Newsletter #1698

We have a match report tonight thanks to Phil from the Leicester FA Cup game together with a plea for information on the loyalty point scheme and an update on Points of Blue.

Next up Villa Park.

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’: LCFC 2 MCFC 2

Manchester City and Leicester City shared the spoils in this entertaining cup tie that was played in a cracking atmosphere at the Walkers Stadium. The prize is a fourth round trip to Notts County’s Meadow Lane and given the pluck shown by the Foxes, the replay at Eastlands will be no foregone conclusion, especially when we look so fragile at set pieces.

A minute had not passed when towering home débutant Sol Bamba headed Leicester in front with the City defence in disarray. The home fans were in ecstasy whilst we dusted ourselves down and continued to make the Walkers (a.k.a. The Crisp Bowl) a crucible of sound and colour.

It was indeed a special occasion. It was a day where many City fans wore red and black shirts (or scarves) in honour of Neil Young, the scorer of the wining goal in the 1969 FA Cup Final, who is terminally ill. The scarves were supplied by the club and worn by fans who had made donations that are to be split between treatment for Neil and the Celia Cancer ward.

There are so many links between the two clubs: most notably the popular Sven who was Roberto Mancini’s mentor and manager. In the away end we loudly chanted Sven’s name: a fitting accolade for the manager who completed the derby double and inspired a season of attractive football after a terrible drought. One of the Old Trafford derby scorers was Darius Vassell, and he led the home attack, proving to be a bit of a handful with his pacy darting runs. He received a very good ovation from us and acknowledged the warmth of the applause. If those weren’t enough links between the two clubs, Greg Cunningham has just returned from on loan at Leicester where he made very good impression before he broke his leg; and our FA Youth Cup winning skipper of 2008, Ben Mee, has just started a spell at the Walkers. Nevertheless, the game was very competitive and an occasion to savour. The game was played in a very good spirit too with no bookings.

Against this backdrop City found their feet in the face of a keen Leicester side who moved the ball quickly. James Milner, revelling in his central midfield rôle, was comfortably our best player and drove City forward in pursuit of an equaliser. His endeavour was rewarded when he exchanged passes with Tevez and struck a powerful low left-foot shot past Weale’s outstretched right hand into the net. Cue celebrations which included ‘doing the Poznan’. Great fun, great celebrations!

The Poznan was repeated, as planned by a group of Blues on Facebook, in the 24th minute in honour of Neil Young, who had scored the winning goal in the 1969 Cup Final in the 24th minute.

City continued to struggle when defending corners and free-kicks, Bamba forcing Hart into a smart double save. City though took a grip on proceedings when Tevez back-heeled Milner’s accurate low cross in to give us the lead. Milner was brilliant in a box-to-box midfield rôle in the first half and decent in a more advanced rôle in the second period.

City should have built on this lead, but failed to do so, handing the initiative to Leicester who scored after some rare sloppy goalkeeping by Joe Hart. The City ‘keeper spilled Gallagher’s cross and failed to pick up the rebound. Whilst the initial cross had taken a slight deflection off Touré and rebounded off Hart’s chest, the City ‘keeper really should have thrown himself on the ball after that.

Thereafter it was rather nervy as City continued to struggle at set pieces, Milner being forced to clear off the line late on. De Jong could and should have scored his first goal for City when he was played in by Tevez after a superb sweeping move, but his left foot shot was straight at Weale.

So, back to Eastlands for a game that City don’t need in a busy schedule. It was disappointing that we didn’t go on to win, having taken the lead, but in all fairness Leicester deserved their draw in the end. They cannot be taken lightly and we will have to defend better than this if we are to progress.

Hart: A rare aberration. Should have done much more to prevent Leicester’s 2nd: 5
Boateng: Still looks a little clumsy at times 6
Touré: Always looks better alongside Kompany. Allowed his fellow Ivorian Bamba to get ahead of him on a couple of occasions. 6
Lescott: Not as assertive in the box as Kompany and it showed here: 6
Kolarov: Still not convincing, but to be fair the settling in process continues. 6
A Johnson: Good tenacity and skill: 7
Vieira: Overcame a very sluggish start to show some good touches 6
Milner: Revelled in his central midfield rôle: a superb left-footed finish for the equaliser, set up Tevez’s goal and headed one off the line. All in all, not a bad afternoon’s work 8
SWP: Tenacious but still giving the ball away too regularly: 5
Jo: Very poor indeed: 4
Tevez: Without being at his very best, the smart back heel was his for the 2nd goal and he almost set up the winner at the death: 7
Subs: de Jong (for SWP, 45 mins): Classy as ever: should have won the match for us near the end, though: 7
Best Oppo: Kyle Naughton: A right back who is on loan from Tottenham, his positional play and tackling were superb for one so young: 8
Referee: Mike Dean: Let the game flow. Hardly noticed him, which is how it should be: 8

REQUEST: LOYALTY POINTS

I wonder if anyone can help me with a question about the Loyalty point scheme. Is there any way of establishing just how many people there are in each points band? Derby ticket allocations have just been announced with eligibility starting at 6,500 points.

It would be interesting to know how many people are in this band, and the subsequent bands. I have a lowly 3,770 points and wonder how many people are in the queue in front of me, and also how many more points I would have to earn to stand a reasonable chance of getting tickets to premium matches.

Indeed, it might even be in the club’s interests to publicise this information as it could generate a bit of competition for loyalty points!

