Martin Petrov 2 – 2 Rovers with highlights

By: Dan Clough | December 28th, 2007

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. It’s Christmas and the beer has been well and truly flowing!

Rovers were struck twice by the lightning speed of Bulgarian winger Martin Petrov but twice came back to rescue a point.

We became the first club to take points from Eastlands this season and broke a run of nine straight home wins for high flying City with a performance that showed great character.

The team had been shuffled around somewhat with the suspension of Stephen Warnock, giving Bruno Berner a start at left back and seeing Zurab Khizanishishshishkebabvilli playing at right back. This was the wrong decision.

Khizanishvilli, who for some reason has just been given a new contract, could not handle Petrov who’s runs and perfect crosses set up both of City’s goals.

The first three goals of the game came in just over three minutes when Vassel gave City the lead from Petrov’s cross, only for a Bentley free kick to be headed in by Santa (cue Christmas pun) Cruz, only for that to then be cancelled out by a Nelsen own goal. Nelsen can’t be blamed, if he hadn’t put it in Bianchi was right behind him and couldn’t possibly have missed!

As seems to be the case at the moment Rovers were off the pace in the first half and a good City side seemed to have little chance of throwing it away. However, Sparky showed courage and changed things at half time. Benni came on for the useless Zurab and Emerton was shifted to right back. Petrov did not enjoy his tussle with Emerton who’s pace was more than a match for Stillian!

Rovers fought well in the second half but struggled to create chances until, with just a few minutes on the clock, a Bentley cross was headed in by Santa Cruz (again!) In three games we have scored four goals and all of them have been Bentley crosses for Santa!

Ironically the goal was flagged offside, Dunn in a clear offside position but he missed the ball, the linesman flagged but showed an amazing amount of bottle to reverse his decision when he saw Dunn made no contact. Of course the old ‘when does a player become active’ debate rages on, but do I care? No.

A great comeback and, had we played another ten minutes we would probably have won it. Needless to say however, a draw at the City of Manchester Stadium is a good result these days!