Match Report 2002-2003
Saturday 28 September, 2002, Division One
Portsmouth away
City waste a chance against the league leaders
It is one of those unexpected feelings that will never be understood at work on Monday. Portsmouth? Great team? On the march to the Premiership? Well, not really. Really we should have had them.
City's Team that does not know how to lose showed a deft touch at it just as we did at Leicester City a few weeks back. The bottom line is that City made the chances and made them when the game was winnable, but we frittered them away.
We started like the team at the top of the table. Paul Evans bossed the midfield and should have had a strike at goal when a passing move found him on the edge of the box, he slipped.
Robert Molenaar, who had a good game despite the goals going past him being somewhat down to his lack of pace, was spraying the ball around. He found Michael Proctor with a good ball and Proctor looked around for Danny Cadamarteri to show for him but the Clecky boy with the Mohawk hid behind defenders when he should have been attacking the front post.
City spurned what could have been the match winning chance. Fifteen minutes in and Andy Gray gets on the end of a chance and lashes the ball an inch wide. It looked it, it should have been in but it was not and that was three decent chances that City were smarting on when a minute later Nigel Quashie lashed a ball from range.
Like at Leicester, City sulked for a minute or two and like at Leicester the sulk only ended when City went two down. Vincent Pericard was a mile offside and used his hand to get the ball down but the ball nestled in the back of Steve Banks net and the Bantams, who should have been one up at least, were two down.
City huffed and puffed and Michael Proctor managed a couple of chances as Shaka Hislop started to limp around.
Second half started much as the first. Danny Cadamarteri could have got a goal after more good work and you start to think that the problem with City is that we lack a cutting edge and no, the return of Ashley Ward will not solve that problem.
Nevertheless even without the cutting edge City scrap well but scrapping only gets you so far. Claus Jorgensen scrapped a ball in the midfield but it broke to Paul Merson who seems to do little in a game but what he does he does well (in a Chris Waddle style-ee). Merson popped a ball over Molenaar to Quashie who put the game beyond recovery.
City have lots of petrol in the tanks. You find out more about a team in defeat than you do victory. City are not quitters and kept on plugging away looking for a goal to give us something to cheer us on the long road back.
Paul Reid made his debut, he loves a one two this Aussie City have signed and could be a useful addition. He set up Michael Proctor who spurned another good chance. Still, he is a Sunderland striker who has as many goals for us as he club have got all season.
So how does this one sound on Monday morning. "You can't expect to beat the league leaders in their own backyard" they will say and they are true I guess but when you have the chances and need the points as City do, then why not expect the win?
Still, my office, Monday morning, will ring to one song. "4-1, to the Arse-sal-nal..."
Man of the Match
Danny Cadamarteri
Not a very good display, but get going all game despite the fact that most of the things he did didn't come off and the fact that he and Michael Proctor just do not seem to get along.