By now everyone is surely aware that Craig Bellamy decided to take his frustrations at the Manchester Derby out on a fan who invaded the pitch. This certainly isn’t the first time Bellamy has gotten himself into trouble. Though at least this time it doesn’t involve hitting his teammates with golf clubs (though I doubt any of his teammates accept his golf invitations anymore). This time it’s worse though since he took initiative and decided to put himself in the running for the Joey Barton man of the year award.
He’s facing a police investigation right n0w and surely a match ban from the FA for this incident. While it’s understandable that someone could get out of control in the heat of the moment-I don’t think I’d enjoy some random person running up to me at the end of a rough work day-Bellamy really should have known to just ignore the situation. Judging by the picture it looks as if the cops are holding the man who ran onto the pitch which makes this even more inexcusable as it’s kind of a dick move to punch someone while they’re restrained.
Ultimately I’m sure he’ll probably get off pretty easily with the cops and have to serve a couple of weeks jail time in the summer if any at all, but the FA isn’t going to be lenient, nor should they be. Emmanuel Adebayor got 3 games for kicking Robin van Persie, which very much looked like it could be accidential, and Adebayor still faces a suspension for his goal celebration as well (which he shouldn’t face another suspension for).
Let’s say Bellamy gets a 3 match ban, at this point that means that Manchester City’s top two goal scorers would be out for two matches-against West Ham and Aston Villa-this means that City’s attacking options, assuming Robinho is still out, rest upon the shoulders of Carlos Tevez, Stephen Ireland, and Shawn Wright-Phillips. Not terrible, and I’m sure any team would be fine with these three as their “backups” but it could certainly cause trouble for City in that stretch.
There was also the issue with the extra two minutes of stoppage time that Mark Hughes was none too happy about. While it is understandable that City would be mad that the match went longer than the 4 minutes, there was also a City goal and a substitution made in stoppage time, which obviously gives some extension to stoppage time.
I saw a lot of angry “of course they kept the clock running till United scored” responses to that, but that’s a lame excuse. This isn’t a sport where scoring is abundant and the clock could have run for another hour before United got another one in the net. The fact is that after their goal, City should have strengthened up the back line to insure nothing got past them. Michael Owen got in behind the defense and they paid the price. You can’t let that happen to you in the first minute or in the 99th minute. (read Unprofessional Foul’s excellent piece on the whole thing here)
The next couple of weeks could determine how well this season is going to play out for Manchester City, adversity really shows how good a team is and it should be interesting to see if they can hold it together or if they’ll melt down.
Unprofessional Foul did a nice breakdown of why the extra time made sense; good reading.
Incidentally, Carlos Tevez played but was anonymous (from what I’ve read, at least) in this game. Why not give Santa Cruz the rollout?
Is Santa Cruz even Healthy, he wasn’t on the bench. It’s stupid to keep him off if he is healthy.
Tevez’s hustle led to the first City goal but apart from that he was pretty much invisible
To me, his hustle makes him incredibly overrated. There’s a lot of work without a lot of end product with him; sure, it occasionally works, but more often than not it doesn’t.
Incidentally, I don’t see Bellamy punching a fan who’s entered the pitch to be a big deal. You don’t go on the pitch. Period. The players are there to play, you’re there to watch; breaking that boundary is incredibly unsettling for everyone involved, especially when there have been real life incidents of fans attacking players (Basel Hooligan incident, Monica Seles, etc.). Bellamy could, quite rightly, claim that he was in danger, and I have to admit that I’d agree with him.
Of course, the fact that the fan was being restrained already could mess that argument up. Still, though, it’s worth mentioning; you go on the field, you get what you get.
Why would you punch a man who WASN’T restrained?! He could hit you back!
Again, par for the career for Bellamy- there’s a reason he’s only 30 and has already played for nine teams. Don’t get me wrong, he’s no Joey Barton, but he’s no angel either.
The EPL review show did a good break down of the extra time situation on Sunday night.
-4 minutes were announced
-30 seconds added for Man U. substitution (this is not at the referee’s discretion, it is a rule).
-Bellamy’s substitution lasted 55 seconds.
Which brings us to 5 minutes and 25 seconds of extra time, which is, give or take, when Owen scored his goal. And that’s not accounting for any time the ref might have added at his own discretion.
Still, we all know SAF paid the refs off, right?
Also, that Craig Bellamy punched somebody- rightly or wrongly- should come as no shock to ANYONE.
Also, if you watched the match, can we now agree just how good Ryan Giggs STILL is?
All the post-match commentary basically said Giggs was playing like he was 25.
Sanat Cruz isn’t fit to play yet. And the “of course they kept the clock running till United scored” argument is non-sensical, if City had merely retained possession instead of constatnly clearing the ball in a panic they would have held on to draw.
Tevez was pretty anonymous but then again so were City in genearl, aside from Bellamy nobody stood out and they were on the back foot for all the second half. Your right, this absence of first choice strikers should be a good acid test.
As for Bellamy’s punch, nothing should be surprising coming from him. He’s shown in the past that he’s got an irrational temperament. I hate hooligans invading the pitch as much as anyone but to punch him while he was being restrained was moronic and he should expect appropriate action from the FA.
What the hell? They signed fuckton of strikers in the last couple of transfer window and suddenly they find themselves without any.
Incidentally, I’m surprised nobody’s made any noise about Bellamy’s “Airplane” celebration; that kind of thing doesn’t usually go over well at Old Trafford. Most people I wouldn’t think were mocking Manchester United with that, but with Bellamy…