By Nathan Jackson
February 13 2005

City's run of good performances came to an end in embarassing fashion with a 3-1 defeat at Rochdale despite having a lot of the play and now City are play the crap they've been playing for the majority of the season. Oh, Rochdale fans, does the term "Sing when you're winning" mean anything to you?

Before I begin, I would like to issue and apology to Rochdale fans, this game proves my match preview wrong, you do make noise, when you're winning other than that, I stick by what I said, not a peep.

The game kicked off and Yeo almost scored straight from the kick off when a defensive lapse by Rochdale saw Yeo nip up and chip the ball over the keeper but the ball went just wide of the target. Within a minute Rochdale were in the City are but when the ball fell to Holt 6 yards out, he could only blast it over the bar.

Rochdale was very windy of this Saturday afternoon and they took advantage of it on the 6th minute. The ball was quickly played into City's area and Bertos headed the ball straight at Marriott who could only get fingertips to it, the ball landed just infront of goal and Grant Holt scored his 21st (and probably easiest goal of the season.

Holt again troubled the City defence on the 17th minute and after beating 3 defenders, his run was holted (not pun intended) by Morgan. City had seen most of the ball since Rochdale's goal but had failed to really create anything until the middle of the half. City won a corner which Hanlon sent in, it fell to McCombe who shot on the volley before Ernie Cooksey did a save a goalkeeper would have been proud of. City had a penalty and Cooksey was sent off for deliberate handball. Yeo stepped up and beat Gilks to make it 1-1 for his 7th goal in 4 games.

The wind made is difficult for either team to create a decent chance, City shotting into the wind and Rochdale having every shot carried over by the  wind. Rochdale won 3 corners in the mid 30's  before Yeo suddenly broke with the ball and he seemed destined to score and he did, unfortunatly though the goal was disallowed for offside. City had the ball in the net again a few minutes later when GTF fired it in but is was disallowed for an apparant foul earlier in the play that only the referee managed to see.

City faced the second half shotting into the wind and against 10 men so you'd think that we'd be sorted, except for one small fact, this season City have fell behind 10 times in their 31 games and out of those 10 games, City have only got any points out of just one of them.

Anyway, Heald fouled GTF on the edge of the area 6 minutes in. Sandwith stepped up and shot from 30 yards out and forced Gilks to save the ball palming it over. Sandwith's corner however, as usual didn't beat the first defender.

Then, Rochdale who had been 2nd best since they took the lead in the 6th minute, took the lead again against the run of play. A free kick about 40 yards out was swung in, Marriott came out, jumped ontop of about 10 players, missed the ball and Heald was left with a simple tap in to make it 2-1. City almost got an immediate responce when Gareth McAuley sent a 30 yard thunderbolt against the bar.

GTF fired a shot wide before Keith shuffled the squad around, Sandwith was taken off in an attempt to get back into the game and loanee Bermingham made his football league debut. The young striker almost scored just minutes in but his curling shot went just right off. The resulting goal kick saw the ball passed to Tait who delivered a VERY LONG BALL (contrary to Rochdale fans claims they play Brazilian like football), the wind made it hard to deal with and McCombe header back to Marriott was extremely weak, Holt managed to sneak in and slide the ball along the goalline to leave Goodall with a tap in. It was very unusual, City despite not playing well, had been far more dominant in the game but found themselves 3-1 down, funny old game aint it.

Guy Ipoua came on giving City a very unusual 2-3-5 formation in attempt to get back into the game. The game slowed right down before Keith handed Lee Frecklington his league debut for the Imps for replacing McAuley. The remaining 9 or so minutes were played out with no major incidents and it looks like City's run off really good performances have ended and it's back to the usual crap we've had to put up with for most of the season.