Posts Tagged ‘Kevin McNaughton’

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Hopeful signs.

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

I wasn’t expecting too much from yesterday’s visit to Derby. Strong finishes to our first two games had, in my view, papered over some very ordinary stuff that had gone on for the majority of the time against Sheffield United and Burton and this, combined with our poor pre-season and Derby’s fine result and performance at Leeds on the opening day had me in a frame of mind where I would gladly have taken a point beforehand.

To come back with all three of them then represents a very satisfying and encouraging outcome which should serve as a reminder to doubters like me that, despite all the negative stuff of the summer, we still have the vast majority of the assets which made us the Fourth best team in the Championship at the club (getting some of those assets to commit to new contracts would really offer proof that we are moving forward again mind).

I spent most of the second half of last season thinking that our attacking five of Burke, Whittingham, McCormack, Chopra and Bothroyd was as good a combination as any other in the Championship and at times it’s been easy to forget that those five players are still at the club. Okay, it’s looking likely that one of them will be leaving soon, but the addition of a player who has been amongst the very best of his type when he has played in this league in recent years means that, barring some dramatic late transfer window departures, our attacking options should be as strong as, or even stronger than, last season. Jason Koumas may have, understandably, looked a little off the pace at times last Wednesday but, after an hours football, he has already provided two assists. When you consider that Ross McCormack’s departure will almost certainly be accompanied by the arrival of another striker, then you would have to say that most of our rivals must envy the attacking options at Cardiff.

A quality goal by Michael Chopra, a winner by Chris Burke to back up a good personal performance and further proof of Jay Bothroyd’s effectiveness at this level offered more evidence of our attacking riches yesterday, but it was in the area where many would say we were weakest last season that I thought the main reasons for optimism came. Despite the, perhaps understandable given the circumstances of his departure, playing down of Joe Ledley’s ability by many City fans since he left for Celtic, I think it’s fair to say that losing a player of his quality would leave a pretty big hole in any Championship team’s midfield. I saw it said yesterday that Ledley would not get into the team now if he was still here, but, surely, it’s true to say that we wouldn’t have made at least one of the signings we have in that area if Joe was still here?

Whatever the truth is about that, the fact is our midfield looks stronger on paper than it did last season and yesterday offered positive signs that it will be stronger in practice as well.When you consider that we have Steve McPhail to come back into things, that Koumas, even if he will not be formally named in there, will make a contribution at times and that Peter Whittingham is spending more time in the middle of the park this season, our central midfield looks more creative before you even consider what the two starters in that area yesterday will give us.

I like what I have seen of Danny Drinkwater so far and another strong performance yesterday has me hoping that we have got an energetic player who can spot a pass and is also willing and able to do his bit in the defensive side of the game. However, it is the signing of Seyi Olofinjana which makes me believe that we have a stronger, and more adaptable, midfield this season – apart from some quibbles about “Olofinjana not able to impact on the game unless it came into his zone” (doesn’t that apply to any player?) in a pretty downbeat Wales on Sunday match report, the general reaction to his debut has been very encouraging indeed. I am still not sure that Olofinjana is the midfield “beast” that some of our supporters think he is, but I believe he can do more that just destroy for us and I am hopeful that, although all of the midfield players I have named can be creative, we have got the balance right this time between the offensive and defensive side of the midfield game.

With the replacement of the increasingly error prone Peter Enckleman with Tom Heaton in goal, I believe that we are a little stronger in that position as well, but the goal we conceded yesterday offered more evidence that, defensively, things still don’t seem right. While it would be easy to look at the role of Mark Hudson (who, sadly, looks to have become the one that all those supporters of our club who feel the need to pick a hate figure in the team have chosen this season) and blame him entirely for Cywka’s goal, for me, all of the back four except Kevin McNaughton have to take some responsibility – Gabor Gyepes allowed Varney to put the cross in too easily and I’m still trying to work out what Darcy Blake was supposed to be doing.

All three goals we have conceded this season have been pretty sloppy ones and, taken with the poor defending we saw in our two final games of last season, I think any Championship opponents can go into matches with us confident of getting chances to score. In saying that though, it is always so easy to just look at the goals we concede and pick holes while ignoring the sort of defensive blocks that the likes of Burke, Drinkwater and Hudson put in when Derby piled on the pressure in the closing stages. While I agree that the defence currently does not match the quality of the goalkeeping, midfield and attacking departments, I believe we have capable defenders by the standards of this division – I would not say that they are top six quality as a unit, but top ten perhaps.

