Curbishley stressed the need for a good start in his programme notes but his players had clearly not been reading.
The midfield trio of Matt Holland, Scott Parker and Jason Euell looked uncomfortable with the 3-5-2 formation and were over-run by City’s energetic pairing of Joey Barton and Antoine Sibierski. And Shaun Wright-Phillips took full advantage of the space down the right to give Hermann Hreidarsson a torrid time.
The 21-year-old was involved in the first two goals, winning a penalty after slight contact from Fish that was converted by Nicolas Anelka, and creating the second for Sibierski with a glorious through-ball which was helped on by the French striker.
Sun Jihai scored the third after 83 minutes and were it not for some excellent saves on his debut from Simon Royce it could have been more.
Curbishley was fuming with Mike Dean’s decision to award a penalty but admitted his team underperformed. “The penalty was an absolute disgrace,” he said. “But there’s a long way to go. We’ve got to go to Wolves who’ve taken a bit of a beating so something has to give.”
