Some of the football being played by us in this game is as good or better than anything we've played in the following 10 years
How on earth was that 10 years ago? That's gone bloody quick
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Showing on Sky now, what a team that was! Still can’t believe what happened at Wembley
Some of the football being played by us in this game is as good or better than anything we've played in the following 10 years
How on earth was that 10 years ago? That's gone bloody quick
What an atmosphere in the ground.
I never seen that game on tv....couldn’t face it at the time and then forgot about it. Was it a noisy one I can’t recall. Blackpool fans only had one chant if I recall? Probably because most of them followed other clubs and were just there for the day out
That was great entertainment. A brilliant contest, really exciting stuff.
There was so much I'd forgotten about that game - the fact that both of City's goals should have been ruled out for offside, Hudson's horrible own goal, the superb efforts from Bothroyd and Whittingham that both crashed against the bar, Marshall almost gifting the game to Leicester in the dying moments of normal time, his brilliant save from Howard in extra time, the fact it was Waghorn who missed the final penalty, not Kermogant, etc.
Some of the football City played in that game, particularly during the first half, was just sensational. Has a City team ever looked as good as that in an attacking sense during the decade that has passed since?
The midfield and attacking line-up that day was:
Whittingham, McPhail, Ledley and Burke across the midfield; Bothroyd and Chopra up front.
The top scorers that season (including the play-off games) were Whittingham (22), Chopra (18), Bothroyd (11) and Burke (9).
The obvious problem was a lack of strength in depth. McCormack was a decent option and Rae certainly did a job, but the squad was very light apart from them and the defence wasn't especially reliable.
The problem was a midfield 2 which could be overwhelmed and a 442 highly reliant on Jay Bothroyd as we always had the hit it to him option when our central midfield couldn't get in the game.
All exploited in the final.
To think that Kelvin feckin Etuhu came on and not McCormack for Bothroyd just sums Dave Jones his 442 and big man little man attack.
That's an interesting observation. That midfield wouldn't last 5 minutes in the Championship nowadays, very lightweight but excellent technically. Jones usually went with one battler in the middle, like Rae, Olofinjana etc.
In terms of personnel, I thought our defence was regularly one of the better ones in the division. That midfield 4 was never going to offer much assistance in a defensive way. Given Jones was a centre back in his playing days I'm surprised we did look capable of conceding as many as we did. To my surprise, Russell Slade's only full season in charge saw us with a better defensive record than any season under Jones. I know what side I'd rather watch, but its talent was offset by that fragility.
The individual ability of our defence was never the issue it was always the way we were set up. That season we had Hudson, Gyepes and Gerrad as centre back options and Quinn, McNaughton, Capaldi, Blake and Matthews at full back, the problem was always Jones' inflexibility which was laid bare in the playoff final when he brought on Etuhu for the injured Bothroyd. Beyond McPhail and Whittingham only Rae could really do a job in midfield and the only midfielder on the bench in the final was Aaron Wildig!
I think if we'd had a player like Gunnarsson at that time we'd have gone up
I think injuries were also an issue in defensive terms.
If you look at the central defensive appearances list for that season, Gerrard led the way with 39 appearances. Hudson was next with 26, then Gypes with 16, while the central defensive partnership for all of the play-off games was Hudson and Blake. It was mentioned in commentary that Hudson had recently returned from a lengthy injury spell.
Hoilett instead of Burke. Better scorer and creator and better defensively as well. Maybe Vaulks or Bacuna instead of Ledley, not that either are better players than Ledley was back then. It's not as easy as just saying is x better than y - it's about having the right blend and balance. Arguably our best midfield under Jones was the Scimeca/McPhail partnership, when Scimeca went on an amazing run of form as a box to box midfielder, putting in the effort to help McPhail be able to use his superb left foot to spray passes about.
Ledley was quite an adventurous midfielder with a good touch when he was a youngster, but he wasn't the strongest. The Joe Ledley that played in Euro 2016 was a completely different midfielder, one who had become more of a battler, would run all day but didn't venture forward often.