Today may well have been the worst day of this season so far. A loss to a limited Blackburn team was compounded by frustrating refereeing decisions, indiscipline on the pitch and dissension in the stands. No points from a crucial week will not have done the confidence of the squad any good at all as yet another of those "winnable" games we identified was lost in familiar fashion.
Phil Brown again shuffled the pack in search of the winning formula. Sam Ricketts was strangely left out in favour of Nathan Doyle at right back. Zayatte moved back to centre half with Gardner on the bench and Mendy and Geovanni came into attacking positions with Cousin also bench warming. The line-up looked fair enough. Ricketts hasn't been in great form recently but he's certainly far better than Doyle. If that decision was made for tactical reasons, as rumoured, then it was a very poor decision. Cousin and Gardner were presumably left out for reasons related to their recent injuries. Garcia and Zayatte looked good enough replacements. City enjoyed the better of a poor first half without really hurting Blackburn. The visitors were non-existent as an attacking force, happy to sit back and see whether City would be good enough to break them down. We never really were. Mendy flew into the game, earning Warnock a booking after 30 seconds when he outstripped two of theirs before the midfielder's late challenge. From there, we never found a way to get him into the game. It wasn't until the last 10 minutes that he started to see enough of the ball to cause harm. When we pulled the ball down and played, we looked quite useful but we played long far too often and despite Garcia's willingness to work, he didn't have a prayer of beating Nelson and Samba in the air. He did a fine job when the ball was played into his body and linked up nicely with Geovanni on two occasions early on. On the few occasions that the game was played outside the middle third, it was at the Blackburn end. Geovanni wasted our best opportunity, failing to control the ball after Mendy's lovely cross field pass had put him clean through. Robinson made two saves from Turner and Geovanni following set pieces but neither would've counted because the linesman's flag was raised.
Like many games of late, our early work was nullified by defensive suicide. Pedersen picked up the ball on their left and wandered across the pitch in possession, holding onto the ball despite three pathetic attempts to tackle him, he slid the ball back, possibly to Andrews, whose shot screwed away from goal. Duke slid out of goal for a relatively easy take, but allowed Santa Cruz to take the ball from him and slide it back for Warnock to hit home. It was another horrible goal. Poor attempts to tackle, awful goalkeeping, sloppy marking and a lack of reaction from anyone to the danger. It was compounded by a second goal following very quickly. As Turner challenged for a long ball (he'd won them all easily up to this point), Santa Cruz had him almost in a headlock. It was a clear foul missed by the abysmal referee. Doyle didn't react to Turner not winning the challenge, Warnock ran in behind him and centred for Santa Cruz to beat all of ours to the ball and tap home from close range.
That goal crippled us. For 45 minutes, either side of half time, we were a non-entity as an attacking force. The build up play was ponderous at beast, aimless at worst. We didn't have anybody to create in midfield, we couldn't get the ball out to the right and it was wasted out to the left. Blackburn were incredible in their game killing tactics. As an opposition supporter and a football fan, it was torture, but I'm sure the professionals will approve. The referee was gullible enough to fall for it. Turner was booked for daring to challenge a goalkeeper (who'd gone into a challenge with his feet), which was an appalling decision. To make things worse, as Nelson went to take the free-kick, the referee insisted he move the ball back 5 yards, despite the ball being 5 yards from their goal line. Nelson was delighted at being made to waste time, so moved the ball back about 6 inches and waited for the referee to send him back again. It happened time and again. However, when it actually mattered, like Pedersen's long throws and free-kicks, the ref allowed them to steal yards. He was pathetic, he was fussy, he didn't look to play advantage at all, he gave decisions against attacking players but didn't have the bottle to punish defenders for the same crimes and he gave Blackburn an unfair share of the 50/50 decisions. He sent Marney off, quite rightly for retaliation but only deemed the very dangerous challenge that caused Marney's anger to be worth a yellow. When Diouf later swung an arm at Dawson in retaliation, he only gave a yellow. He denied us a cast iron penalty when Samba pushed Turner and missed a handball in the box too. I'm not claiming that he cost us the game, we did that ourselves but he didn't help at all. At one point in the second half, he even bodychecked Ashbee. He should've sent himself off.
Following Marney's sending off and the subsequent sending off of Pedersen, we started to look threatening. The introduction of Cousin and Barmby along with pushing turner up front caused chaos in their defence and we nearly snatched something. We scored when a second neat short corner routine led to Mendy chipping the ball into the on rushing Ashbee who capped an impressive performance with a good finish. A fine save from Brown kept Dawson out in stoppage time before turner swept a 20-yarder just wide of the post. The biggest talking point of the second half was the substitution of Geovanni or at least the reaction to it. A large portion of the crowd responding by booing the decision while there we some cries of "You don't know what you're doing". It was all very uncomfortable and pretty disgusting.
