BfB

If football matches are won in second of brilliance then those seconds are earned in committed and combative performances as City showed today.

It was Omar Daley’s brilliantly acrobatic volleyed finish from eight yards out – converting a deep and purposeful Tom Adeyemi cross – which ended as the difference between the teams and few would say the goal or the performance did not merit a win but that win was well earned in the moments around the Jamaican’s impressive goal.

It was in Gareth Evans running down a long strike to win the ball forcing it to Adeyemi to cross and in the rest of Adeyemi’s performance which was his best in a City shirt so far and provided an energy around the midfield which – combined with David Syers – took control of a midfield battle that gave the win. Bury’s Damien Mozika and former City man Steven Schumacher provided a strong and balanced middle two but City’s two were marshalled by holding man Lee Bullock and in taking out the middle two the visitors were rendered engine-less, less capable of driving the game into the Bantams.

The win was in David Syers’ truly awful miss with an hour on the clock and an open goal that was only better – or should that be worsted – by a Stephen Torpey one yard over the bar from one yard. As rank horrible as Syers miss was his reaction to that miss – a shaking off and gearing up to win the game – was the stuff of real success and real quality.

All over the pitch there were similar performances of players showing character and one was reminded by an offend said adage that one can forgive a player a mistake, but not not caring about a mistake. Jason Price recycled the ball well all afternoon – or until his replacement by the endlessly useful James Hanson – but when his lack of pace saw a chance fizzle out when freed in the middle of the pitch Price’s reaction was to keep on keeping on.

Muse, for a moment, about the difference between teams which look good and teams that do well – between Manchester United and Manchester City – and consider that the difference is in this attitude which for today was in place in Peter Taylor’s Bradford City team.

Luke O’Brien cropped up at right back to rob the ball from Bury’s Ryan Lowe after City had been left screaming for penalty following a battered down cross ninety yards further up the field. Curse the unfair decision – indeed Lowe was penalised for a handball which was hardly deliberate – but City and O’Brien kept going and this match report is not about how City were robbed by a dodgy referee as a result of that.

However – and if you are a Referee protectionist then look away now – City struggled through a first half that was defined by some truly atrocious decisions by Referee Colin Webster.

Webster booked Mozika for challenging with his elbow – always a curious thing to write up considering leading into challenges with an elbow is recommended as a sending off offence but leeway is given – and then less than a minute later watched the same player dragging back Syers by the shorts in the penalty area. Webster watched the offence and for reasons best known to himself and contrary to the Laws of the game decided to do nothing about it.

Other decisions – if an elbow is an elbow, if Efe Sodje’s foul on Gareth Evans was a “last man” and should have resulted in a red car – are judgement calls and one has sympathy with them but to watch a foul by a player you have just formally warned with a yellow card and to ignore that is just not officiating the game correctly.

I do not enjoy pointing out the failings of Referees – I would rather they read the rules of the game and applied them as written – but Webster needs to read those rules and understand them more fully before he officiates another game because today he showed that he does not know them well enough to referee a football match.

The players deserved better – both teams – because credit Bury with a stoic and committed display which could have merited a point or more had they had a little more luck but when they enjoyed their best chance they found Lenny Pidgeley – who signed a new contract to stay at City until the end of the season – as a solid block in the centre of the goal.

City though will look back to Gareth Evans’ lob which bespectacled keeper Cameron Belford saved superbly or Tom Ademeyi’s blistering, fading drive which Belford took from the air and consider that this was no win of outrageous fortune.

Hard work, and well deserved.

The inevitability of a stern defence when Arsenal get a man sent off is only matched by the unease at which Emmanuel Adebayor uses a topical reference to knife crime in his paper thin defence of the challange which strode in with a dangerous foot and followed with a reckless arm and saw him sent off on Sunday in the game against Liverpool.

The Togo forward suggests that the Liverpool player was play acting – he may not have been as hurt as he made out – but that is the jurisdiction of the Referee Howard Webb and not something that should influence the correct decision to send off for a challange which was at best reckless and at worst dangerous. One has to wonder if he would be happy to have the two dozen or so challenges a forward takes during the average game to be in the style he used.

However Adebayor’s defence – that his aggression should not be penalised by Referee Howard Webb – would be strengthened were he not to make light of fatalities but to point the media who were so quick to give him a platform to a video of Bradford City vs Chester City on Saturday.

In that game – which is played under the same rules of football that Adebayor was sent off under – Referee Andy Haines was able to turn a blind eye to a similarly reckless challenge by Damien Mozika which left Paul McLaren holding his face having been on the wrong end of an arm above the neck. Haines watched Mozika’s put in two footed lunges from distance as Chester – under the guidance of not the brightest manager in football – used what can only be described as rough-housing to grind out a scoreless draw at Valley Parade.

For the record I thought Chester were a loathsome team who would have to take sportsmanship lessons in order to qualify as a team of shits but my opinion is not important in this – Andy Haines’ is.

Haines saw nothing wrong in Mark Hughes, Anthony Barry and Mozika sliding in with two feet raised on defenders clearing the ball nor did he view the aggressive tackling of the visiting side in the same as Howard Webb viewed Adebayor’s tackle. Within twenty minutes of the start of the League Two game on Saturday Webb would have had no fewer than six occasions to pull out his yellow card judging by the standard he showed on Sunday and – one assumes – were Haines to be “trusted” with Arsenal vs Liverpool then Adebayor would not have been booked for his over the ball lunge with following arm and that sort of tackle would have been common place.

My point is not that Chester City were an overtly aggressive team or a dirty team but that one of Andy Haines and Howard Webb must have used a different set of rules to govern games in the same sport. Either one is allowed to tackle in the Adebayor/Mozika manner or you are not – the rules of football make no distinction on the type or level of game being played.

Arsenal vs Liverpool was an entertaining and flowing game while Bradford City vs Chester City a was muscle match where play was broken up frequently. Had Webb Refereed Saturday’s game then would it have been different? Had Hughes’s first two footed block been seen as dangerous play and got him a yellow or Mozika’s raised arm have received the same punishment as Adebayor’s then would we had a more flowing, better game of football? Considering that the visitors employed those tactics to avoid that it is hard to argue we would not.

Arsenal, Chester City, Liverpool, Bradford City. We all go into matches on the understanding that we are playing under the same set of rules yet clearly at the weekend that was not the case. What is a foul and a yellow card in the Premiership should also be in League Two – end of story.

When it is not you get dour, negative, aggressive sides like Mark Wright’s Chester City taking a lap of honour when they spoilt their way to a point.