You Don't See City Live For Years Then...

One week after bemoaning the quality of performance in Manchester City's reserve team win over Stalybridge Celtic, I'm happy to say that things were a lot better at a rain swept Tameside Stadium at the weekend. Admittedly Curzon Ashton are two divisions lower but with the City side mostly made up of youth team players the gap between the teams could hardly be classed as cavernous

The Premiership kids got off to a flying start when the impressive Adam Clayton pinged an effort through a crowd of players from the edge of the box. It should have been two moments later when they were denied as clear a penalty as you'll see over the next nine or so months; the referee and linesman apparently being the only people in the ground who didn't spot a Curzon hand rise above everyone at a City corner and palm the ball away from danger. The home side pulled level not long afterwards when Mike Norton hit a daisy cutter of a free-kick from twenty yards that flew under the jumping wall, zipped past the outstretched arm of keeper Filip Mentel (yes, that is his name) and nestled in the bottom left hand corner of the net.

To be honest set-pieces around the box were the only way that Curzon looked like scoring even though, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, they actually dominated possession throughout the game. However they simply couldn't do anything creative with it. Whenever they got the ball close to the City penalty area they'd invariably end up passing the ball back up the field till it reached the centre halves, whereupon a sloppy pass would hand the initiative back to the visitors.

Maybe the loss of last seasons wunderkind Steven Moores to Altrincham could hit them harder than expected as Mike Norton ploughed what was almost a lone furrow upfront, winning header after header but with no one to pick up the ball. They do have their flying winger Wayne Cahill to come back in to the team but there is more than just a suspicion that the strike force which rampaged through the NWCL and the Vase last season has been blunted.

Not particularly good news for Curzon but incredibly good news for us in our second game of the season. The again I could just have jinxed everything!

City retook the lead when David Ball pulled down an inch perfect through ball with the outside of his right foot before deftly flicking it over the keeper in one movement (a goal worthy of a much more important game) and that's how it stayed till the interval.

The second half was virtually one way traffic with the only real surprise being that City managed to increase their goal tally by just one, a Ched Evans penalty, though it wasn't for the want of trying. Credit goes to the home defence for stopping a cricket score being racked up, particularly during a goalmouth scramble in the closing minutes which saw the ball cleared off Curzon's line twice and their keeper make a fantastic one handed save that didn't look possible.

But what of the ex-Mossley men on display? Nicky Thompson played the first half at right back and had as good a game as you can expect anyone to have when they're asked to mark somebody who's not only lightning fast but appears to have had the ball glued to their feet. SAS came on as a second half substitute at centre back and with his first touch he almost put a forward in for a run on goal - unfortunately for him it was City's Ched Evans and the goal was his own. After some almost equally hair raising moments he eventually settled in but, unlike Thommo, I can't see him becoming a regular fixture in the starting XI.

Overall it was worth the Krypton Factor-like fun and games involved in getting the Northern Rail train/replacement bus service down to Ashton, and I hope that Mossley's pre-season campaign throw up a few games that impress just as much.