Forthcoming Fixtures

Tuesday 29th September 2009

Manchester City Reserves 0 Liverpool Reserves 2

Ngog(8), Irwin(52)

After winning the opening three games of the reserve season with very decent displays City decided that all the hard work counted for nothing as they turned in a very lack lustre display last night. Even when Liverpool went down to ten men in the seventy eighth minute when the Icelandic Victor Palsson received a second booking,City could not muster themselves to threaten Liverpool's goal; in stark contrast to the academy that had destroyed Liverpool some fifty five hours earlier.

City lined up with Michael Johnson in their line up.After spending virtually all of last season on the sidelines and only truly diagnosing his abdominal problems in May,it is evident that Johnno is still some way from full match fitness and  that showed as after making a long tracking run back defending late in the first half he was starting to blow a bit and so it was not really a surprise that we did not see him return for the second half. I suspect he will play at least sixty minutes next week at Sunderland if he has not suffered a reaction from last night.

City went behind in the eighth minute as they fielded a makeshift defence without many reserve regulars not being available but it was experienced defender Javier Garrido that allowed the cross from the right and David N'Gog was left with a free header past Stuart Taylor in the City goal.

The second goal that City conceded was in the fifty second minute when a ball in the area was not  comfortably dealt with and was only cleared to just outside the area and Steve Irwin fired in a shot that went into the bottom corner of the goal past Taylor.

City had their fair amount of possession during the match but despite moving the ball out to the wings for both our young Slovakians; Mak and Weiss, neither were able to get the right ball into areas for anyone to make a clear chance and so Liverpool held on to their advantage despite losing their discipline a bit.

The problem that City also had was that there was no one on the bench that might make a difference with so many players out on loan or away in Egypt for the Under 20 world cup and using two substitutes at half time to replace Johnson and Garrido meant it was a risk to make any more subs too much away from the ninety minutes. I am sure that most players will want to put in a better performance next week away to Sunderland.

Teams:

Manchester City:

Taylor, Smith, Garrido(Cunningham 46mins),Vidal, Wabara,Johnson (Kay 46 mins),Weiss(Moore 83 mins),Ibrahim, Ball,Mak, Poole

Subs: T Johansen(GK),Redshaw

Liverpool:

Martin, Degen(Mavinga 46mins),Darby, Ayala,Agger(Gomis-Mendy 73 mins), Irwin,Eccleston, Amoo(Poloskei 80 mins),Ngog,Palsonn,Kacaniklic

 Subs: Hansen(GK),Saric

Attendance:414