It?s been another of those weeks for me. And typically it came in what could prove to be a pivotal week for the fortunes of the Club this season.

Tuesday night found me in Farnborough on a week-long training event. After some protracted negotiation, the Sports Bar in the hotel where I was staying agreed to put the City game on one of the half-dozen screens in their bar area.

The only snag was that the biggest screen, with the biggest and loudest speakers, was showing Champions League Football.

It?s hard enough watching football on TV without any commentary, but that goes to another level when you are overlaying the commentary from a completely different game, although the commentary matched the action on a surprising number of occasions!
So while I watched the entire game, my viewing was more of the general pattern of play, rather than digging into the details.

The impression I gained was of a City side who were more than holding their own against a team expected to be in the automatic promotion positions come the end of the season.

True enough, it felt like Wilfried Gnonto was able to expose Callum Doyle?s lack of pace on too many occasions, but the Italian will do that to many more defenders this season, so perhaps no disgrace there.

City matched Leeds blow-for-blow and by the end of the second half, seemed to have done more than enough to win it.

In Monday Mardle #10, I said that the games against Derby and Leeds would be a critical test...