchez committed two ‘playing out’ howlers, but was spared by Brighton not punishing him. Poor old Leicester were tormented by the Liverpool ‘press’, when Pep’s until-recent assistant tried emulating him. Everton,s opener was a direct result of hopeless ,playing out’, and their second goal saw Calvert-Lewin being presented with a suicidal square pass from a Villa player. A shocking West Ham square pass should have been punished by Lincoln… who missed a sitter.
And that brings us to our lot. WTF is wrong with Erol…? How can you let Panza play the ball out like that? And that is down to YOU dear Erol… not him. Clearly the Arsenal Icelandic keeper is under the Guardiola/Arteta spell, and lacks Alnwick’s good sense to KICK a goal kick, when he can see his own players are not just up to it.
What is the point of fans travelling from South Wales to Blackburn to see their manager undermine them this way with this nonsense? Erol, reimburse them their expenses… for it was 2-2 until this self destruction.
So, I am fed up with losing the great game that I loved to idiotic trendies.
But before quitting… let me say that I was heartened by the performance of Kion Etete last night. And I weirdly got to thinking about Ian Rush.
When Rush signed for Liverpool aged 19 in April 1980, he went on to play 9 games for the first team the next season, but could not score a goal.
In the summer of 1981, a Scouser friend of mine suggested that it was £300k down the drain.
How wrong he was to be proven to be…!!
And with this Kion boy, I am beginning to wonder if we have not perhaps got a bit of a jewel on our hands. Okay, perhaps he’ll end up closer JENNIFER Rush than Ian… but that’s not to knock him… if he could make as powerful an impact as she did, City will be quids in…
https://youtu.be/mpJHhWtrYMM?si=x9xvRsJFjOIuLBTm
What a song, and what a singer…!! Wow… she even looks a bit like a female Kion… Is she perhaps related? I think we should be told.
See ya Paul (maybe) after the rugby. Let me know if we ever get proper football back.
Adios.
Dai.
Oh… I forgot to add that the desperately poor Kalvin Phillips was another who Pep stupidly claimed ‘played very very good’ on Wednesday evening. He has turned him into another sideways merchant.
Declan Rice was wise to turn down a move to Manchester.
DW.
First thing to say Dai, is that some time ago I had an experience with the game of rugby very similar to the one you are going through with football. I fell out of love with the game when it became a collision fest where commentators got more excited by “hits” than tries and contact was actively sought instead of avoided. Hence, all of the hype I have read since the Ireland v South Africa game left me as cold as I felt when watching it live – it’s probably fair to say it was a classic, but a classic of the modern game and I don’t like the modern game (the last Lions tour completed the process).
I’ve mixed feelings about Man City because they won all but one of the competitive competitions they were involved in last season (I may be wrong there if you include things like the Charity Shield and whatever the Super Cup is called these days), so Pep’s methods work. However, my view is that they only work because he can buy the players best suited to making them work, he has advantages that virtually no other manager in the world shares and so in a way, he’s playing a game like Football Manager with unlimited resources.
Where I agree with you is that I believe other managers are wrong to slavishly follow Pep’s methods because the players they have at their disposal are going to make too many mistakes if they follow the Pep approach to the letter (although I would mention that Man City are well capable of going from back to front very quickly via their goalkeeper).
You make a good point about Alnwick and I’d say trying to play out from the back when it’s “on” to do so makes sense as long as there is also a recognition of when it isn’t – I think Bulut would agree with that as well.
Panzo’s performance on Wednesday was a worry, but, hopefully, it was as much to do with lack of game time as anything and my final, Cardiff City related, point on this is to say that I’m enjoying watching my side trying to play more football than they have been in the habit of doing in recent years. Of course, winning a few games helps, but even when we only had four points from five games, I was still enjoying watching Bulut’s City play – I think he has the balance between what I’ll call Pepism and realistic, practical football about right.
Finally, on Etete, I thought he played a big part in getting us those points at the end of last season that kept us up in the end – before that, there were flashes of potential, but not enough of them. Similarly, for whatever reason, he was very slow out of the blocks in pre season and so put himself further back in the queue when it came to striker selection, but I think he’s at a stage now when he’s knocking very hard on the door for a regular starting place – Steve Morison, rightly, gets stick for his man management, but I’m beginning to think he did us a big favour when he signed Etete – Jamilu Collins was also a very good signing considering we got him on a free.