City fans have a Ball - but it's nothing to celebrate

At half-time at Wastelands (sorry, Eastlands) a tribute was paid to an elderly gentleman who had been following Manchester City home and away for 70 years. It was his last game, the announcer said, which made him one of the lucky ones.

How the octogenarian fan slipped out of the stadium is unknown, but one suspects he could not have got out of there fast enough. Thanks for the memories, but frankly the current team will leave precious few. The word "tedious" would not do justice to the lack of excitement generated by Stuart Pearce's side.

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Which is not the City way. Even in the darkest days they have always entertained. Their defence might be as secure as Tony Blair's hold on the Premiership, but their attack could always be relied upon to set the pulse racing. This is the cock-up club, where princes are accompanied by court jesters, and the team are likely to win or lose 5-4.

Now the prospect of them scoring at home seems the height of fantasy. Yesterday's blank means City have not got a Premiership goal in front of their own fans since New Year's Day, which comes to 738 minutes, or 12hr 18min, of fruitless labour.

Just about the only thing they did get out of the 1-0 defeat was the unwanted tag of being statistically the dullest team ever at home in England's top division. Their 10 goals for a whole campaign failed to reach even the miserable 11 registered by Arsenal in 1912-13 and by Sunderland in 2002-03. City were even awarded a penalty yesterday, but for a successive game at Eastlands they missed it, Darius Vassell shooting straight at Edwin van der Sar. Joey Barton, who said two weeks ago he would not pay to watch City play, may be a reprehensible character but he has a future as a critic.

Barton was missing yesterday, suspended for attacking a team-mate, Ousmane Dabo, and rumour has it he is in Spain. It is unlikely he dragged himself off his sunbed to watch his colleagues, and he did not miss much. "City did not really try to beat us," was Sir Alex Ferguson's opinion, and with nine Sky Blue shirts stuck behind the ball for much of the proceedings it was hard to argue otherwise.

A volley from Emile Mpenza after 10 minutes and a shot on the turn from DeMarcus Beasley 19 minutes later were, like Vassell's 81st-minute penalty, straight at Van der Sar. They were the best efforts City could muster. Given that their opponents were weary after Wednesday's Champions' League defeat in Milan, it was a feeble effort at halting United's march towards the title. The game was like City's season. Forty thousand scarves were given to home supporters to guarantee a rousing send-off, but by the end, when the team came out for an end-of-season lap of honour, the ground was 80 per cent empty. Hope, like excitement, has dribbled away and it might cost Pearce his job.

Not that you would guess that from his demeanour. "A lack of goals has been our Achilles heel all season," he said. "We need more cutting edge, and we will have to address that this summer." Note the "we" and "summer". If Pearce does stay, City's supporters will be praying he shows better judgement on strikers than that which brought the impotent Georgios Samaras and Bernardo Corradi to the club.

Before then Pearce will have to deal with Michael Ball, who stamped on the prone Cristiano Ronaldo in the second minute and is almost certain to incur the wrath of both his manager and the Football Association.

Ball is likely to be in the dock, and the idiot who invaded the pitch and wandered around like he owned the place before he was arrested definitely will be, his plea that he provoked one of the few entertaining moments in a grim game unlikely to carry much in his favour.

"Are you Barton in disguise?" the crowd chanted. True to form, the wit came from the United supporters.