ali benarbia's studs
Well-Known Member
As a blue I was raving about Ali B after his debut, I remember standing ovations from Blues attending matches. Outstanding player.
I remember him playing at Old Trafford and with the score at 1-1 and City looking the better side he put over a perfectly floated free kick which Goater headed home in the last min in front of I stand. We went mental...only for the goal to be ruled out.
I was lucky enough to be at Gillingham when he did that outrageous back heeled pass ...still not sure how he managed that to this day.
The best performance was at Sheff wed in the 6-2 as others have said. Simply unplayable.
See his last ever match for City at Mansfield in a pre season friendly. Great player.
Yeah.They laughed so much.Did you miss the Samaras debut? He left defenders in heaps on the ground.
Here are AliB's Birmingham highlights - and others - from the season review plus that Villa match,Think quite a lot of his first game against B'ham was on the season review dvd, which I no longer have though I recall one brilliant run around move he worked frrom a corner that bamboozled the Brummie defenders. But the one I most wished I could see again is his diving headed goal vs Aston Villa one Boxing Day, he came on as sub at 1-1 and made one & scored one.
It was SWP who crossed it for the Goater equaliser at OT and it counted, the disallowed one was due to Anelka hand ball and the cross was along the ground.
Agreed.One of the best 45 minutes I've ever seen from a City player was that first season back at home to Newcastle, Ali was just unbelievable, even more so given his ageing tiring legs.
It was an absolute honour and a pleasure watching him play in a City shirt.
Agreed.
At the end of that Newcastle game at Maine rd Ali collapsed on the pitch absolutely exhausted. He d given everything as we d just beaten a very good Newcastle side.it had a been a very fast ,pulsating , end to end game...he prob knew at that point (early season) that top division football was gonna be very hard for him.