Posts Tagged ‘Mismatch’

Aston Villa 1-1 Manchester City

Manchester City wrestled a draw from a match in which they were literally responsible for their own troubles. The manager, Mark Hughes, would have felt a twinge of foreboding when he sanctioned the £5m sale of Richard Dunne and the defender duly scored Aston Villa’s opener here. Still, the visitors did show powers of recovery on a night when they could have been beaten. Villa, for their part, can be satisfied with having imposed themselves firmly on visitors who are now fourth in the table.

Considering the lapses experienced by the habitual top four in the Premier League the question may not be how good Manchester City are in theory but how good they would actually need to be if that cartel is to be broken. Mark Hughes has faced up to some hard questions and Micah Richards, in the wake of a mauling at Old Trafford, has been demoted to the bench, with Pablo Zabaleta taking over at right-back, but this match soon confirmed that City continue to be a work in progress.

The schlock element of Richard Dunne’s headed goal against his former employers should not distract anyone from noticing how bad the visitors’ defending was in both theory and practice. Assigning the comparatively slight Gareth Barry, who had spent so much of his career at Villa, to mark the centre-half at set-pieces ensured a mismatch.

The powerful Dunne overwhelmed him to such an extent that the midfielder’s feet hardly left the ground as his opponent connected forcefully with Stephen Warnock’s corner after a quarter-of-an-hour. Mindful of unofficial etiquette, the scorer declined to celebrate a goal against his former employers. The show of good manners still could not stop City from shuddering.

Villa Park had been sure to test their practicality. Martin O’Neill does not enjoy the means at Hughes’ disposal, but no one disputes that the squad has been upgraded under Randy Lerner’s ownership of the club. A match of this type invited Villa to confirm that they will not settle readily for residence the muddled middle of the table.

Checking City was the first objective since Hughes had chosen to be adventurous, with Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Craig Bellamy and Shaun Wright-Phillips all on the field at kick-off. There was still a vagueness to the pressure applied before the interval and ingenuity was absent then. Barry might have been expected to orchestrate moves but his use of possession was sometimes wasteful.

When he did look as if he could contribute it was from a set piece after 41 minutes. Barry flighted it from the right for Adebayor but Brad Friedel had no trouble in tipping the header over the bar. By that stage, the principal alarm had come from a random event. Tevez’s effort had ricocheted off Adebayor in the 29th minute and Friedel would have been helpless had the deflection not flown straight to him.

The nature of the match was altering by then. City had begun to find a pattern in their play and Villa appeared to feel the strain of constantly rushing to plug gaps. Still, they held firm until the interval. While the watching England manager, Fabio Capello, cannot have learned all that much about his squad members, he was at least seeing a contest close enough to hold his attention.

Villa had made every effort to ensure that they were worth watching. As early as the second minute a backheel by Gabriel Agbonlahor had called the City goalkeeper Shay Given into action. Having had a pause to regroup at the interval O’Neill’s players were spirited once more. Hughes had to be strenuous in his efforts to seize the initiative.

When the defensive midfielder Nigel de Jong went off after 50 minutes his place was taken by the more creative Stephen Ireland. Evenings of this sort are, of course, exactly the sort of test that must be passed by those bidding to join the elite. City, however, had a spell of looking befuddled.

City’s winger Wright-Phillips was even cautioned for bringing down the overlapping left-back Warnock. With 59 minutes, Dunne could have had another goal, but his header from James Milner’s corner went a yard wide. There was a certain consternation about Hughes’s side then, as if they had assumed that they would dominate while searching for a leveller.

There were only 20 minutes or so remaining when they started to busy themselves around Villa’s penalty area again. Nonetheless, the dormant accomplishment in City’s ranks was to be awakened. Wright-Phillips fed Ireland and his pass through the inside-right channel picked out the run of Adebayor. The cut-back was converted by Bellamy with a strong and well-directed finish.

City, then, resembled the teams they hope to challenge by showing a knack for rising above difficulties. All the same, this match was a reminder of how tough it will be to enter the elite.

Rangers 4-1 Hamilton

Rangers strode virtually unchallenged back to the top of the Scottish Premier League and, barring a wide-margin victory for either Hibernian or Celtic when those two meet at Easter Road today, the champions are likely to remain there.

The Ibrox side’s ascendancy was made on the back of goals from Steven Whittaker and Kris Boyd, each having delivered a brace, but their general superiority over largely hapless Hamilton Academical made the contest something of a mismatch. By the time Mark McLaughlin scored a consolation with a late header from a corner kick, the stadium was almost empty.

Visits to venues such as Ibrox by teams like Hamilton almost invariably carry undertones of damage limitation, and this latest example of the genre conformed precisely to the convention.

The Lanarkshire side demonstrated hardly any inclination to operate in the vicinity of the home goalkeeper, Allan McGregor, seemingly preferring to swarm in numbers in front of their own, Tomas Cerny, in an attempt to minimise Rangers’ score.

It was an approach that simply encourages champions to flex their muscles, and Rangers had bullied their opponents into submission before a third of the match had been completed. What is also common to these occasions is that the odds-on favourites will get their goals cheaply. The two with which Whittaker and Boyd sent the Ibrox side on their way could be called complimentary.

David Weir began the move for the first with a pass to Steven Davis in the inside-right position and while the midfielder’s low through ball to Whittaker was admirably measured, the full-back did not meet a challenge as he strode into the area on the right and drilled the ball low into the far corner.

If the Hamilton defenders were guilty of lethargy then, they were quite shocking in the way they conceded the second. Kenny Miller tried to raid on the left, but was dispossessed by Martin Canning. In his pathetic attempt at a clearance, the right-back simply passed the ball straight to Stevie Naismith. His cross was headed into the air and looped towards Boyd, who did not even have to jump as he sent a free header dropping over Cerny.

In truth, Rangers should have been even further ahead, but a number of players, notably Miller and Davis, had squandered earlier opportunities. This failure to convert their superiority during that oppressive period seemed to encourage Hamilton in a second half in which they were appreciably more ambitious.

There was only the occasional moment of menace in the Rangers defence, but it was enough to create a pleasing difference in the visitors’ performance and give their small coterie of supporters something to cheer.

James McArthur tested McGregor with a drive to the goalkeeper’s near post from the left side of the box after he had coasted past Madjid Bougherra with some slick footwork. That moment came soon after Derek Lyle had forced the goalkeeper to scramble a save at the same post with a low, curling free-kick from the left.

While those episodes might have lifted the spirits of the visitors, however, they also prefaced a raising of tempo and pressure by the home side, who would double their advantage within a few minutes, as Boyd and Whittaker each grabbed a second goal.

Boyd’s came from a powerful left-foot drive after Naismith had bolted down the left and played a perfectly-measured cut-back, and Whittaker played a 1-2 with Davis before beating Cerny with a curling, left-foot drive from 22 yards.