STERILE CITY LIMP THROUGH
Kompany concerns add to frustration on a night to forget
ANY executive who continues to advocate closed-shop European football — minus promotion, relegation or a rigorous qualification process — should be tied to a chair and made to watch this game.
This is what football looks like when there is nothing to play for. This is what it becomes. A waste of your time, a waste of my time, a waste of everybody’ s time. Manchester City knew they were through, Dynamo Kiev knew they were out, and both teams knew their obligations to UEFA’s round of 16 would soon be over. Not even injuries to both of Manchester City’s starting centre-halves could breathe life into this abysmal affair.
City could arguably be excused on medical grounds. Losing Vincent Kompany after five minutes and Nicolas Otamendi after 20 would sink the spirits of any team. Kompany is a talisman for City, they are much reduced without him. If his calf injury stretches towards May, his loss could be fatal to City’s ambitions in the remainder of the season.
For Kiev there is less excuse. They should have been buoyed by City’s misfortune, instead they settled. Andriy Yarmolenko had a shot saved by Joe Hart after 64 minutes, but that was about the best of it. For City, Jesus Navas hit the post. The travelling Ukrainian press pack largely hit the bar. They weren’t bad judges.
How anyone can advocate meaningless rounds of matches, shorn of tension, as a money-spinning format for the Champions League in future is a mystery. Occasionally in two-leg cup tournaments this will happen, a tie that is as good as over at the end of 90 minutes.
It could be the same in the Nou Camp tonight when Barcelona and Arsenal meet. But to build an absence of danger into the fixture list, to make the process so safe and formatted, would be fatal to fans interests.
City did not sell out this match as it was and had the locals known then what they know now, their numbers would have been even smaller. This was an occasion devoid of everything that makes football compelling. If this is the future, they will have to count a lot of us out. Fans deserve more. We all do.
The only conclusion that could be drawn from the first half was that Dynamo Kiev did not appear to have done enough hard work on Manchester City’s defence. Better informed, they would surely have realised how calamitous it was to lose not just Kompany but Otamendi in the opening 20 minutes. It left Eliaquim Mangala and Martin Demichelis guarding the shop and neither acquitted himself particularly well in the period before half-time.
Yet Kiev’s tempo barely altered, despite this enormous slice of good fortune. Premier League opponents, sensing the local discomfort, would have instantly sought to gain advantage. The play would have got quicker, more direct, there would be balls in the box, energy to test the makeshift back l i ne. Instead, Kiev plodded on, their pace not much faster than City’s — and the home team were in danger of sinking into torpor.
For those who had braved the chill air it was hugely frustrating.
The Etihad Stadium only looked about 75 per cent full — a disappointment in itself considering this is the Champions League breakthrough season — but they deserved better than this.
YES, Kiev needed three goals to send them through, and that was unlikely to happen, but there was no need for a performance ass lacklustre as this from City.
They were sloppy, slow,, cautious, aimless. Of course, losing two centre-halves is a blow but it didn’t need too suck the life out of the game like this. It had the snap of testimonial without a fraction of the freedom of expression.
It needed Kiev to threaten, but they could not. Hart was forced off his line to clear on a couple of occasions and Mangala and Demichelis made errors that would have proven costly against more ambitious opposition, but City remained untroubled despite the obvious nature of their weakness.
The biggest fear was that this was the season as good as over, right here, in the first five minutes. City are still in there fighting for the title, or at least a Champions League place next season, and Europe’s last eight beckons for the first time in this modern era. But as Kompany limped off forlornly so City hearts sunk.
With him on the pitch this season, City concede a Premier League goal every 194 minutes; without him that falls to 65 minutes. That means Manchester United are likely to score at least once in the derby here on Sunday. There is little fun t o be had at City without Kompany.
The captain arrived here in 2008 and since then has suffered 14 calf injuries. Early reports suggested this was the 15th. He was shepherding the ball away from Oleg Gusev when he suddenly pulled up, clearly troubled. He kicked the ball off immediately and fell back on to the turf, mainly in frustration.
His face told the story. He had a thousand-mile stare. You could tell he was doing the reckoning. By the time he came back, the season could be as good as over.
Then there i s the impending arrival of new coach Pep Guardiola. Kompany i s his best i n situ defender, by a mile.
But not injured. Injured, he might as well be — well, Mangala, or any of City’s other expensive underachievers. Guardiola will want reliable players. Casualties, if not jettisoned altogether, will become peripheral. And with that Kompany rose slowly and hobbled gingerly to the periphery.
On came Mangala and, within a few minutes, another casualty. Otamendi ran into Vitaliy Buyalskiy and both men fell to the ground, hurt. Otamendi rose, eventually, but wincing with pain and awkward in movement. He limped around for a further 10 minutes or so until an attempted upfield pass appeared to end all hope of toughing it out.
Like Kompany, Otamendi signalled to the bench that his match was at an end. Off he went, replaced by Demichelis, forging a partnership that would go down about as well around these parts as a Mike and Bernie Winters tribute act.
Fortunately, Kiev seemed largely happy to sign up for a non-aggression pact and City were not greatly tested.
They will proudly take their place in Friday’s draw as England’s only representatives — another first — but this was hardly an occasion befitting the honour of Breakthrough Night. Sleep through night, maybe.