What do you get if you take an awful home team, a dire away team and an abysmal referee? You get a pretty poor football match. At nearly thirty quid a ticket, you also get about the least value for money you can find. City were seriously below par, the referee lurched from one poor decision to another, everyone we wanted to lose won and I spent the night standing in front of an inbred moron who only stopped berating City players to scream random rubbish. He was also the idiot who thought that everyone in the ground had gone silent for a minute so we could hear him shouting better. As someone once said “Oh, what a night”.
Phil Brown named the same squad as Saturday, complete with the same starting eleven. So for all the people fretting that Brown would revert to 4-5-1 and stick Craig Fagan up front, this must prove that he isn’t actually that stupid. It also proves that systems don’t matter. If eleven players turn up in this mood and each give an average performance, you aren’t winning anything. They say you make your own luck. Last night, we didn’t have any luck at all but we didn’t deserve any.
City were sluggish from the off. Wimbledon, er, Blackburn have a good home record and I can’t for the life of me think why? As the cliché goes, Big Sam has got them well organised. They hoof the ball forward quickly, they put pressure on useless defenders and they work hard to win corners, free kicks and throw-ins (which they then take 10 years to take). We were under pressure throughout because we didn’t deal with the long ball forward. Gardner and Mouyokolo competing with Kalanic in the air should have been a forgone conclusion but they managed to cause themselves trouble time and again by not judging the ball and letting it bounce behind them or letting it drop in front of them so Kalanic could either lay the ball off or wait for one of them to touch him and then throw himself to the ground.
I noted on Saturday that it’s easy to get in behind McShane (I’m not claiming any credit, it’s hardly rocket science) and to be fair to Stoke, er, Blackburn, they did play a little bit of football. Even they had worked out that if they got the ball into feet on the right hand side then there was plenty on offer for them. Bolton; sorry, Blackburn were on the front foot; mainly due to our inability to defend their long balls and also due to them being given the rub of the green with debatable decisions. Myhill was called into action early on to tip Nelson’s header over the crossbar. From the next Blackburn free-kick, four players were offside but there was no flag. This happened time and again in the first half.
We weren’t having a lot of success at the other end, almost every ball we played up was a poor one that Big Jan had to battle for. David N’Zonzi sat in front of their defence and at 6’ 5”, he picked off a lot of long balls, while Ryan Nelson, who is terrific in the air, dominated the aerial battle for the rest. On the few occasions we got the ball on the floor and played some football, we looked dangerous. Hesselink nodded down a free-kick for Hunt to volley over with a scissor kick, his second tame effort of the game before a neat City move ended with Hunt dinking the ball into Hesselink who turned smartly and saw his left footed shot well saved by Robinson.
They’d already strolled down our right hand side three times by the time the left back Olsson fastened onto a pass and outpaced Fagan, who had tracked him but was always playing catch up. Olsson hit the byline and poked a low cross/shot that squirmed through Myhill’s legs at the near post and somehow ended up inside the far post. It was a rotten goal to concede, very poor defending and not particularly convincing goalkeeping. In Myhill’s defence, he was set for a ball across the box but anytime you are beaten like that at the near post, it’s a black mark against your name. City were rocked by the goal and any team with any talent might have hit us with a knockout blow but Blackburn are awful so we were let off and allowed to come back into the game. Fagan won a corner and Hunt’s delivery was bet by Hesselink at the near post; his header was deflected onto the post.
Any chance we had of coming back evaporated five minutes before half time. George Boateng challenged for a ball in the air. He was late with the challenge and to be fair to the referee, his charge into the challenge was quite aggressive. The Blackburn player won the ball, George clattered into him and nutted the back of his head. It was definitely a bookable offence. The referee called for the Physios while charging across with his cards out. From the reaction of the City players, it was obvious that he’d told them he was going to send George off. Altidore was distraught and Hesselink charged over looking like he was about to punch the referee. The players desperately tried to talk some sense into the referee while the fans faced an agonizing wait as George, who was genuinely hurt, took a while to come around, only to be shown a red card. It was a totally needless mistake, made by a referee who was absolutely desperate for his little moment. His performance was inconsistent throughout and this tipped it over the edge of the cliff and into the waiting sea of utter garbage.
