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| WIMBLEDON 0-1 COVENTRY BY KEV MONKS A while ago,I was asked for my top ten favourite grounds and in the list I included Selhurst Park. A strange choice,some of you may say, one of the reasons for my decision was that the home of Crystal Palace and Wimbledon rarely produces City defeats.In fact, I have only seen two defeats in over thirty visits. Our latest sortee to the hardest ground in London to get to by road, was proved equally as fruitful with a late David Thompson goal giving City a victory which lifts them in into third position level on points with Crystal Palace and Wolves. With Magnus Hedman either injured or having a sickie, Andy Goram started the game after having a signed a contract which will keep him at Highfield Road until the end of the season. Marcus Hall was dropped and Nilsson opted to move Richard Shaw to leftback and bring in former Selhurst Park favourite Mark Edworthy at right back to partner Breen and Konjic in the defence. There were changes in midfield as Laurent Delorge replaced Youseff Chippo who is suffering from a knock to his knee. It was the home side who started the better with former Millwall midfielder Andy Roberts having an early shot as Gary Breen failed to display any of his usual composure and looked to be in a state of panic everytime Neil Shipperley or David Connolly got the ball. In the fifth minute, David Thompson superbly nut-megged Michael Hughes and Roberts to fire a 25 yard shot, but the ball skidded off a greasy surface and went about a yard wide of Kelvin Davis's goal. With Breen having a nightmare, Mo Konjic was thankfully playing well and made some excellent clearances as The Wombles forced three corners. At times,City are their own worst enemies as they kept giving the ball back to the home side either through bad passing or poor tackling. This ineptitude could have proved very costly against a Premiership outfit but thankfully the Wombles are anything but. Although Wimbledon looked good going forward with the highly impressive Jobi McAnuff and Jermaine Darlington controlling the midfield battle, the majority of their attempts in the first half were either well wide of the goal or very easy for City's former Scottish international football and cricketer to catch. With Lee Hughes and Jay Bothroyd about as effective as Bryan Richardson is at telling the truth, City's main hope of a goal came from the hard-working David Thompson and he had three efforts in close succession all to no avail. City during the opening half looked lethargic and were roundly booed at the interval. Half-time saw us all complaining about the horrendous traffic which meant journey times of up to four hours and trying to work out which three City players Gordon Strachan is interested in buying. (Breen, Telfer and Shaw are my guesses). We also discussed that Nilsson should be swapping Bothroyd for Martinez and as I returned from spending the whole half-time interval queuing up for a coffee. Martinez was brought on as sub. City immediately looked livelier up front as Martinet's pace gave City another option. In the 58th minute, Nilsson decided to bring on Marcus Hall as an "attacking" left wing back in place of Laurent Delorge. Whilst Martinez improved matters, Hall's inclusion didn't as he quickly slipped into the same habit of giving the ball away as Richard Shaw and his crossing was woeful. Thommo was again looking like he was the only City player capable of scoring and in the 76th minute he did just that. The former Liverpool midfielder raced towards goal and was about 30 yards out when he hit a left foot shot which squirmed and bobbled past Kelvin Davis into the net. The City contingent which made up 40% of the meagre 5883 gate went barmy as Thommo raced over to celebrate with those of us in the Arthur Waite stand. Wimbledon never recovered after that and City held on for another win. City were lethargic, inept at passing but made up for their off day by getting the only goal of the game. And as long as we keep winning does the way in which we do it really matter? TEAM 30 Goram,. 2 Edworthy, 5 Shaw,6 Breen,22 Konjic,7 Thompson,8 Carsley,27 Safri,28 Delorge (3 Hall 57) 9 Hughes,21 Bothroyd (25 Martinez 46) SNU 33 Montgomery,14 Quinn,19 Guerrero Booked Thompson (45 dissent) Safri (87 foul) RATINGS 30 GORAM 7/10 Another good game but not a lot to do 2 EDWORTHY 7/10 Worked hard 5 SHAW 4/10 Dodgy and kept giving the ball away 22 KONJIC 8/10 Good game,covered well 6 BREEN 6/10 Not one of his better games, improved as game went on 7 THOMPSON 9/10 Ran his socks off and always a threat,good goal as well 8 CARSLEY 7/10 Reasonable game 27 SAFRI 7/10 Tried hard 28 DELORGE 4/10 Why does Nilsson persist with him 9 HUGHES 6/10 Not one chance,spent more time in midfield than attack 21 BOTHROYD 5/10 Ineffective again the Wombles defence 25 MARTINEZ 7/10 Tried to get City attacking 3 HALL 4/10 Shocking again |