Written by kirsikka
Recent form and results combined with a supposed injury crisis at our opponents gave us our best pre-match hope for this fixture since the days our squad featured Mo Berthe and Roger Boli. And yet, the top flight’s morph into the Mammon League has no better example than this lot.
Man of the match against Manchester City
Semenyo
Kerkez
Evanilson
Senesi
Smith
Cook
Tavernier
Travers
Kluivert
Christie
Zabarnyi
All of them
I’ve made no secret of my enjoyment that having watched a small number of clubs do everything they can to ensure all the trophies and as much of the money as possible is concentrated in their numbers, their party has been pooped by Man City coming along and confiscating their ball. I find the indignation of those now fighting for the scraps hilarious.
That doesn’t mean I like Man City, though. They’re the pus that has formed over the sickness and injury of modern football; putrid, unpleasant and something we’d all love to see ooze away.
Sermon over and on to the match.
With the knocks that have developed in our camp, it seemed the only real choice to be made saw Smith restored in place of Araujo. The Mexican’s time will come, but for this battle today it was the right call. Meanwhile, we didn’t exactly need Cilla Black to reveal a Man City team and bench full of world-class quality with all their talk of struggling for numbers being complete tosh.
We started like an absolute train and could, maybe should, have been ahead inside two minutes with Semenyo and Kluivert both denied by the keeper.
Phil Foden has always annoyed me and I’ve never been that impressed by his contribution for England. I’m starting to think part of his impact is down to how much he’s protected by the refs in the PL. Today, every time he was outmuscled or tackled, he collapsed, and every time, the ref gave it. He even lectured the ref after a foul by Christie, and having been about to let it go, the ref actually changed his mind and booked Ryan. What was all that about? Still, a sideshow for today.
I’ll deal with the final ten minutes later. In regard to the rest of the match, it was a different animal to our usual games against this lot. Very often we seemed to spend them hanging on by our fingernails and hoping something falls for us. Not today.
Sure, they had more possession but we had the chances. Oh, how we had the chances. This was the contrast for me to last week. In that game we snuck a point due to their profligacy, today we deserved everything we got and more.
The truth is they didn’t have an effort on target until the clock was showing 79. And their man of the match was their keeper. It feels crazy, but on the first 80 minutes, we essentially dominated that game and should have been further ahead.
What about the goals? Well Kerkez absolutely skinned Foden, got to the byline and picked out Semenyo who turned his defender and slotted into the corner. Only ten minutes gone but we were more than good value for it.
It seemed to be more a hybrid press than normal. Conserving energy by only activating our usual high press at certain times and more content to sit in our shell than many other games. I completely understand why and it worked a treat. Hats of to AI, the coaching team and all the players in making it work.
First half we tried a lot of long balls trying to find the channels to catch them offguard and use the movement of Evanilson. It didn’t quite come off but looked a decent enough tactic.
Second half we dragged it back a bit and tried to hit the man rather than the channel and, with Man City pushing forward and leaving spaces behind, it was incredibly effective. Much of it was built around the FIFA ’98 style ball control of Semenyo. The mis-hit pass that would have put Kluivert clean through was the only moment it let him down.
The second goal came from one of those moves. Ball to Semenyo, he burst over the halfway line with the ball magnetised to his feet, drawing three defenders to him like iron filings, only to release it at the perfect time for the charging Kerkez. His cross was fantastic but don’t be fooled, there was still a lot to do as Evanilson flung himself at the ball and volleyed it into the net. It was a quality finish that his performance deserved.
We’ve seen games earlier in the season where we weren’t clinical enough and that was almost the same today. Fortunately, we did just enough but we still need to work on putting teams to bed when we have them on toast.
The second goal came at a really good time for us as we’d started to look a little leggy in some places but it injected energy back into tired legs.
Adam Smith had a record of something like 12 matches 12 defeats v Man City before today so he would have been delighted when a Tav shots pinged off the post and back across goal to him as he charged in. With the goal gaping, he gave it the kind of finish that, in my eyes, makes him an honorary forum member. That’d be most of us out there, hearts in mouths, spooning the ball miles over. Happily, it didn’t matter in the end.
I bemoaned the recent move of Semenyo to the left hand side because I felt it had nullified his attacking impact in the last couple of games but he was a monster out there today. Godzilla to Man City’s Tokyo defence.
Finally, they got a breakthrough, a corner played short and worked outside the area and then crossed in. Kerkez was marking the goal scorer but I don’t think he would have got anywhere near if we’d have given him a step ladder.
That’s the thing with the best teams. You can’t always keep them out, you just have to restrict their moments and that’s what we did so well today until then.
Thereafter it was chaos football. They threw everything including the kitchen piping at us but we still looked like we could break forward and score.
