Blue
Square Premier - 4th March 2008
At KitKat Crescent - Att 1,182 (113 Burton)
Report
City were second best against Burton Albion on a cold Tuesday
night at KitKat Crescent,
but came away with a point as Nigel Clough's men failed to make
the most of their chances. Mark
Robinson made his return from injury and Darren Kelly made
his first start after a lengthy lay-off having played half an
hour at Cambridge. The front pairing was shuffled again with
Leo Fortune-West partnering Richard
Brodie.
Immediately, Burton's front pairing of Marc Goodfellow and Shaun
Harrad made themselves known. An exchange of passes between
the two saw Harrad get the shot away, bringing out the first
save of many from Tom
Evans. David McGurk
gifted Goodfellow possession with a poor clearance, but the
City man pulled off a great tackle to recover the situation.
Burton continued to dominate proceedings with the City midfield
overrun. Albion play very much in the mould of their manager,
Nigel Clough; i.e. an economy of movement, let the ball do the
work and neat passing in to feet. By contrast, City couldn't
get the passing game going and gave possession away too cheaply.
As a result, no sooner had the ball been cleared than it was
coming straight back in again. Harrad did well to keep a ball
in play, but wasted the opening with a wild thrash of a shot
and winger Andy Corbett had two good chances late on. First,
his cross went behind his team-mates in the box before he almost
latched onto a lovely through ball, but Kelly and Evans conspired
to get it away.
City forced the only real save from Saul Deeney in that opening
period around the half hour mark. Nicky
Wroe's ball in to Brodie saw the big Geordie turn and shoot
- City's only on-target effort of the evening - only for Deeney
to show great reactions to beat it away.
Half time saw Colin Walker withdraw Mark Robinson ("He
was feeling the pace a little", admitted the manager afterwards)
for Sam Duncum, the former Rotherham man making his debut. Immediately,
the young man's pace stood out. Even giving a five yard start
away, he was beating Albion defenders over 40 yards or so. They
wouldn't have caught if they were all issued with funky mopeds.
And so it was a real shame that this weapon wasn't used by City
to their advantage as the ball rarely found it's way out to
the flanks. Instead, normal service was resumed.
Harrad had a couple more great chances early in the second half
- one saved by Evans after Manny
Panther was robbed in midfield and Harrad beat McGurk on
the edge of the box and one from a beautifully weighted ball
over the top, but Harrad was falling away as he shot and it
went wide.
Evans had been pretty solid all evening and pulled off a fine
diving save from Keith Gilroy's shot. Duncum showed up well
in defence from the corner, clearing off the line after a City
leg had diverted the ball goalwards. By this time, Burton's
front two had been replaced by Jake Edwards and Daryl Clare
and it was Clare who attempted to lob Evans after seeing the
keeper slightly off his line, but Evans got back to cover had
the ball not cleared the bar. Evans was called into action as
John McGrath's shot after Clare's cross was only half-cleared
took a deflection to which Evans had to be alert. City, on the
other hand, couldn't engineer a single opportunity. In such
circumstances, the best you will ever get is 0-0, and so it
remained after the 90 minutes were complete, despite a couple
of late efforts from Michael Simpson.
This was not vintage York. Had Daryl Clare - a man who has seen
it all and done most of it at this level - been on from the
start it may have been different, as he looked a lot more likely
to break the deadlock than any of the other three strikers deployed
by Nigel Clough. Had Tom Evans not been on top of his game,
it may also have worked out differently. "The
goalkeeper was a positive" said Colin Walker
as he faced the press post-game, "and
Sam Duncum was a positive too, but we couldn't get him the ball".
Burton clearly dominated the game - "We
got a footballing lesson", said the City supremo.
"I thought we were beat, but
if we're looking on the positive side, we've scraped a point
against a very good Burton side. We've gone off the boil a bit,
but what's happened over the last three months can't be thrown
out of the window now". All eyes now turn to
Friday and the first leg of that FA Trophy semi-final, where
City will have to be far sharper if they are to take a step
towards Wembley.
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