English FA Premiership/ Blackburn Rovers 4 Manchester City 2: With so few goals between them so far, only two prior to yesterday, this match had all the hallmarks of a 0-0 draw. However, that was based on the assumption that both teams could defend, and by half-time that premise had been scattered to the four winds.
Blackburn eventually won because they tightened the screw at the back and in midfield thereafter, while City continued to play as if any number of nuts and bolts had gone missing. It was a shocking defensive performance, as if Sylvain Distin, Richard Dunne and Co had never played together before.
By the end the normally animated Stuart Pearce could do no more than rest his chin in his left hand and gaze, with a glazed expression, at the wreckage.
Two free-kicks by Morten Gamst Pedersen, virtually identical but the first deflected past his own goalkeeper by Trevor Sinclair, had speared City in the first half, and then a swift throw-in after half-time caught the defenders flat-footed, allowing Pedersen to speed away and set up Benni McCarthy. The substitute Paul Gallagher, unmarked, provided the final ignominy after Brett Emerton had danced down the right. To say he evaded challenges would mean finding a new definition for the word challenge.
It had all begun so differently for City who, sensing Rovers might be a little leg weary after their Uefa Cup tie in Austria, rushed at the home team with the obvious intent of killing off the contest before it had begun. The best opening fell to Joey Barton who missed after Trabelsi, unselfishly, laid Bernardo Corradi's pass into the midfielder's path.
Then their troubles began. Pedersen's first free-kick was deflected in, its pace totally bamboozling the City defence, as did the Norwegian's reprise after Barton had equalised following a lovely ball from Dickov. Rovers, without a Premiership win, were still dwelling on taking the lead for a second time when City equalised, though. Corradi had too much room on the right and when he crossed Andre Ooijer turned it past his own goalkeeper.
"On another day City might have been out of sight by half-time and we were grateful to come in at 2-2," said the Rovers manager, Mark Hughes.
Barton continued to drive City forward and from his corner Micah Richards, whose timing at set-pieces can be intuitively brilliant, powered a header that might have gone clean through the net. Unfortunately the timing of his run did not match the timing of his header.
City were still pressing when Gallagher finished them off. "We need to be more hard-nosed," said Pearce. It would be surprising if a few were not put out of joint on the coach home.
- Guardian Service
