CITY 2 DONCASTER 0

WE ALL know Harry Kane loves September – but Stuart McCall won’t be far behind.

The wipe board in the manager’s office at the training ground had made ominous reading.

Seven games in the month including trips to Peterborough and Oxford and two Yorkshire derbies.

The run of fixtures McCall had marked up on his wall at Woodhouse Grove presented a formidable indicator of his side’s prospects.

So the City chief was rightly chuffed after Saturday’s stuttering win over Doncaster raised the accumulator to 16 points from a possible 21.

Like Kane, McCall will have reluctantly turned over the calendar this morning.

While he will continue to avoid the league table – or discussing it at least – he was happy to talk points post-match.

He was also honest enough to admit that City are winning matches without playing particularly well right now. That’s another trait to be admired for teams keen to go places.

It wasn’t quite the backs-to-the-wall effort that held off Doncaster’s near neighbours Rotherham the other week.

Rovers, for all their decent approach work, ran out of steam in the final third – although City’s sloppiness and casual use of the ball kept them interested.

But the result, if not the all-round package, was the response McCall had hoped for after the midweek slip-up against Fleetwood.

City never lost two in a row last season and have bounced back both times from the two defeats this term; again, the mark of a side confident in themselves.

There was also a case of setting the record straight after Doncaster had claimed Carabao Cup success at Valley Parade in the opening week.

McCall had pointed out how his team had moved on in the eight weeks since. Every City fan will agree – even if Saturday wasn’t the strong case to support that.

“Mixed bag” was the phrase that kept cropping up in his post-match verdict. It was an apt description of most of the home players; good in parts, not so smart in others.

McCall had gone with two wingers by naming Paul Taylor for a first league start in the belief, quite correctly as it turned out, that Doncaster would find it tough to handle City in the air.

Rovers boss Darren Ferguson had sent out his players with a three-pronged message: stop crosses, deal with set-pieces and handle Charlie Wyke. They did none of them.

He had also shown them video footage of Adam Chicksen cutting back on his right foot to cross and Wyke peeling off at the back post. Again that warning went in one ear and out the other.

No wonder Ferguson cut a sullen and argumentative figure on the touchline when he wasn’t badgering fourth official Kevin Mulraine.

His mood would have been much better had Doncaster taken advantage of a bright start when they bossed possession.

With the extra man in the middle, they threatened to carry on where Fleetwood had left off – if they had possessed a similar cutting edge.

But instead the flashes of promise were nothing more than that; a half-hearted penalty appeal when Alfie May went to ground far too easily being the sum of their attacking ambitions.

McCall and Kenny Black got the message on for City to put the ball wide and use the wings. It would have brought instant success but for an outstanding defensive header from Rodney Kongolo over his own bar to deny Wyke from Alex Gilliead’s inviting cross.

But that aerial advantage the management team had banked on was underlined with the 18th-minute opener.

Time will tell whether Chicksen is as strong defensively as James Meredith proved down the years. But the full back clearly has the edge going forward in terms of end product.

The cross for Wyke’s header was of the highest calibre, even more so because he had cut back on to his supposed weaker right foot.

Wyke, as Ferguson said he would in Doncaster’s pre-match briefings, dropped off his marker and met it with a cushioned header back across goal.

City soon had the ball in the net once more as Marko Marosi fumbled Matt Kilgallon’s header in a goal-mouth scrum but Dominic Poleon had held the keeper down.

Ferguson had another chirp as Nathaniel Knight-Percival recovered from his own error to just get a toe on the ball while sending John Marquis tumbling in the box.

But City were soon celebrating a second time after Poleon’s bulldozing run nearly set up Wyke at the near post. Niall Mason denied him with a timely intervention but it only delayed the inevitable.

Tony McMahon marked his 100th outing in a City shirt with his fifth league assist of the season as Knight-Percival headed down and in from 12 yards, Poleon also doing his bit by obscuring the keeper’s view as the ball came in.

But arguably the most significant moment of the game came within seconds of the restart. With City dozing, Marquis slipped May through but Colin Doyle denied him from a tight angle with a strong save.

A Doncaster goal straight from the off would have punctured the mood. But Doyle, on the way to a third clean sheet in four games, was alert to the danger.

Poleon instantly burst his way through again to be stopped by similarly sharp reactions from Marosi at the other end.

But home threats became more sporadic as City again found themselves pressed back as the game wore on. Shades of Rotherham and Northampton once more.

Rovers skipper Andy Butler went close with a shot on the spin from 20 yards but the home defending, while occasionally a bit stretched, ensured they could not get a foothold.

Doyle governed his box well and Doncaster’s demeanour never suggested they seriously viewed a comeback on the cards.

The general mood was not helped by an infuriating display from rookie referee Anthony Backhouse. After a quiet first half, he appeared to want to grab centre stage in the second.

But the frequent manhandling of Wyke went unpunished – much to the growing annoyance of the crowd.

So an unsatisfactory afternoon in some aspects but just what the doctor ordered in others considering the previous result.

McCall knows there is plenty of work to be done but a very solid September has given City the base from which to do that.