View from the opposition

Traffic was pathetic as per and the dreams of a prematch beer in the town wall pub were a distant memory as we crawled along the A1 and after the lungs were relieved of oxygen we finally took our seats in the sky about 1/2 mile over the tyne bridge to the sight of the players emerging from the tunnel.
First thoughts were how poor the crowd was,Newcastle supporters no doubt rightly fed up of the owner from hell and City end probably only 2000 strong,the last of a 4 consecutive away match run for us that people simply cant afford so something has to give.

After a short spell of City possession,Newcastle began to exert control of the midfield and City were getting pinned back with willing runners Anita & Debuchy (?) in particular giving the pedestrian Rodwell and Garcia a bit of a chasing.Lack of quality of a final ball meant that Shola and Cisse were feeding on scraps although Amiobi was giving young Boyata a real baptism back in the first team and but for a turn round the post from Pantilimon,the first half goal threat from either side was non existent and the standard of football was pretty poor.
2nd half,though in reality a non event,was much more even perhaps the inexplicable decision to bring off the excellent Shola rather than allow the terribly out of form & confidence Cisse to take his banjo back to the changing room was a factor in City getting an even grip on the game.
As bad as Cisse was,at least he showed a bit of desire & commitment,whereas the bone idle Dzeko and Sissoko showed that supporters voting with their feet had a point,largely making it 10 a side.
One thing i cant abide is players not trying,i thought both fell into that category
While the majority of the crowd were praying for a goal to end this dog of a game,the players on either side seemed to have settled for extra time as their wasnt an uplift in tempo towards the final whistle,though i thought Newcastle were visibly tiring towards the end and thats the way extra time played out as City dominated and scored twice through tired defensive errors,amazingly a goal and an assist from the bosnian who looks like he cant wait for january.
It was a game where i thought City were there for the taking and a team with a tad more confidence/cutting edge than Newcastle wouldve had the game put to bed long before the 90 mins was up.
David Silvas quality when he came on was probably the real difference between the sides but credit must go to Pantilimon who had a really good commanding game and the referree who decided all 50/50s must go to the "big" side,he was inept and allowed us to be as cynical as possible without censure,must be the FA edict these days

Long drive home and in bed for 2am,pity some of the players dont show the same commitment

*If ive mistakenly mentioned the wrong players its because we were guessing who the little dots were

 

Good luck in the next round.

 

And some rep.

 

Good post. Glad I'm not alone in thinking the ref was leaning towards City a bit too much. In the end though quality won out, as it usually does.

 

I thought it was a pretty decent attendance for a league cup game..

 

To be fair given who we were playing it was below par, got more against Leeds. Though we hadn't played Leeds for 9 years.

 

didn't Leeds bring about 5000 fans though ??

 

we took 6000 to the emirates a couple of years ago,same round
people just dont have the spare cash at the moment,the cost of travel is extortionate - £76 train to chelsea and back last sunday and £56 ticket to boot and same week before at west ham
im fortunate that i can afford to go to all the aways but it must be hard on people with young families/low waged where other priorities rightly come first

 

Your chaps seemed to make a decent noise fella and thanks for the comments.

 

Citeh fans are always a pleasure to have.

A very accurate assessment of proceedings

 

Think there was 38,000 against Leeds, as oppose to 34,000 last night.

 

Really thought Sissoko worked hard for the main part, whilst Cisse was a waste of time, though Sissoko did struggle throughout extra time and was at fault for their first goal.

 

Personally I only saw 25mins first half but thought he was working. Then 2nd half we were back to the usual from him. Get rid for me, players like that are a waste of space. Dzeko was the same for them, just couldn't be arsed.

To be honest same three were to blame for both goals for me Tiote, MYM, Debuchy. Funnily enough, along with Anita they were our top performers! I can forgive them as they were tired and it was just lapses of concentration after a tough shift.

 

To be fair I watched Sissoko closely and thought the effort was there and he did alright, the problem is he probably had the game of his life against Chelsea and it was always going to be difficult for him to live up to that level, so now people judge him on that level, I know I got very frustrated with him back of last season especially after we lost 6-0 to Liverpool.