Monday 2 November 2009

Birmingham player ratings

Given Heroics. A reaction save from Chucho in the first half, amongst many others, caught the eye. But the penalty save was excellent, keeping us from an embarrassing defeat. 8

Zabaleta Back in the side after suspension and did ok. Not too much going forward but was relatively untroubled at the back. I don't see how Richards gets his place back. 6

Kompany Impressed in his first EPL start of the season; as quick, alert and dominant as he was last year. Enough to leap ahead of Lescott and partner Touré in the near future? Probably not. 7

Lescott Better. No obvious mishaps, won most headers he went for and never allowed the forwards to get too far away from him. 6

Bridge One of this season's most improved players, he had another decent game. Untroubled and almost incisive when getting forward. 6

SWP Found himself in more good positions than any other City player, but the lack of final ball or invention was frustrating. Scunthorpe aside, he has not played well for a very long time. May need some time out of the team. 5

de Jong Captain for the day and relished the chance to lead with some of his favourite thundering tackles. The concession of the penalty, though, while costing us nothing, was an uncharacteristic judgement lapse. 6

Barry His worst game for City. Took a lot of stick from the Birmingham fans and never settled into the game. Barry Ferguson and Lee Bowyer are both very experienced players but Barry is leagues ahead of them in terms of class. He failed to show it yesterday, and we looked like half the side. 4

Bellamy The effort was there but he never quite found the space he needs to run into. Too many times he was forced inside and literally ran into Tévez. 5

Tévez Our best attacking player, for what that's worth. The only one willing to take shots on and his hold up play was better than ever. Still lacking a little bit of invention though. Could have won us a penalty late on had Mike Dean not stopped play for an injury. 7

RSC
Didn't look anywhere near match fitness, having struggled with injury and illness recently. He was immobile and failed to win any of the long balls we hit to him. Adebayor has nothing to worry about. 3

Subs

Ireland
Came on for de Jong in central midfield but could not influence the game as he would have liked. Still may start against Burnley. n/a

Petrov Tried hard but ran into the same problems as our other wide players. n/a

2 comments:

gamesh said...

At last! A decent set of ratings that truly reflect how poorly some them were yesterday..
How the MEN gave SWP 8 is unbelievable.. I went to the game and was dreading it every time SWP got the ball in any decent position.. as he was clearly gonna waste it on every ocasion.. the guy genuinley can't cross..
Santa Cruz couldn't be bothered full stop.. and in every game I've seen him so far he has this wonderful knack of falling over..
We're crying out for some creativity..
Also Pre kick off Petrov really did look as though he was about to kill someone..when all the players walked in after training on the pitch..petrov came in last looking thoroughly dejected refusing to acknowledge any fan..clearly peeved at being benched.. which is fair enough..

Rank Foundation said...

Santa Cruz looks far off the pace, very unfit, bit worrying, as this is repition of his careers woes. Dtruggling to break into a side after injury and not impressing when he got the chance...pretty much sums up his bayern career.

I thought SWP was very poor, backed up by a very poor Zabaleta continued to cross through out the game without actually reaching a city player! Awful really!

Barry was indeed terrible, i felt the nutter NDJ should of stayed on for barry to be removed for ireland, to allow him to play his game.

It wasnt untill 80 mins that we gave ireland the ball in the middle.

Bellamy was ineffective, but he's not a left winger, he cant really cross either, so if he has no service cutting in, then he's left out! But always works his arse off!