SAVVY_MONKEY on City’s encouraging start to the season
So eight games in to City`s season with the ‘big boys` and it seems it`s not so difficult, this Premier League lark.
Eight games into last season we`d just lost at home to Hull; rewind 12 months before that and we`d scraped a 2-2 draw with Charlton Athletic, courtesy of a late equaliser from one Grant Holt. After that comeback against Charlton, Paul Lambert`s men were 14th in League One. The tables that I keep checking for fear of a re-count suggest we`re currently the 9th best team in England.
If Manchester United and Chelsea away are excluded (as realistically they should be), then there`s actually only been one defeat. Lambert has created a new team this season for the specific task of staying in this league; that`s four games with an unchanged XI now – an XI that`s picked up nine points in that time; mid-table form at worst.
With consistency, improvements in confidence can clearly be seen. Morison looks the real deal, Fox and Hoolahan are the chief orchestrators, creating at least one goal per game between them, Russell Martin is playing like Rio Ferdinand did ten years ago and it`s surely only a matter of time before the excellent Elliot Bennett fires one of his spectacular strikes into the top corner.
The team has evolved. It`s sad to see Grant Holt not having the same impact as he had on the other three tiers of English football, even though there`s time aplenty for that. It`s also a bit of a shame that Andrew Surman and Simeon Jackson can`t buy a game, but there`s no room for sentiment and Lambert is clearly a man who thinks with his head.
One Lambertism that sticks in the mind is that he never gets too carried away when we`re winning and never too lugubrious when we`re not. It`s this kind of focussed harmony and equilibrium that will ensure that the good ship ‘Sir Paul` is a happy one when fortunes are not so sanguine as they are now.
A few weeks ago pundits were tipping Wolverhampton Wanderers for an overdue return to European adventure. Now after five defeats on the spin, they look like they`re never going to win another game, ever. Wolves aren`t a bad side; old gold could just as easily be Canary Yellow.
When it`s Lambert`s turn to face the media`s pessimism, there should be enough equity with the fans to overcome any adversity. Let`s hope we never have to find out.
OTBC!
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