Match Report 2001-2002

Saturday 02 March, 2002, Division One

Sheffield Wednesday At Valley Parade

Give it us for the Owls

Nicky Law described this 2-0 defeat by Sheffield Wednesday as one of the most inept performances he had seen, saying that the players had left themselves down badly. He is half right.

It was hard to find an above average display from anyone in claret and amber, although Alan Combe, Simon Grayson, Wayne Jacobs and Danny Cadamarteri can all be excused from extra training.

Of the rest Andy Myers has been playing above himself for a long time. This was a performance of old from a player who had been one of the Bantams best all year. With Myers putting in a stinker, Andy Tod followed him down, Tod being the sort of player who plays in a pair and is good or bad in line with his partner.

Ashley Ward was as he has been all season. Runs about well, wins the odd ball in the air, but when push comes to shove he was back in the habit of mouthing at the officials for penalising him for backing in rather than trying to do anything so major as to stop doing what the Ref was penalising him all game. That and the fact that he missed City best chance, more of which later.

These were the individual bad performances. Collectively the midfield was wretched but to a man they were let down by Nicky Law's team selection.

Take football back to base principals. If a team does not have the ball, it cannot score goals. City's midfield of Jamie Lawrence, Stuart McCall, Eoin Jess and Lee Sharpe has one ball winner in it, McCall, and three attacking players. There was a time in the first half when City were already training to a David Johnson goal for the Owls after Andy Myers had failed to clear a ball, when Stuart McCall marched out of the back line looking for a pass forward. Eoin Jess had long since raced to join the front two, Lee Sharpe was 45 yards and a prile of players away from the ball, Jamie Lawrence was charging forward to McCall's right. The move broke down obviously, because Instead of having a couple of simple options to play, McCall has one ball, to Lawrence, and the Wednesday players could see this.

Simple really. If you do not have the ball you cannot score any goals. City's midfield was unable to take the ball, Wednesday worked out that they could push two through the midfield against the one of McCall and Jess would hardly hamper them, and when he had it we could not keep it because the midfield move forward to join the attack too quickly.

In short, Nicky Law picked an unbalanced midfield. Eoin Jess, for all his David Platt like arriving in the box, cannot be trusted in a central midfield role. He is a "support man", "hole player", "a Peter Beardsely". He is not a central midfielder. Put Gary Locke into the centre of midfield with Stuart McCall then City have a central pairing dedicated to winning the ball, neither of whom is going to leave that area unmanned when the other has the ball.

Nicky Law saw a problem with City at half time, after his side had come in one down with the best effort a Danny Cadamarteri shot that was turned away by Kevin Pressman, but failed to address it correctly. Jamie Lawrence moved into the Jess role, Juanjo came onto the wing and the game was lost, because City were never going to equalise without scoring and never going to score without the ball.

So another piece of hesitancy by Andy Myers later and Shefki Kuqi followed in another Johnson effort. Ashley Ward had one good chance to get City back into it but he hit s shot when clear through that Kevin Pressman was able to kick away. Some would say that Ashley Ward was unlucky, other would suggest that as a centreforward that sort of chance should be in 99% of the time and frankly, he misses more than one out of a hundred of them.

Andy Tod blazed over later as City showed no stomach for a revival. Credit to Wednesday, they wanted the win more, as of course they should. City are all but safe from the drop and building for next season. We have 45 points and are targeting 50. A win over Stockport on Tuesday night will see us within a win of that mark, ironically the attacking team selected by Nicky Law today would do better against Manchester City's similar line up next Friday than it would against the Owls today.

So wretched performances yes, but the game was lost before kick off. There is no way to make a club in City's position as desperate for points as one in Wednesday so the motivation was always in their favour and with that midfield City had given the visitors an insurmountable advantage.

Man of the Match

Simon Grayson

Best of a bad bunch.

City Team:

Combe
Grayson Tod Myers Jacobs
Lawrence McCall Jess Sharpe
Tod Cadamarteri

Subs: Juanjo for Jess