21 April, 2007

Que sera, sera

Nottingham Forest 3 - 0 Bournemouth

Not much to say about this one:






    Smith    
Curtis Chambers   Breckin (c) Wright
Prutton McGugan   Perchio Commons
  Holt (G)   Lester  


First half: pretty even. McGoldrick (I think) was causing a lot of problems and they had three or four very good chances. We were playing decent passing football, as were Bournemouth, and I think that probably made a difference - if they had stuck nine men behind the ball, things would have been much more grim.

As it was, the crowd was behind the team, Carlisle had taken the lead against Brizzle and even Smith was playing well. However, the goal came from nowhere - Commons on a run suddenly unleashed a right-foot rocket.

Then the turning point of the game - one of their players made a dreadful mistake, passing the ball directly to Lester who went on a run. In order to try and make amends their player lunged at Jack, missing the ball completely and bringing him down. While he was not the last man the crowd were chanting "off, off, off" and the ref had no hesitation in showing the red card. To me, it looked like a yellow - apparently the red was for dangerous play rather than stopping a goal-scoring chance - in which case, fair enough. From then on, Bournemouth were not really in the game, apart from scything down Commons (Krissy needing lengthy treatment - very worrying with only two fit strikers and potential play-off matches upcoming).

News filtered in at half time that Brizzle had equalised.

Second half and Bournemouth used all their substitutions (one in the first half, two at half time) - risky, given it was a hot day and they were down to ten. At this point the crowd started to revert to type - complaining that our nice passing play often involved a pass back or sideways. My favourite comment was from a bloke behind me: "they need to stop passing it about aimlessly and get it forwards .... oh don't release it so early!" In other words, complain when we pass it, complain when we play it long.

About ten seconds after he said this, Krissy unleashed another rocket, this time with his left. Two nil and the game was over. We basically took control of the game and the fans stopped complaining. I was listening to the radio (like an old git) during the game, for score updates - Colin Fray said "and what the City Ground would love to hear is that it is 2-1 to Carlisle". Unfortunately, a large section of the crowd misheard and thought Carlisle had taken the lead again - to much cheering.

We launched attack after attack - eventually a break fell to us. Commons crossed, Prutton headed the ball on the byline at the far post. His header hit the back of the keeper's head (may have been a defender - can't really tell) and it bounced in. Prutts immediately claimed it but we knew it was an own goal. Almost immediately the score came through from up north - 2-1 to Brizzle.

We just happily passed the ball around now - the game was pretty much over - and whilst we made a few chances there was not much left in it. Bournemouth just wanted to go home (a couple of half-chances notwithstanding) - while we saw Felix Bastians for the first time this season (replacing young Lewis). Jack hit the post. Grant did an awful scissors kick to much hilarity (he waving his arms at the Trent End with a big grin on his face) and we were treated to a Holt-for-Holt swap. Jack then fired over - the dejection on his face plain to see - he really wanted (and deserved) a goal today.

And that was that (apart from the news that Brizzle had got a third). The gap is still four points. There are two games left. One win and Brizzle have second place. We need to win both and City need to drop points in both games. Which is very very unlikely. At least we are looking like going into the play-offs on a run of form - rather than plummetting down the league as I feared. And we may just get to christen the new Wembley ...

Losers:
No-one (honestly).

Winners:
Smith: Distribution good. Saves good. Command of area good.
Prutton: his best game since his return.
Commons: most people's choice for man of the match. Four goals in two games, an assist for the third. We could complain about him not being like this week in, week out - but as long as he does it for the next five games I don't care.
Lester and Grolt: lots of hard work in the sun, both came close and both deserved a goal.
Perchio: a bit of a headless chicken in the first twenty minutes - then decided (or was told) to act as anchor and stop McGoldrick and totally nullified Bournemouth's only threat. My man of the match.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spot on again Baz. At least we look like hitting some sort of form before heading into the dreaded playoffs.

Didn't realise Colin Fray was responsible for the crowd thinking City were losing. That was almost funny if it wasn't so serious. Ahh well, let's hope we get to Wembley, then who knows what will happen.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know the date of the League 1 play-off final?

Baz said...

The Final is 27th May - no dates as yet for the semis.

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