Manchester City v Arsenal League Cup 5th Round 1977/78

 CITY 0 ARSENAL 0

League Cup 5th round

18th January 1978

Attendance 42,435

Ref D Lloyd

City Corrigan, Clements, Donachie, Booth, Watson, Owen, Barnes, Bell, Kidd, Hartford, Tueart - Sub Channon(unused)

Arsenal Jennings, Rice, Nelson, Price, Young, O’Leary, Brady, Matthews, Macdonald, Stapleton, Rix - Sub Simpson

FROM THE PRESS BOX

FRANK McGHEE WRITING IN THE DAILY MIRROR 19TH JANUARY 1978 Manchester City can come up with an easy answer to explain why why they are not where they deserve to be, in the semi-finals of the League Cup. They can moan about the ill-fortune which put them face to face with Arsenal's world class goalkeeper, Pat Jennings, in the sort of form that was special even for this great guy. At least five of the many save he made will be replayed in the film of memory whenever the fans who saw them play the game of "Remember when". But if City think more deeply about it, they may perhaps, come up with a different reason why they didn't win last night. It seemed to me to take them far too long to realise something that was obvious from very early in the match.

This was the fact that their young winger Peter Barnes was in the mood to have as outstanding an impact on the game as Jennings eventually did. Barnes couldn't achieve that without the ball, and until well into the second half he was starved of service. The game itself took too long to become the classic we had all expected and forecast, for several reasons. One was the weather, cold enough to freeze the ballpoints on brass fountain pens and producing a bone-hard pitch which deteriorated steadily. Another was the two talented sets of midfield players who succeeded only in cancelling each other out.

A third was the inaccurate finishing which prevented Arsenal from taking the ascendancy they deserved in the first half. Their young striker, Frank Stapleton, was particularly culpable. For me, he might have sewn up the game before the interval. Once, for instance, he totally failed to make contact with a cross from John Matthews when contact was all that was needed to steer the ball past Joe Corrigan in City's goal. Jennings started to make his contribution from that point with saves on either side of half-time from City's waspish inside forward, Asa Hartford. It was Jennings who invested the game with magic in the second half. Only a goalkeeper as good as he can be could possibly have made the 64th minute save which tipped a full-blooded volley from young Barnes over the bar. Even Jennings might have been beaten by the one Barnes bombed in the 70th minute. It was blocked over by a horizontal head-first interception from central defender Willie Young. But the save Jennings made from Dennis Tueart two minutes from time provided its own proof that this was a night when he would not, could not be beaten by anyone or anything. And it means City face a distinctly uphill battle in the replay at Highbury next Tuesday.