Duke had a fine game aside from the first goal. His handling was excellent and he made a superb save in the first half. He's got to do better though; he cannot make errors that costly on a regular basis. He's got to hold on to the ball or get it away otherwise we'll be punished severely. Doyle looks Ok in possession and does quite well in the air but doesn't position himself well enough and doesn't have the pace to get himself out of trouble. He wasn't an attacking option at all. Dawson had his worst game of the season, struggling to cope at all with Diouf. He was booked for pulling him down outside the box and lucky not to have been booked for a very similar tackle earlier on. On both occasions, he'd been in control of the situation and had, for some reason, concentrated harder on holding up Diouf than getting to the ball first and dealing with it. His distribution was poor and he didn't defend at all as well as he can. Turner held things together, winning everything in the air and on the floor. He remains calm despite the chaos around him. The biggest question from the second half of the season is surely "What the hell happened to Kamil Zayatte?" He looks lost. His positioning is poor, his judgement of the flight of the ball is way off, and there is no communication with the rest of the defence. As a unit, we again looked very poor under very little pressure. There wasn't really much to do overall, Blackburn, like Allardyce, were dour and one dimensional. They have some good players but we had a good chance to snuff them completely out of the game and didn't take it.
Midfield let us down again creatively. Ashbee was absolutely terrific as a defensive midfielder, putting in a great amount of work, making intelligent decisions off the ball and covering everywhere than needed covering. We know he isn't going to be the one to open up defenses, that isn't his job. He did everything he should be doing but those who are responsible for carrying the threat to the opposition were dire. Marney didn't get on the ball enough. When he did, he didn't take the game to them enough, but he didn't ever look to want it either. His sending off was stupid. He deserves a heavy fine for it. It couldn't have come at a worse time. Kilbane was appalling. He has no pace but his running is faster than his decision making. Poor passing, caught in possession too often and didn't deliver one decent ball in all game. Mendy eventually came into the game but struggled for a long time. He was caught offside poorly late on to curtail a good move but otherwise kept his discipline quite well. He made the goal and looked dangerous whenever he was on the ball, we've got to look to find a way to spread the play his way. The midfield as a whole were too flat. When the ball dropped around the midfield, they picked it up time and again because we were all in a line sat waiting for them to come at us again. Ashbee holds, Marney should be looking to patrol around in front of him and compete for loose balls.
The forwards were let down a little by the service. Garcia did as well as could be expected. I think picking Geovanni was the wrong decision, certainly as a striker. The game looked like a physical battle, we weren't going to be good enough to move through midfield so there was going to be an element of long ball and if we could get wide, there were going to be crosses flying in. Cousin and Garcia did well against Spurs and should've started again, especially considering the opposition. Geovanni made one terrific run in our half and another in theirs but was otherwise poor. He wasted our best chance with his poor control and didn't make anything of the ball around the box. Cousin added to the performance late on, he certainly made a point. Barmby also had a positive influence, particularly at 10 vs. 10 when he dropped deep and controlled the game. Fagan looked more interested in annoying defenders than performing.
The treatment of Phil Brown by the crowd was awful. Ignoring the fact that the decision was valid because of Geo's lack of involvement, it's a disgusting way to treat the best manager we've ever had. Phil Brown is not above criticism and we all have opinions but there are ways and means to make those opinion heard. Phil Brown is making decisions that he believes to be the best for the club. Those decisions have taken us further than we've ever been before. He deserves better than to be openly booed by (at least) half of our support. It wasn't just "new" supporters either; it was all different segments of the support. How does it make the manager feel when he's striving to turn our form around and decisions are met with such bile? How about Nick Barmby, wonderful on Thursday, whose introduction was ignored? The chap two seats up from me declared that Brown "has to go". A guy leaving the game asked "How long do you give him?" It's absolutely ludicrous that people are questioning Brown's status as manager of the club. Football is already in the stupid situation were a manager can be sacked after weeks in a job. Now if a manager actually achieves something, he's still going to be under pressure as soon as things stop being perfect? Brown got us promoted against all the odds, managed to gel a bunch of average looking signings into a good unit and got us great results that we didn't fancy we'd get. As a result, we're going into March needing 4 wins to guarantee safety, a position that no-one would have turned down. Even if we do go down, Phil Brown should still have a job on June 1st and should be the guy trusted with bringing us back up. Let's hope Paul Duffen isn't stupid or spineless enough to sack Browny.
Wednesday is another tough trip, Fulham are terrific at home. It's another game that we can get something from though. A point would be a good one. Marney and Dawson being missing gives the gaffer more tough decisions to make, you'd imagine Ricketts will play left back and Zayatte will go into midfield with Gardner covering him. Up front, there are bound to be more changes. I'm sure Phil Brown would love to find a settled side again but inconsistent form and a spate of injuries and suspensions makes it impossible. I'd like to see Fagan and Cousin up front to stretch the Fulham defence and Bamrby replacing Kilbane out wide. Whoever plays, we've got to be cleverer in defence and slicker in midfield. We can't continue to play so ponderously.
Ratings: Duke 7, Doyle 5 (Fagan), Dawson 5, Zayatte 6, Turner 7, Mendy 6, Kilbane 5 (Cousin), Ashbee 8, Marney 5, Geovanni 6 (Barmby), Garcia 6.