Town eventually ran out 2-1 winners at Maine Road in a hard-fought Worthington Cup match. The Blues went behind to a Shaun Goater goal in a first half where Town were rarely on top. Matt Holland scored the equaliser in the 58th minute and Mark Venus coolly put the winner past Nicky Weaver in extra-time.

After a piece of tactical wizardry on Saturday against Southampton George Burley saw a ruse go very much awry in the first half tonight. Town switched to 5-3-2 playing Fabian Wilnis at left-back with Jamie Clapham at left midfield and Gary Croft at right back. Jermaine Wright was the midfielder left out. The idea of this formation was presumably to stop Shaun Wright-Phillips from providing Paulo Wanchope and Shaun Goater ammunition. As it was it helped prevent Town play their own game, which was being hampered anyway by the very heavy pitch.

City were managing to get ammunition to their two strikers without Wright-Phillips having to put in too much effort. The long ball over the top wa

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