Dirty Harry said:
petrusha said:
His high-water mark with us came in the week when he scored the only goal in successive 1-0 wins at Maine Road in October 1979, against Boro on the Wednesday night and then Forest, reigning European Cup holders, on the Saturday.
I think Big Mal referred to the Forest game as our 'O' levels, and the up and coming Liverpool game as our 'A' levels, we failed our 'A' levels spectacularly, as we often did against the red dippers at Maine Road, not even Deyna could save us.
Yes, Liverpool was the next home game, at the end of the month. They beat us 4-0, and carry Mal's metaphor through, they really gave us a lesson that day. Men against boys stuff. I do recall that we attacked them and gave it a real go, earning praise from Bob Paisley, who said that few teams were prepared to try and give them a match in the way we attempted.
However, the autumn did give us some hope. After the Forest game, we were eighth with eleven games gone. And the next home game after Liverpool was against United, who went into that one top of the league (they were eventually runners-up to Liverpool). It was a day to encourage optimism, as the expensive buys showed why Mal had wanted them. Daley had a great game in that one, dominating the midfield, while Robinson led the line superbly and scored a great goal. By Christmas, having played exactly half our fixtures, we were 12th, but a lot of teams were packed very closely together. We were two points off fourth spot and three points off third.
I think everyone knew that we were too inconsistent to have any legitimate hopes of making an impression that high off the table. And I still thought that Mal's reconstruction had been far too radical, with the biggest buys vastly overpriced. But it did look as though something half decent was coming together. People seemed to feel that perhaps we could finish in the top ten with a team capable of improving from there.
Deyna was a big part of that. He was the one player in the side capable of doing something a little bit different, of producing a moment of magic to turn a game. He'd arrived part way through the 1978/9 season and, having arrived from 1970s Communist Warsaw to face both a style of football and a style of life totally alien to him, he took a long time to settle in.
Didn't work out, of course. However, just for a few weeks, it did look like Deyna and City might prosper together. Anyway, as others said, it was a privilege to have watched him.
