EUROPA LEAGUE:Aris Salonika 0 Manchester City 0: IT WAS an ordinary match played in an extraordinary din and, for Manchester City, an opportunity missed, perhaps.
Roberto Mancini’s team will be confident of progressing when the sides meet at Eastlands next week but they could conceivably be in a much stronger position had they shown greater ambition and fluency in attack.
Instead, there were only fleeting moments when they threatened to turn down the volume of a raucous crowd, with Mancini unusually forthright in his criticisms.
The Italian spoke of the pitch being partly to blame but he was also unhappy with Edin Dzeko, the record signing from Wolfsburg, who was substituted six minutes from the end.
“I expect more from him. He’s a new player and I think he has the same problem as Fernando Torres at Chelsea because when you sign for a new team in January you don’t know your new team-mates, you don’t know the system and it’s not easy. But he needs to improve and it’s important he improves quickly.”
City’s best two chances had both fallen to the Bosnian – one a poor connection with his shot after 16 minutes, the other a twisting header in the second half that brought a one-handed save from the goalkeeper Michalis Sifakis.
“Dzeko had a chance and he should score,” Mancini said. “It was a difficult game because the pitch was not good and Aris played with 10 men behind the ball. Maybe it would have been different if we had scored when we had that first chance.”
Dzeko looked fitter and more energetic than in previous matches, although his touch was erratic and his partnership with Carlos Tevez, playing just behind the taller man, is still a work in progress. It was rare for Tevez to be so peripheral, although Mancini defended the Argentinian, arguing that the problem was the supply line and questioning the contribution of Shaun Wright-Phillips.
“Shaun should do better than that,” he said of a player who submitted a written transfer request in the final days of the transfer window. “We had only one cross throughout the second half and it was from Gareth Barry. With Dzeko playing, we should have crossed it more. Maybe Carlos was quieter than usual but we cannot always rely on Carlos to score once or twice in every game.”
The pitch was not conducive to flowing football but City’s front players took too long to adapt. David Silva showed some neat touches without being able to find the killer pass and the fit-again Mario Balotelli was unable to influence the match when he came on as a 77th-minute substitute in his first appearance since 28 December.
The noise was guttural, choreographed and unrelenting and the atmosphere is undoubtedly a factor why the Greeks boast such a formidable record on this ground, with no defeats now in 26 European games stretching back 43 years.
On that basis City are entitled to regard this as a satisfactory result as they aim to book a meeting in the last 16 against Besiktas or Dynamo Kiev.
“It will be different at our ground because the pitch is much better. We will have a good pitch to play with the ball on the floor,” Mancini said. “Nil-nil is dangerous, though. It’s a good result but not a perfect result. Everything is open.”
Nonetheless it would still represent a major surprise were Mancini’s men not to progress. Aris were ordinary opponents, lacking width and penetration.
Mancini was entitled to talk about his side being the more adventurous. Joe Hart’s only noteworthy save came in the 63rd minute when the right-winger Neto fired in a diagonal shot from long distance. Several City players complained after the match that they had been targeted by a laser pen shone from the crowd, although the club are not planning to make an official complaint.
Guardian Service
ARIS SALONIKA:Sifakis, Vangeli, Guiaro, Lazaridis, Michel, Neto (Castillo 88), Prittas, Faty, Sakata, Toja, Bobadilla (Cesarec 72). Subs not used: Vellidis, Oriol, Kaznaferis, Mendrinos, Cesnauskis.
MANCHESTER CITY:Hart, Richards, Boateng, Toure, Kolarov, Barry, Toure Yaya, Wright-Phillips (Balotelli 77), Tevez, Silva, Dzeko (Zabaleta 84). Subs not used: Given, Kompany, Lescott, Vieira, Jo. Booked: Dzeko.
Referee:A Mallenco (Spain).
Att:21,000
