City 1, Colchester 1

JUST when the Chelsea ticket row calmed down, along came the FA Cup furore over being ignored by the TV companies for the fifth round.

Now that outrage has been overtaken by Phil Parkinson's damning post-match criticism about the Valley Parade pitch.

There seem to be more issues surrounding the club right now than an average episode of Jeremy Kyle.

The state of the playing surface is hardly breaking news. It has rumbled on since caving in under the weight of the particularly wet weather in November.

That was the point when Parkinson raised his concerns with the board – and when he claimed they chose to sit on their hands rather than offering to fund any salvage work.

But Saturday was the low point. Valley Parade had been out of action for 17 days since the Millwall cup replay and still looked worse than ever.

Two heavy dumps of snow in the meantime just compounded groundsman Mick Doyle's problems and the covers had to be left on for longer than he would have wanted.

Referee Kevin Johnson came close to pulling the plug just over two hours before kick-off after a concerned inspection.

If Colchester boss Tony Humes had been at the ground at that point, it would have been cancelled. He arrived half an hour later and immediately voiced his fears about player safety.

Parkinson's anger on the issue has been bubbling under. It burst spectacularly when he faced the press afterwards.

It still came as a surprise to hear the manager break ranks as vocally as he did with a tirade against particular directors – pointedly absolving Doyle of any blame.

But of course the timing is in Parkinson's favour. On the back of that win at Chelsea, he is talking from a position of considerable strength.

What will be interesting is the response to his angry attack. Suffice to say, his usual weekly meeting with the board on Thursday could become a lively affair.

The game probably should not have gone ahead but that would have just added to City's impending fixture pile-up. With 14 outings already scheduled for the next two months, a postponement was the last thing on their minds.

So Parkinson convinced the first-year referee that they had played on worse this season – they hadn't – even if it meant once again having to tell his players to adapt their game accordingly.

Forget the free-flowing stuff that had stunned Chelsea and roll your sleeves up for a heavy slog through the mud, mud, not so glorious mud.

Parkinson said: "Nobody wants to hear a sob story about the state of the pitch come the end of the season. We've got to win games.

"But we have to completely change the way we'd like to play. That's the team talk. You're asking someone like Billy Knott, who is a very good technical player, to run around and play a game that's alien to him.

"There was a time when we could have got somebody in (to improve the surface) and it wasn't done. So we're left with a pitch where it's lucky the game's on.

"We've got to adapt to it, make the most of it and be better than the other team on it."

It took a long while for that message to sink in. The personnel may have been the same as the week before, barring the usual switch of goalkeeper, but the first-half performance was poles apart.

With concentration of the essence on such an unpredictable stage, it was Colchester who settled far quicker. The contest could have slithered out of sight before City had found their feet.

Centre halves Andrew Davies, in particular, and Rory McArdle were running in treacle as the U's carved their way through the middle. "I could have played up front and looked a good player," was their manager's biting criticism at the break.

McArdle had already thwarted Gavin Massey when Chris Porter fired the visitors ahead after five minutes. Tom Lapslie's long pass picked out the striker in too much space and he drifted inside Davies before scoring his first goal since joining from Sheffield United with a glorious curler.

Massey then burst through but could not follow suit and Jordan Pickford denied Sammie Szmodics another goal to add to the hat-trick he'd scored at Valley Parade in the Youth Alliance Cup final ten months earlier.

All that within the first 11 minutes – so much for the wonderful "homecoming" for the cup heroes as the club had billed the afternoon.

The untrustworthy surface made for an open encounter and City had their half-chances. Knott's close-range effort just before the break was the best of them but was foiled by Sean Clohessy's sliding block.

That did not save the players from their manager's sharp tongue during the interval and thankfully the transformation was immediate.

Colchester barely got a kick in the second period. City tightened up at the back and built momentum going forward.

Filipe Morais had been the one home player who refused to be hampered by the pitch in the first half and took his game up another notch from the restart.

He hammered in three shots and keeper Sam Walker was forced to turn one of them against the outside of the post.

With 15 minutes left, it was a case of fourth time lucky. Inevitably, the assist came from Jon Stead.

Having had a hand in three of the four FA Cup goals, the striker launched another rescue act by doggedly holding off two defenders to the left of the penalty area.

Even more impressively, Stead managed to keep his feet while twisting and turning before delivering the perfect cross for Morais to thunder home. Wisely the winger met it on the full rather than taking his chance with letting the ball bounce.

It was the Portuguese's fifth goal of the season but his first in the league at home.

Morais' equaliser at Stamford Bridge at almost the same moment had sparked a legendary fightback. But despite the odd scramble, there was to be no repeat as Colchester dug in for the draw.

But then the only real winner was always going to be the pitch.

Attendance: 13,917

City v Colchester picture gallery