Browny sent on Olofinjana for Hesselink which was about the only decision he could make and we got to half time unscathed, though only after Kalanic’s header at the near post had somehow bounced across the goal line without going in. While the referee somehow gave a corner, Stephen Hunt angrily ripped into Fagan for his pathetic attempt at defending the near post. The half ended shortly after, City trudging from the field feeling harshly treated (and rightfully so) but deserving of the one goal deficit because the performance had been a million miles shy of the one that beat Manchester City on Saturday. We didn’t pass the ball well, the service into our front players was abysmal and we defended poorly. We hadn’t given ourselves a chance.
The second half performance was much better. Although we still gave them the ball time and time again, ran down blind alleys out wide and made rash decisions over our final ball into the box, we did at least compete with them and we got the ball down and played a bit. Olofinjana made a big difference; he was about the only Tiger to come out of the night with any credit. He got the ball down on the floor and held on to it looking for the right pass. Despite dominating much of the half, we didn’t really create anything. Robinson made a few important punches and their defence was worked far more than in the first half but we didn’t really have an effort on goal. Tom Cairney had a quite night. He started well, making a couple of important blocks and winning a couple of tackles but the game passed him by (literally flying over his head for the most part) and his passing suffered from it. He came into it in the closing stages which show he has good fitness levels for one so new to the pro game.
Mid way through the half, Phil Brown made a brave substitution. Both full-backs were withdrawn with Kamil Zayatte making a third centre back and Zaki joining Altidore up front. It was worth a try but didn’t really work out for us. It almost cost us the game immediately as Emerton strolled through our defence as they tried to organise themselves, latched onto a through pass and with all the time in the world to kill the game off, couldn’t beat Myhill one on one. We continued to make all of the running and take the game to Blackburn but we just passed the ball so poorly time and again. We must have tried 7 or 8 times to put a ball in behind the full-back for Zaki or Altidore to latch onto but they were woeful attempts, often by Hunt or Fagan. Both wingers were pretty poor. Plenty of endeavor as always but a serious lack of quality. They were backed up by the two most unadventurous full-backs in the world, both of whom used the ball abysmally on the odd occasion they did shift themselves across the half way line.
The 3-4-2 didn’t really work for us because either Fagan or Hunt would drop back so it robbed us of half of our width. It meant we had an added threat from set pieces, of which there were a few but we didn’t particularly threaten from them. Zaki looked unfit again. He showed good feet a couple of times to get into space but has absolutely no pace at this point. He was guilty of an outrageous dive too! Altidore never got into the game at all. His touch deserted him, he was well marshaled by Nelson, who is a terrific experienced defender, and he didn’t have much chance with the awful balls into him. Myhill kept us in the game with two more terrific stops to thwart Blackburn from set pieces. Our inability to cope with the set pieces was a worry. They weren’t delivered from good areas; they were pretty long straight balls that we just couldn’t cope with. They also chucked in an awful lot of long balls that we headed out every time to a waiting Blackburn player who got a shot in. This happened every time. We were beaten to the second ball all over the pitch for the whole game.
We were still pressing forward at the death. Blackburn will have been kicking themselves as they should have killed the game off long before the end but they held on for a pretty undeserved three points. That said, anyone who contrives to lose to this collection of utter garbage deserves the nothing they walk away with. We looked like the team who were so poor in drawing with Wolves 10 days ago. In fact, we looked worse because at least we created something on that day. Unlike that game, no-one had an absolute shocker but everyone apart from Olofinjana was well short of their best. Myhill made terrific saves but was unconvincing for their goal, kicked poorly and didn’t get off his line quick enough when he could have collected balls played through and cut out any danger.
The results went for us on Tuesday night but not last night. As a result, we’re now deep in the mire again, only three days after we looked in a good position to move onwards. We have plenty of games against bottom-mid table sides away from home so away performances like this do not bode well for our future in this division. It’s hard to believe that it’s the same set of players who played on Saturday. We’ll now lose George Boateng for 3 games, so Olofinjana is going to have to play a massive part. Everyone else needs to look at themselves in the mirror this morning, admit that last night's performance was a long, long way short of being acceptable and do a damn sight better at West Ham next week.
Saturday=Pride. Wednesday=Despair. Don’t you just love football?
Ratings: Myhill 6, McShane 5 (Zayatte), Dawson 6 (Zaki), Gardner 6, Mouyokolo 6, Fagan 5, Hunt 6, Boateng 6, Cairney 6, Hesselink 5 (Olofinjana 7), Altidore 5.