Review: Man City vs. Blackburn

It's rather rough to have to start my substantive comments with a game that was so miserable to watch, but of course you can expect little else from this team. I'm not going to rehash my pain on Saturday by giving you a play-by-play, but if you're so inclined take a moment to read the BBC's account of the game. It certainly didn't have to turn into one of the most pathetic home performances of the season, but as soon as Morten Gamst Pedersen turned in a ludicrously well-placed cross at about the half-hour mark, you just knew the rest of the game would be painful.

Apparently, Stuart Pearce believes that you can win football matches by fielding a team with almost no offensive creativity. Ousmane Dabo and Hatem Trabelsi are perhaps the least inspiring City players, and both had particularly poor games on Saturday. Of course, this is in part because we were missing Joey Barton, who, along with Micah Richards, is pretty much the only reason City aren't looking at relegation this season. It's a very sad state of affairs when your right back might be the most entertaining player on the squad.

This begs an important question, why is it that after two years in charge Stuart Pearce has not found a single offensive player worthy of putting on a premiership jersey? Although I'm a big fan of SP, I've come to the conclusion that SP doesn't understand what an offensive player is supposed to do. After watching City flail around, trying to find the right formation to score goals, it's clear that Mr. Pearce has absolutely no clue how to field a goal-scoring team. So, I'll offer some helpful suggestions that I believe will avoid the type of performance witnessed on Saturday.

1. Ideally, City needs a strong center forward, capable of holding up the ball after it has been cleared from the back. The first 30 minutes saw some impressive City defending, but every clearance would fall to a Blackburn defender, who would simply set up another Blackburn attack. A strong presence at forward would hold the ball long enough for the City midfield to gain possession. Corradi would appear to be such a player, but this doesn't seem to be his season. The only other option is Samaras, and I would argue he should be out there regardless of some poor showings in the past because he's all we got. Even if Samaras is not living up to the $5 million price tag, he's the best we have at the moment.
2. Joey Barton is a great passer, and a brilliant all-around midfielder. However, every team also needs a dribbler. A player capable of splitting the defense and forcing the opposing team out of position. In the premiership, the wing is often the only space for these players to ply their trade. City has tried Riera, Sinclair, and Musampa, and although there have been flashes of brilliance, none of them had a significantly long spell as starters. Pearce has to give DaMarcus Beasley the chance to succeed by starting him in several successive games. He is the best dribbler on the team, and when he has the ball and some space he can create the type of opportunity that a team needs to score. Although SP seems to think that Stephen Ireland offers the same thing, he doesn't.
3. Finally, buy a decent right midfielder. You don't have to find a replacement for SWP. All we need is someone with a little more natural talent than Trabelsi or Sinclair, because at this point our right midfielder's main contribution to the game is to turn the ball over to the opposing team.

If I have to watch another match like last Saturday's I will seriously consider stalking Stuart Pearce until he takes at least one of the aforementioned suggestions. I don't pay for expanded cable to watch Ousmane Dabo make poorly timed tackles.