Rovers 1 Manchester City 0

[Alan75]

Rovers: Friedel, Emerton, Samba, Nelsen, Warnock, Bentley, Savage (Tugay 17), Dunn, Pedersen, Santa Cruz (Derbyshire 86), McCarthy (Ooijer 63).

Subs Not Used: Enckelman, Roberts.

Sent Off: Tugay (54).

Booked: Dunn, Kerimoglu, Pedersen, Bentley, Samba.

Goals: McCarthy 13.

City: Schmeichel, Corluka, Richards, Dunne, Garrido, Ireland (Onuoha 70), Johnson (Mpenza 32), Hamann, Petrov (Geovanni 76), Elano, Bianchi.

Subs Not Used: Hart, Ball.

Sent Off: Dunne (65).

Booked: Dunne.

Att: 26,881

Ref: Mike Dean (Wirral).

League Position: 7th (8 points)

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Rovers 1 City 0

Rovers this afternoon raised the bar and set themselves a difficult target to achieve for the remainder of the season. On this performance Rovers supporters are in for an exciting time at Ewood. To quote Paul on the message board.

It's very, very difficult to find adequate words to describe Rovers today.....committed, passionate, pacy, exhilarating football. We haven't seen a full ninety minute performance like this for years. Citeh had the better of perhaps the first ten minutes and from then Rovers dominated the match with every player demonstrating real skill and commitment to the club. This was a fantastic performance of real quality, which put Citeh's money men to the sword. We have a very good, settled and experienced squad after this performance the team must know this could be their season.

Apart from the first 10 minutes, Rovers dominated and controlled the game against Manchester City, who in fairness contributed to an entertaining and exciting game.

Rovers took the lead in the 13 minute when Benni McCarthy converted from close range at the right hand post after Schmeichel had parried away a header from Roque Santa Cruz. From then it was one way traffic and Rovers could easily gone in at the break 4-0 up.

If there was a black spot to the day, it was the yellow card tally and the sending off of Tugay for two silly yellow card offences.

Mark Hughes post match comments:

"We went about about our business of getting at them from the start to the finish.

"Our passing was incisive, and we caused them a lot of problems.

"Tugay is disappointed with himself for his sending off for two silly bookings, but his team-mates rallied round and made sure we got the points."

Man City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson:

"We passed the ball nicely, but we were nice without ever being dangerous.

"We expected a hard, tough physical game, but it wasn't like that, and despite a red card for each team it wasn't a dirty game.

"The rules are severe on things like shirt-pulling, and I suppose the referee was right with both of them."