Etihad Stadium: Manchester City 0-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Thursday 10 October 2019

Manchester City 0-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Aerial shot of Etihad Stadium (Pinterest)

Ratings
Overall Ground Quality : 9/10
Ease of getting there : 8/10
Atmosphere : 8/10 (mostly from the Away End)
Programme : 9/10
View of Action : 10/10
Quality of the game : 8/10
The "football" feeling : 8/10
Chances of coming here for a random game : 3/10
Legroom : 10/10
Surrounding area : 8/10

Overall : 81/100

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Manchester City 0-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers

The beauty of live sport is it can be unpredictable and this game at the Ethiad was just that.

The previous home game saw Watford thrashed 8-0, so a routine home win was expected. After all Wolves had just made a round trip of 4000 miles to Turkey for a Europa League game on a Thursday night while the hosts played at home a day earlier a relatively straight forward Champions League game.

For Manchester City the day turned out anything but routine. The rarity of not only losing at home but failing to score and Guardiola being outsmarted tactically by his opposite number Nuno Espírito Santo, the popular Wolves boss.

It has been 10 years since my last visit to the Ethiad Stadium and if I thought then the club was big, they are much bigger now.

The billions of pounds pumped into the club by Skiek Monsour and friends have not only seen continued investment on the field but off it as well.

Across the dual carriageway from the stadium, is another! Yes, a stadium that would be the envy of many lower division clubs has been built for the academy team and behind that a very large City Campus. This is joined together with the main stadium via a long pedestrian bridge across the road. The Etihad south stand has also had an extra tier built on creating a three-tiered stand like the East stand and the West Stand, now called the Colin Bell stand after the former City and England player. The North stand remains a two-tiered structure.

Behind this stand is a monument to the commonwealth games of 2002 and another small stadium used for athletics and I believe at one time the Women’s team.

Pictures adorn the side of the stadium celebrating City’s past glories, not that there were many until 2011. Prior to the takeover by the rich owners from the Middle East, City’s best period had been from 1967 to 1970 when they won all 3 domestic trophies plus a European Cup Winners Cup under Joe Mercer and the flamboyant coach Malcolm Allison.

Outside the main entrance match day hosts with microphones get the fans all excited. City’s fan base used to be from the rough suburbs of south Manchester, not now! Far East, Portugal, Washington DC , oh and Paisley in Scotland!

The opposition coach arrives unnoticed driving into an underground tunnel as they enter the stadium via the servant’s quarters.

Not so for our hosts who arrive just behind the owners in a coach with complete livery of a sponsor and blacked out windows.

The hosts with the mics then introduce the players to the watching masses individually as they alight the coach, all to rapturous applause and cheering with the exception of third choice keeper Scott Carson who gained no reaction at all. Sorry Scott, you may have had a good career and played for England but the glory fans have never heard of you!

After viewing all this hyped nonsense, I turned to walk away where I pumped into ex Derby and Man City striker Paulo Wanchope. He was over in the UK from his native Costa Rica and was a guest of the club. He still looks in good shape.

The game was enthralling with Manchester City for once failing to stamp their authority as Wolves’ game plan thwarted them time and time again.

The visitors should have taken the lead in the first half, three times opportunities were presented and wasted, Citrone put through and fired wide, then Fernandinho brilliantly denied both Jimenez and the Italian with excellent blocks and there were cry’s for a penalty from the visiting fans when the Mexican Jimenez was through again but appeared to stumble under pressure from defender and keeper. Nothing given.

City’s best efforts came from Sterling’s first half shot which was parried by Rui Patricio and a David Silva free kick which hit the bar in the second half.

City although had good possession were too slow moving the ball and this gave Wolves the time to get men behind the ball, they defended, blocked and pressed superbly and clearly this was causing City frustration.

Just when it seemed those first half chances would come back and haunt Wolves came the sting in the tail for the Premier League champions.

Adama Troare has great pace, but critics will say does not have any end product, not today! The wide man was the Wolves hero with two goals of similar style.

Break aways with City making bad defensive errors and both goals the result of good work by Jimenez but finished brilliantly by Troare.

The Ethiad emptied quicker than any fire drill, the new City fan isn’t used to this with the noise all coming from the away end.

No doubt we will hear all excuses for reasons City didn’t win, but as a neutral I think Wolves were tremendous today and deserved the win that nobody ever thought they had a chance of. The only thing I would say as an observer is that they especially at this level have to be more clinical when opportunity knocks.

Manchester City 3-1 Blackburn Rovers

The City of Manchester Stadium is home of Manchester City (The Blues). Adrian and I (Ross) set off from Tamworth at 8:30 am and getting to one of our several stops, Leek Town at 9:50. After taking a few pictures of their Harrison Park ground, we continued our journey and stopped off at Macclesfield Town’s Mose Rose to take some picture. We managed to get in as there was a kids tournament being played there. Before we went to Eastlands, we first went to Manchester City’s old Maine Road site where some building work was taking shape (also if you want to take a picture of the ‘Maine RD’ sign, you can’t as Adrian and I tried to find but assumed it got nicked by some City supporters). We had a lot of time on our hands so we decided to make another ground visit. Droylsden is the nearest football club to Manchester City so we went there to take some pictures but lucky for us the ground was open so we made the most of our opportunity. Three sides of the ground cannot be accessed so the only way in was via the reception on Market Street. The Butcher's Arms Ground is named after a pub behind the main stand. After that, we drove back towards the CoMS and parked the car on Coatbridge Street which is a 20 minutes walk from the ground and it one of the few free areas to park due to these parking zones during events. We had lunch at the Asda supermarket on the opposite side of the road of the ground and then walked the ground. After a long spiralling journey up the spiral ramps we were finally up onto the third tier and reached our seats at 1:50pm. The City of Manchester Stadium was built for the Commonwealth games in 2002 and in 2003, Manchester City took over the ground after an extention of seats downwards and a roof on both side behind the goal. First half goals for City were scored by Felipe Caicedo, Robinho and an Elano penalty and the second half goal for Rovers was scored by Keith Andrews on the rebound of a Shay Given penalty save. We got back to the car at 5:20pm and got back for 8:10pm. Overall the stadium is one of the best in the Premier League and is something which City supporters should be proud of. The game in the first half was very good but unfortunately it wasn’t the same in the second half. The atmosphere for a crowd of 44,000 was awful and they didn’t get behind their team unlike Leicester with half the attendance they got!