Forthcoming Fixtures

A minutes silence for the legend Neil Young, atrocious weather conditions, swirling rain, strong winds, the return of Shaleum Logan, Gunnar Nielsen, more time on the pitch for Michael Johnson; this time sixty minutes, a first competitive appearance for Abdul Razak and floodlight failure, all just part of another night of EDS action.

Bury as usual fielded a fairly young side, except the very experienced twenty eight year old striker Andy Bishop and so it was expected to be a fairly comfortable game for City's EDS team and so it turned out mainly in the end as Bury's nineteen year old goalkeeper Ritchie Branagan kept the score down on many occasions.

City's first real chance fell to John Guidetti when he chested a Donal McDermott ball down and attempted to chip Branagan but it was not quite on target. Two minutes later and Michael Johnson turned Guidetti's provider but this time Branagan was quick to block the shot.  The pressure continued a minute later when the ball was worked out to the left and again McDermott was on hand to fire in a cross that Guidetti was able to bungle past Branagan into the back of the goal.

The momentum lowered a little after the goal but City did create the odd chance; this time Guidetti was part of the build up along with Razak as Guidetti slipped a ball for Chris Chantler into the box but his shot across the face of the goal was just wide.

Then we were treated to the far side floodlights switching themselves off for no reason in the thirty fifth minute and the referee took the players and officials off whilst the staff attemped to rectify the problem. Good news in that the problems were cured in a few minutes and the game was only delayed for ten minutes.

City wrapped the victory up a minute before stoppage time when Johnson saw Logan make a run down the right and he played a through ball for him to cross to the far post where Guidetti fired into the back of the goal.

The second half was much more about the weather as the wind and rain really picked up and normal decent balls were either holding up or being pushed on and skimming off the surface.

City did however make a couple of really good chances in the final ten minutes when a move that involved a double figure amount of passes came to Guidetti and he fired a through ball across to Joan Roman-Angel and he bore down on goal and shot but the advancing Branagan got something on it but it looked to have looped back to goal and was cleared near the line by Andrai Jones.

Five minutes remaining and City peppered the Bury goal with an attempted overhead kick by Guidetti and a spinning header by captain Scott Kay that was heading for the corner of the goal but was cleared off the line at the last attempt.

With Bolton only slipping up to Manchester United who have won all their Senior cup matches the remaining fixtures suggest that even if City win their remaining two they are likely to finish third. City's official site have suggested it will be a final four and not the top two but there has been no prior mention of this change of format; so we wait and see.

Teams:

Manchester City:

Nielsen, Logan, Chantler, Kay, Wabara, McGivern, M Johnson (Smith 62),Razak, Guidetti, Mancini, McDermott (Roman -Angel 24)

Subs: Johansen(GK),Veseli, Bunn

Bury:

Branagan, Rothwell, McGonigle, Patel, Jones, Mangan, McCarthy, Harrop, Hudson, Bishop (Boswell 46), Dawson (Jennings 83)

Subs: Dibble (GK), McClaughlin, Crawshaw

Attendance: 510