Sealing the win took two excellent injury-time saves from the previously untaxed Travers. As well as a malfunction in the Nordic cyborg where he knocked the ball against the post from close range. Given some of the things that have gone down through the years against this lot, that bit of luck has long been paid for in sweat and tears.
Does it matter that some of the Man City players weren’t fully fit in their starting XI or on the bench? Well, nobody mentions it when we get swept aside when we’re suffering so no. Not a jot. They still started with XI players who, if you asked most (non-AFCB supporting) football fans to choose one or the other would probably all still get picked ahead of ours.
So it was a victory deserved and to savour. These are special times and this could yet be a very special season.
Seven points from the games v Arsenal, Villa and Man City? That’s the reality. The realism that we’re a PL team to be reckoned with should reverberate across the division. And into the minds of some of our more defeatist fans.
Selected Player Watch
— Semenyo —
There are matches in some players careers that you will always remember. Semenyo, for me, had one of those today. He tormented them. It seems churlish to call a man of the match but he was the difference. He was the outlet. His physicality and close control, not normally natural bedfellows in footballers, was a combination they couldn’t cope with. Whatever the asking price was, stick another £10 million on it Bill, right?
— Kerkez —
A young player who came of age before your eyes today. Kept Foden so far out of the game Pep was forced to move him elsewhere and was like greased lightning getting forward, with delivery to match. Today wasn’t about believing his own hype, today he showed the levels to match the hype. Now he’s set the standard over to him to keep it up. Fantastic.
— Evanilson —
Strikers miss chances but good ones pick themselves up and don’t let it affect them. The problem earlier in the season was he wasn’t even getting any but today he was a thorn in their side. Could have scored earlier but took his goal with aplomb. Excellent.
— Smith —
I groaned a bit when Doku, last season’s tormentor-in-chief, came on as you could see AS was already knackered and we rode our luck a little there. It shows how highly AI regards his experience that even when he struggled to keep out the livewire sub, AI still preferred the running-on-fumes Smith to bringing on either of the two right-backs sitting on the bench. Excellent performance, although from 80 minutes on I felt for him as he was dead on his feet.
— Travers —
When they scored I knew what to expect. A full-on siege during which Travers would be called upon at some point. He did it. Wasn’t as commanding in his box as last week but maybe was concerned about the physical presence of the Norwegian troll so decided to be more circumspect. Surely his shirt to lose now?
— Senesi —
The pick of the two centre-backs, who seem to be exchanging that role that week by week. Immense.
AI and Tactics Watch
Hand up, I was wrong last week to ask for Semenyo on the right for this game. The tactic paid off by the bucketload today and showed just how talented he is as a footballer but also how astute the manager is. Sure, given the injuries this week the starting XI pretty much picked itself but the way he set them up and the way they believe in each other and his methods shines through.
We didn’t press Man City high throughout as we didn’t have the personnel on the bench to replace them in our usual way. Instead, we went with the high press in bursts but also looked to pose a threat on the counter and they weren’t able to handle it. He outthought Pep, and not many have done that down the years.
Man City are what you would get if footballing Goldman and Sachs had a baby. Well, we just crashed the market. They’ll undoubtedly come back, but today, at least, we lanced a boil.
It’s hard sometimes to find the words to express how I feel, even though I spew forth enough of them, but bloody hell that felt good. Even now, I’m getting rushes of adrenaline.
Andoni Iraola: I salute you. The coaching team: I tip my hat to you. To the fifteen AFCB players who appeared today: bloody well done.
I picked out a few players above but, in reality, I could have gone through virtually every single one who had minutes on the pitch and gushed about them. Genuinely fabulous performances across the board.
And so ends a run of three extremely tough fixtures and, overall, a very hard start to the season. We now have ten matches, and only two of them are against the big six plus two. It’s time to find out what our realistic target is for this season. With any luck, our thoughts of Europe will be beyond a broken French striker and his, at best, mercurial colleague.
Roll on next week.
Just remembered something Glenn Murray said when they were knocking on the door for an equaliser: “Man City don’t deserve anything from this match”.
That’s the message to take from today. We didn’t fluke the victory. We stood up to them, outplayed them and got what we deserved.
Brilliant.
Your say…
red_house
That’s the loudest I’ve heard DC for years, the end was just absolutely brilliant, with the singing spilling over into the streets as people left. I’m not sure it gets any better than this, brilliant performance by every player to a man, incredible day for the club and fans.
redharry
It’s days like today that you live for. The years and years of Div 3 and 4, the never-ending financial problems. I was almost in tears at the end. Magnificent, not just the result but the who the f.ck are you attitude. The football, the tactics, the goals. City were battered, it could have been 5. My god what a team, what a manager, what a day – November 2 2024 – remember it. – To join the conversation, click here.
