Football: City fail to tame monster

Manchester City. . . 0

Wimbledon. . . . . . 1

Earle 31

Attendance: 23,981

THE feeling was that Manchester's main event was going on elsewhere - a reality, in fact, that City's fans have been experiencing all season - and this Maine Road event did little to dispel it.

After a dim and dismal game, on a day to match, the Premiership relegation-meter edges from possibility towards probability for Manchester City, on whom Oldham Athletic, third from bottom, have two games in hand and trail by three points. Next Saturday City go to Sheffield United, then to Oldham the following week in matches that will go a long way towards deciding the issue.

City's recent improved form of five points from three matches on the back of the impetus provided by Francis Lee's takeover of the club has not fooled their crowd, it seems. The mood was muted, the welcome for Paul Walsh after his pounds 750,000 signing from Portsmouth lukewarm.

Indeed, it is hard to see a 31-year-old striker with a dodgy ankle who has a scoring rate of one goal every five games as a solution, and they may well have to buy again before the transfer deadline this month. 'I think we need a wide player from somewhere,' said City's manager, Brian Horton. He could have gone on.

Walsh at least injected some initial liveliness into City, and he forced Hans Segers into a good save from a low cross- shot before crossing well from the byline, only to see Uwe Rosler, an ineffectual German striker on loan from Dynamo Dresden, completely miss the ball when unmarked at the near post.

But too often Walsh and his partner looked isolated up front as the corpulent Steve McMahon, who at present makes Jan Molby look like Kate Moss, tired and Andy Hill floundered alongside him in midfield. David Rocastle, potentially powerful, was peripheral instead and a late appeal for a penalty when he tangled with John Scales looked like straw-clutching.

By then Wimbledon might have wrapped up the match but were instead content to cling on to the goal that came in familiar fashion. John Fashanu - so rarely seen that he might have already been on the cut-price, part-time contract of pounds 2,000 a week that he has negotiated for next season, so that he can concentrate on his business activities - met Vinnie Jones's long throw at the near post, Dean Holdsworth at the far post headed his flick back across goal and Robbie Earle had the simple task of nodding home from a few yards out.

The hitherto lively Holdsworth clashed heads with Alan Kernaghan in the process and was carried off on a stretcher for 12 stitches. Soon after, the stretcher was needed again for the left-back Brian McAllister after a tackle with Rocastle and he was taken off to hospital for an X-ray.

Unlovely they may be, but Wimbledon do not squeal and they withstood the losses stoically. 'A monster of a result for us,' Joe Kinnear, their manager, said. Manchester City need some of this spirit, but more, as the endgame approaches, they need quality.