Still in it - just! City 3 - 1 Blackpool

I managed to make it to City yesterday for the first time since my op, though the walk in completely knackered me and I've got blisters on my hands from the crutch work! Still, I was going stir crazy, so it was worth it - sitting down for the best part of 2 hours unable to raise my leg also left it looking like a balloon again. The things we do for football...

In reality, a spot on the play-offs is unlikely now, with us probably having to win all four of our remaining games, but it's still a possibility nevertheless. Certainly a comfortable 3-1 win against the Seasiders helped the cause, and comfortable it was. Depsite Blackpool playing some neat tidy passing football, they rarely threatened City's goal until we were 3-0 up and took the foot off the gas.

A stunning 25 yard strike from the usually goal shy Stephen McPhail opened the scoring on 7 minutes, but we had to wait until the 50th minutes before Trev "The Rev" Sinclair stabbed home a second. The Bluebirds then started to look like the team they are capable of being and wrapped things up with another good strike from Peter Whittingham on 58 minutes. The only blot was a consolation goal fro the Tangerines when we failed to deal with a ball down the right channel and it was whipped in for a near post header.

I just wonder whether that will be the last time we see Aaron Ramsey, our 17 year old wonder kid at Ninina Park - or even Joe Ledley who was rested for this game. We've got one home game left - the final game of the league campaign, against our semi-final opponents Barnsley. If we can't make the play-offs by that game - or even if we can, Dave Jones might just decide that it's too risk to play his best players for fear of injury ahead of the FA Cup Final (I know - I still can't believe it!). We know that some of the Premiership clubs are looking at Ramsey, and we've already turned down bids for Ledley, but whether we'll be able to keep them come the summer who knows? Of course, if we win the FA Cup and there's a promise of European football (if UEFA agree) then that might change things, but we're getting well ahead of ourselves here.

Still, the global coverage City are going to get from the FA Cup final can be nothing but good.

C'mon you Blooobirds!