Andy Munro watches Blues’ Wembley hopes disappear.

A freezing night and a paltry crowd summed up the ‘magic’ of the FA Cup these days. Leeds, in fairness, brought a decent following but maybe in Yorkshire they get those sort of temperatures on a Summer’s day.

Blues started the game a bit slowly but gradually grew into it and probably had the edge in what the Times would have described as an undistinguished half. Our goal was, however, a moment of quality with Nathan Redmond using his pace to set up Wade Elliott who is becoming a bit of a Johnny on the spot.

Many of our better moves involved the impressive Caddis but as the game wore on his forays became more sporadic, not helped by the midfield giving the ball away with Gomis a particular culprit. Robbo, on the other flank, while solid defensively didn’t get forward much either, which started to affect our fluidity in the second half. Having said that the Leeds equaliser was started by a move where the ball was clearly out into touch. Mind you, it was noticeable that in scoring their equaliser the Leeds forwards were given the freedom of the park, a luxury not afforded to our own attackers.

Predictably Leeds took the lead following a handball which seemed out of the box but the referee decided to overrule the linesman and award the spot kick despite being 40 yards away. Doyle, who by the way performed generally competently, had no chance with a penalty scored by the obnoxious El Hadji Diouf.

Typically it was only then that Blues woke up with both Lovenkrands (for the unimpressive Morrison) and Zigic being sent on as a last throw of the dice. Both were desperately unlucky with the former having a volley superbly saved and the latter having a header off the line.

One of the bright spots was an ever improving Burke but too often he was left isolated. In truth, Blues were a little laboured and too often looked like the struggling Championship team that they are. In fairness to the manager, the side he picked was probably who most Bluenoses would have selected with the limited resources available.Whether he is getting the best out of the potentially influential senior players, however, is still questionable.

Food for thought:

• Is Calderwood past his sell by date and is it time to play another youngster such as Delfounso or perhaps move Robbo into the centre?
• If we can sign only one player what position would it be?
• And who’s the most effective in the middle of midfield, Margaro Gomis, Haydn Mullins or your mum?

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-1]