REQUEST: POINTS OF BLUE

Because of the difficulty of staff going to European ties, my own limited dates, and possible FA Cup 4th Round replay, it seems the earliest date we can get for the next Points of Blue meeting is Wednesday 2nd March (as we play Fulham on the Monday night before, it seems that Wednesday would be an unlikely night to have a FA Cup 5th round replay; if we needed one, I guess it might be on the Thursday (3rd) and move the Wigan match (currently 5.30 on the 5th) to Sunday 6th, before a potential Europa quarter-final tie on the 10th!; I’m trying to get the club to anticipate these possibilities…).

Pencil in the 2nd March if you would.

Anything that will not wait till then, I can feed back beforehand.

RESULTS AND TABLE

16 January 2011

Birmingham City       1 - 1  Aston Villa           22,287
Sunderland            1 - 1  Newcastle United      47,869
Liverpool             2 - 2  Everton               44,795
Tottenham Hotspur     0 - 0  Manchester United     35,828

15 January 2011

Chelsea               2 - 0  Blackburn Rovers      40,846
Manchester City       4 - 3  Wolverhampton Wndrs   46,672
Stoke City            2 - 0  Bolton Wanderers      26,809
West Bromwich Albion  3 - 2  Blackpool             25,316
Wigan Athletic        1 - 1  Fulham                18,820
West Ham United       0 - 3  Arsenal               32,682

League table to 19 January 2011 inclusive

                            HOME          AWAY        OVERALL
                    P  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L   F   A  GD Pts
 1 Manchester Utd  21 10  1  0 29  7  2  8  0 14 12 12  9  0  43  19  24  45
 2 Manchester City 23  7  3  2 18 10  6  3  2 19  9 13  6  4  37  19  18  45
 3 Arsenal         22  6  1  3 22 11  7  3  2 23 11 13  4  5  45  22  23  43
 4 Chelsea         22  8  2  1 24  7  3  3  5 14 12 11  5  6  38  19  19  38
 5 Tottenham H.    22  6  5  1 17  9  4  2  4 14 16 10  7  5  31  25   6  37
 6 Sunderland      23  6  5  1 15  8  2  5  4 11 15  8 10  5  26  23   3  34
 7 Bolton Wndrs    23  5  5  1 22 13  2  4  6 12 18  7  9  7  34  31   3  30
 8 Stoke City      22  6  2  4 16 12  3  1  6 12 14  9  3 10  28  26   2  30
 9 Newcastle Utd   22  4  3  4 25 14  4  2  5 10 18  8  5  9  35  32   3  29
10 Blackpool       21  3  2  3 14 14  5  2  6 17 22  8  4  9  31  36  -5  28
11 Blackburn R.    23  5  3  3 15 10  3  1  8 14 27  8  4 11  29  37  -8  28
12 Everton         22  3  4  3 12 13  2  7  3 13 14  5 11  6  25  27  -2  26
13 Liverpool       22  6  3  2 19 10  1  2  8  8 21  7  5 10  27  31  -4  26
14 West Brom A.    22  5  2  4 16 17  2  2  7 13 24  7  4 11  29  41 -12  25
15 Fulham          22  3  5  3 14 14  1  6  4  9 11  4 11  7  23  25  -2  23
16 Birmingham City 21  3  6  2 10 11  1  5  4 11 15  4 11  6  21  26  -5  23
17 Aston Villa     22  4  4  3 15 13  1  3  7  9 26  5  7 10  24  39 -15  22
18 Wigan Athletic  22  2  6  4 11 21  2  4  4  8 13  4 10  8  19  34 -15  22
19 Wolves          22  5  2  4 15 15  1  1  9  9 23  6  3 13  24  38 -14  21
20 West Ham United 23  3  4  5 14 19  1  4  6  8 22  4  8 11  22  41 -19  20

MCIVTA FAQ [v1011.01]

[1] MCIVTA Addresses

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[2] What are MCIVTA’s publishing deadlines?

Deadlines for issues are nominally 6pm, Monday and Thursday evenings by email. Unfortunately we cannot accept email attachments.

[3] MCIVTA Back Issues and Manchester City Supporters’ home page

http://www.mcivta.com/ is the unofficial Manchester City Supporters’ home page. Created in 1994, it is the longest running of the Manchester City related web sites. Back issues of MCIVTA are also hosted on the site. You can also follow on www.twitter.com/mcivta to get the latest updates.

[4] What is the club’s official web site?

The official club web site can be found at http://www.mcfc.co.uk/ and the official club Twitter page at www.twitter.com/mcfc. The club also has a facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/mcfcofficial

[5] What supporters’ clubs are there?

The Official Supporters’ Club and the Centenary Supporters’ Association have merged to become the Manchester City Supporters’ Club (http://www.mcfcsupportersclub.com/). The club also recognise the Manchester City Disabled Supporters’ Association (http://www.mcdsa.co.uk/).

[6] Where can I find out about Points of Blue?

The committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. Points of Blue appears on the club website under the “Fans” heading (http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Fans).

[7] What match day broadcasts are available on the web?

Live match commentary can be found on the club website. The Radio Manchester pre- and post-match phone-in is available on the web at http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/hi/tv_and_radio/.

[8] Where can I find out if City are live on satellite TV?

http://www.satfootball.com/pl.html provides a listing of Premier League games being shown on UK domestic and foreign satellite channels. Useful sites for North American viewers are http://msn.foxsports.com/, http://www.soccertv.com/.

[9] Do we have a Usenet newsgroup?

Yes we do: uk.sport.football.clubs.man-city is our home on usenet. If you are not familiar with usenet, a basic explanation is available here: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,sid9_gci213262,00.html

[10] Do any squad members have their own web pages?

There are a number available and direct links can be found at http://www.mcivta.com/players/

[11] Where can I find match statistics?

Statistics for the current season are available from the club site, but for a more in-depth analysis try http://www.mcfcstats.com/.

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Heidi Pickup, editor@mcivta.city-fan.org

Editor: