City play crap for an hour, end up beating Wigan anyway

Have City really gotten any better under Roberto Mancini?

It’s hard to say, but perhaps the club has gotten a little luckier under the Italian.

The most recent case in point is Monday night’s affair against Wigan Athletic. Mancini chose to rest Gareth Barry and play what amounted to a 4-2-4 with Vieira and De Jong anchoring central midfield and then Adam Johnson, SWP, Adebayor, and Tevez attacking. Without any support from central midfield in attacking areas, City looked impotent over the first hour of the game. City did have a couple of decent chances, but so did Wigan, and an hour into the match a scoreless draw looked entirely likely.

In the wake of City’s 0-2 reverse against Everton last Wednesday–one senses that no how much money City invest in players, they will always concede headed goals to Tim Cahill–a bad result Monday might well have doomed City’s Champions League aspirations.

Then came Gary Caldwell’s rash lunge on Carlos Tevez, and a controversial referee judgment that it amounted to such a reckless challenge that straight red was warranted. City continued to stumble along for another ten minutes after the sending off, before being gifted a goal on a goalkeeper error. Carlos Tevez happily tapped into an open goal, then added two much more impressive tallies for his hat-trick and what looked on paper like an easy win.

Those who actually watched the game will know better. The idea of playing in effect a 4-2-4 is fine, but Barry needs to be in for Vieira to provide more support going forward. (To be fair to Vieira, while he has not really impressed so far he is still capable of providing a beautiful killer ball out of nothing.) And, Bellamy needs to be playing as often as possible, along with Adam Johnson. SWP may need to be content with a substitute’s role the rest of the way.

Fortunately–there’s that word again–City have an encounter with entirely out-of-sorts Burnley away on Saturday. That’s another must-win match, and another opportunity for City to round into better form going into the big run in: home Birmingham, at Arsenal, home Man United, home Villa, home Spurs, at West Ham. You can’t call Birmingham a home banker, West Ham may well be playing for its life on the final day, and the quality of the other opponents needs no elaboration.

City’s goal at this point is simple: stay within 2 points of Spurs so that going into the final week, City have a chance to overhaul Tottenham with a home win in the midweek game (match 37). To have any chance of accomplishing that, there can’t be any dropped points at Burnley–or any more reliance on opponents’ getting sent off or gifting cheap goals.

Category: Team News