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City moved into the top four when a Gareth Barry strike cancelled out a Glen Whelan goal to give City a share of the Spoils at The Britannia Stadium.
The home side also had Abdoulaye Faye sent off for a professional foul on Emmanuel Adebayor but the blues still couldn’t capitalise with an extra man and laboured to a disappointing 1-1 draw.
It was another away performance that left City fans frustrated and onlookers scratching their heads wondering how the blues have reached the lofty heights of the Premiership top four on such performances.
It should have been a game where the blues used one of their games in hand to put some clear daylight between us and the chasing pack but they allowed Stoke to dominate the game and clearly hadn’t learnt from Saturday’s FA Cup tie as Stoke rattled the blues in the early stages.
Rory Delap was causing all sorts of havoc with his long throw-in’s and the home side should have taken the lead when Mamady Sidibe shot weakly when unmarked and allowed Shay Given to make the save.
Stoke harried the blues defence and City, missing the presence of Carlos Tevez and Craig Bellamy, struggled to get new boy Adam Johnson involved and they were grateful at the half time whistle that they went in still on level terms.
Just seven minutes into the second half and Stoke were reduced to ten men. Adebayor escaped Faye’s shackles but the Stoke man clearly held Ade’s shirt but incredibly, referee Alan Wiley missed it. But his assistant had seen the shirt pull and Wiley duly dispatched the red card. The initial miss of the foul was the second in a hat-trick of blunders by the official after he had earlier missed Patrick Vieira’s stamp on Whelan.
Down to ten men, it was somewhat inevitable that Stoke would take the lead and they did so in the 72nd minute. Adam Johnson’s poor clearance fell to Whelan whose shot squirmed from the grip of Shay Given and nestled in the back of net.
City fought back and snatched a point in scrappy circumstances. Adebayor headed on for Barry, whose initial shot hit the post but bounced straight back to him and Barry hooked the ball home.
Not the kind of performance City wanted and, on this showing, it is little wonder Liverpool are going into Sunday’s match full of confidence. The club have paid a lot of money for the stars that are just not performing. If this continues, they might as well gift wrap fourth place and send it to Anfield.
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its becoming more and more evident that Given is not a good goal keeper iv said this a 100 times b4 the save he had to make was average yet he dint ,was also lucky to get the freekick at the end,his height limits his ability to deal with crosses and hes very uncertain
whats wrong with u people bring back Hart
City’s recent performances have been appalling. What on earth is going on? The entire team appear to have lost their fighting spirit and are playing like they have just met each other. I thought Vierra was well off the pace and it baffles me how he has managed to secure a place in the starting eleven. On last night’s performance, Vierra wouldn’t even make the bench for my local pub team. If things don’t improve very quickly then we will have no chance of finishing in the top four. Mancini has days to turn this around — otherwise he will be back in the ever so pedestrian world of Italian football. I thought our motto was ‘Pride In Battle’. Can someone please tell the players!?
…And another thing. I totally agree that we should not allow Hart to go out on loan again next season — especially to an improving side like Birmingham. Loan him out to Bolton or Wigan maybe, but not Birmingham! Moreover, I think Hart could compete well against Given. Last night’s debacle demonstrated how fragile Given is with high in-swinging balls. Hart’s height would have been more suited to a game like last night’s. We need two world-class goalkeepers competing with each other if we are to push on.
It seems the lads have gone down hill since that heart breaking loss to the Rags in the 2nd leg of the Carling Cup, and I knew it would, especially the way we lost…….3rd min of injury time. But on the bright side, although our performances have been dire at best, we are getting wins against Bolton, Portsmouth, and a draw against Stoke. In the past we would have lost all 3 of those games. We are sitting in 4th with a massive game on Sunday…….hopefully Tev’s and Beller’s are both back, if they are, we win 2-0. C’mon you blues
Each time we’ve played poorly recently I’ve said, “we’re missing Ireland”, “we’re missing SWP” “we could do with Petrov today” and now “”we’re missing Tevez”. There is definitely something missing and it’s not personnel, Mancini has tried everyone now in a variety of systems. I don’t get it. So often our defenders and midfielders are taking too many touches before picking the wrong pass. Is it a lack of movement? Tactics? We just can’t raise a tempo at all. It’s so frustrating as we have lethal weapons all over the pitch. Isolate SWP/Johnson with their fullbacks and they will beat them. Get Petrov to the byline he will deliver quality, and our strikers are class enough to score most of their chances. Our quality is evident as even when we’ve been playing bad, we’ve had enough to score good goals. But we’re a million miles away from properly utilising the players we have at our disposal. You have to point to the manager, although he must be given more time than Hughes was. Hopefully something will click and quick, because this is the business end of the season, we’re in pole position for 4th and we look as if we’re about to throw it all away.
Given does not command his 6-yard area. We let to many goals in from around there (Rooney at Old Trafford and the one Stoke scored on Saturday amongst others). He even expolded the myth of his so-called shot stopping last night with a sunday league goal against. This team needs a fully fit Michael Johnson. There is nobody working the channels. We always play around the outside and down the wings and it makes life eay for other teams putting 5 in midfield and strangling our space. Last season Johnson and to an extent Ireland slid the ball into the inside forward channels and we created chances and scored goals. We are playing “1-0″ football, but we can’t hold it to nil.
stoke should be relegated for dragging the standard of football down in the premier league. they are by far the worst team to watch in england. way of topic i know but had to get that of my chest.