All Good Things Come To An End

Well the unbeaten run came to an end at a soggy and bad tempered Adams Park. But y’know, I guess it wasn’t going to last forever, was it?

However, the most important thing is that the team must bounce back from the defeats at Wycombe and Leicester. City must be careful that a couple of defeats don’t, y’know, suddenly turn into a losing streak.

Mind you, back in September if you’d said we’d remain unbeaten until the New Year, I’d have laughed and many of you would have joined me. What an incredible run of form we hit over the months of October, November and December.

There have been quite a few memorable games in that time. Perhaps we shouldn’t forget that while we ponder the past defeats, so here are a few of my favourites to remind you.

Port Vale 2 City 3

It all started back in late September. A first half dominated by City saw them two up at half time with goals from Beadle and the irrepressible Murray. In the second half, Vale came back strongly and City had all but blown three points after conceding a late equaliser. Then Lita ruins the Vale party and belts one in straight from the restart. An outstanding late saved from Phillips secures City the three points.

Barnsley 1 City 4

Roberts is on fire and, y’know, gets his first City hat trick. Tony Butler also gets his first goal in a comprehensive City away victory

Mansfield 4 City 5

No words could do this game justice. It was just a stunning comeback. Only those who were there will know the emotion when Roberts fired in the winner. 4-2 down with three minutes to go…and 5-4 some eight minutes later. Roy of the Rovers stuff, y’know. Incredible.

Cardiff 0 City 2

Once again a satisfying victory against perhaps our most bitter second division rivals. Goals from Tinnion and Roberts sent City up to second in the league.

Now these are only a few of the great games we enjoyed on our unbeaten run. The performance against Wycombe in the LDV was another that springs to mind.

The hope now is that, y’know, City can go on from here and secure at least a play off place. We have the players. But we all know that in recent seasons City have not backed that up with the necessary belief in themselves. Hopefully that will change this time round, thanks in part to Brian Jones.

The key players I believe that could make or break our season are:

Scott Murray. He started this season on fire and already has his best goal tally and with a real prospect of getting over the 20 goal barrier as long as no one comes in for him. My gut feeling is that he’ll still be with us come May. If we don’t go up this season, I fear he might not be with us come August.

Tony Butler. Class. Simple as that. How did we ever manage without him? If people say we concede too many goals, perhaps they should think of what it could be like if we didn’t have Tony.

Peter Beadle. A strange one this, but his influence on the team whether he plays or not makes his presence in the squad important. Peter seems to have maximum respect from all the players at the club and he appears to be the best motivator we have.

There are of course many other players that could make or break our season, not least, the youngsters like Leroy Lita and Liam Rosenior (sponsored by The Incider, of course!).

So strap yourself in, it’s going to be a rollercoaster five months, y’know!

Tomarse