Forthcoming Fixtures

It was a bit of a mish mash of two teams of the opening Manchester Senior Cup tie against Bolton Wanderers at Lancashire County FA ground in Leyland as owen Coyle clearly used the game as a shop window for his fringe players to show themselves in front of scouts and managers where as City just about scraped a young team together.

John Guidetti was initially named in the City team but did not appear to be at Leyland and instead City looked to have named two goalkeepers on the bench to compensate the lack of numbers.

Right from the off you could see that the game looked like men against boys as Bolton dominated a City side with their physical presence as they raced into a two nil lead inside the first twelve minutes.

Bolton's first goal was fairly fortunate as a miss-placed pass fell straight into the path of the forward run of Michael O'Halloran who burst into the box and finished hard and low into the far corner of the goal past David Gonzalez Giraldo.

Three minutes later and it was two when a half cleared corner fell to Bolton's captain danny Ward on the left corner of the area and he settled himself before firing in a hard shot that took a strong deflection that totally wrong footed Gonzalez and into the goal the ball went.

City did manage to come back into the game towards the end of the half and the best chance fell to Harry Bunn as he was played into space on the right hand side by a through ball by Ahmad Benali, but although it was a fine shot that was on target; Adam Bogdan in the Bolton goal was able to push the shot behind for a corner.

Bolton very nearly made it three nil with just over five minutes remaining of the half when German born Croatian Ivan Klasnic unleashed a very fine twenty five yard shot that flashed just wide of the far post.

The second half was much more even with neither side really forcing a direct save from the goalkeeper accept there was an incident where Gonzalez came out to the edge of the area where Reece Wabara was shielding the ball in but David decided to slide in and his momentum took him outside the area and it was a bit of a scramble to clear the ball.

City's goal came in the last minute of normal time when good work by substitute Juan Olle on the right where he chipped the ball in to goal that beat Bogdan but not the crossbar but rebounded out to Jeremy Helan who put the ball back in past adam and into the goal.

City could have taken the game on to penalties with the last kick of the game when virtually the whole of City's outfield player's surged forward and Scott Kay found himself in space runing into the area; but instead of shooting he tried to side foot his shot curling into the far post, but Bolton were able to get back to block the effort.

An early defeat in this competion means that City can at most afford only one more slip up if we are to retain the Senior Cup that we won at the Reebok back in May.

Teams:

Bolton Wanderers:

Bogdan(GK), Riley, Alonso, A O'Brien, J O'Brien,O'Halloran, Davis, Eaves(Obadeyi, 60), Klasnic, Ward(Capt.)

Subs:Connolly, Lynch, Sheridan, Blakeman

Manchester City:

Gonzales(GK), Logan, Chantler,Kay, Wabara,Mee(Capt.), Elabdellaoui, Veseli(Abu 68), Bunn(Olle 80), Benali, Helan

Subs: Karius(GK), Johansen(GK)

Attendance: