Monday 2nd January 2012 - Birmingham (a) and Middlesbrough (h)
A busy weekend with the yin and yang of football in evidence, losing 3-0 at Birmingham, followed by a resounding win at home to Middlesbrough.
I thought that we played well in spells at St Andrews, but often in places where we were not hurting the opposition. Time and time again we built up nicely only to fail to get a shot off by overplaying as we got to the box. They were content to let us play in front of us then catch us on the break with pace and power. King got a yellow for an elbow in the first half for them, then the referee astounded most of the crowd by brandishing a red for Ferguson as he tried to hold off two men pressing him from behind. That killed the game completely and we were possibly lucky to concede only one more late on.
By contrast, Monday’s game saw an entertaining match with both sides giving it a go, but the return of LuaLua giving us the edge as a focal point of attack. We were unfortunate to go in level at the interval but came out in similar mood and Phillips followed us his Boxing Day heroics with another great strike and a couple of assists as we deservedly ran away with the game.
We now head into the Fylde Coast derby in good heart. It’s a game with everything to lose and nothing to gain, but potentially we can get another morale-boosting win.
STARMEN: Mark Howard at Birmingham; Matt Phillips against Middlesbrough.
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