Although we could do with a centre back of the sort of quality we had become used to for about five years before Roger Johnson left, I’d still say that a specialist left back is the main priority when it comes to our defence and speaking of left backs, what is it about Kevin McNaughton that seems to attract the sort of injuries that we saw yesterday? I can remember a delay in a televised match with Barnsley in McNaughton’s first season with us while he received treatment for a very severe looking head injury and I suppose it has something to do with the wholehearted way he approaches the game. Whatever the reason, the signs are that, just like against Barnsley, the injury he suffered yesterday isn’t as severe as first feared and that is good news for all sorts of reasons – not least of which is that, after an iffy time of it last season, the early games of this campaign have seen Super Kev back to something like his best.

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Whittingham the Quarterback.

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Dave Jones is often accused of “tactical naivety” by the critics in the stands when things go badly for City, but I wonder how many of those who are so quick to tell our manager when they believe he has got it wrong were thinking that what the team needed as they laboured throughout the first fifty five minutes of their season opener against Sheffield United yesterday was for last season’s top scorer in the Championship to drop deep and play just in front of the back four? This supporter certainly wasn’t, but that decision saved City from an embarrassing first match defeat against opponents who had to play the last hour of the match with ten men.

Before Matthew Lowton was correctly sent off by referee Peter Walton for a high and dangerous challenge on Kevin McNaughton, the visitors were deservedly leading following Ched Evans’ simple goal as he punished hesitant defending by Gabor Gyepes in particular. However, despite City’s numerical advantage, nothing much changed after the sending off for a further half an hour or so. One of the things people tend to say about our team is that they will always score goals, but having watched them labour through the game against Deportivo and the first hour yesterday, you could be forgiven for asking “how and when?”.

About ten minutes into the second half yesterday Mark Hudson sent a header tamely wide of the Sheffield United goal and, by my reckoning, that was City’s first attempt at goal all game. Yes, Michael Chopra did have the ball in the net early on, but the goal was, probably correctly, ruled out because of a push on a defender – apart from that though, there had been absolutely nothing in terms of a goal threat from the team as they suffered in particular from having a central midfield two who were far too similar .

The decision to replace Gavin Rae with Ross McCormack surprised me because I thought it left us very light in the middle of the park but what I didn’t account for was that Peter Whittingham would move inside and play almost as a holding midfielder just in front of the back four. From here, Whittingham was able to receive passes and then fire out some tremendous long balls which had the effect of giving City more penetration down the flanks while also tiring the ten men as they were forced to do some chasing having previously been very compact with their two banks of four behind lone striker Evans.

Whittingham’s display in the last thirty five minutes or so had me in mind of an American Football quarterback as his long passes covered more than half of the length of the pitch to cause consternation in the visiting defence. These weren’t the hail Mary type passes of a desperate man in the last seconds of the fourth quarter (as had been the case with so much of our passing before that) either, they were carefully measured, accurate bombs of the sort you would expect from Dan Marino, John Elway and Brett Favre. Unfortunately, Whittingham’s quality was not matched by those further up the pitch as, Michael Chopra’s fine work to create Jay Bothroyd’s equaliser apart, we lacked the coolness and accuracy needed to get us the winning goal that our late domination probably deserved.

Whether Whittingham in the role of deep lying Cardiff City play maker has a future is open to doubt though for a few reasons. Firstly, there must still be questions as to whether he will be at Cardiff much longer (this blatant attempt to unsettle the player by Nottingham Forest’s Chief Executive suggests Whittingham may be headed elsewhere) and second, Steve McPhail’s return to fitness would enable us to use another gifted passer in that position while freeing Whittingham to cause problems further up the pitch. Finally, it’s one thing looking good in that role against a team with ten men who are intent on keeping their shape rather than pressing the ball, but in other games it is very likely that someone in that role would have their defensive capabilities tested far more often than Whittingham’s were yesterday.

Another thing using Whittingham in that role did was to enable Danny Drinkwater to make more of an impact. As mentioned above, I thought Drinkwater and Rae offered a lack of variety in central midfield and, although neither of them were having a shocker, they didn’t make an impact on the game while they were together. However, having Whittingham behind him seemed to free up Drinkwater a bit and I think it was very encouraging to see his energy levels in the closing stages – whatever else he does or doesn’t do while at Cardiff, I don’t think a lack of stamina will be an issue for the Manchester United loanee.

Although Drinkwater’s display showed promise, the two best players for me were, just as against Deportivo, Darcy Blake and Kevin McNaughton. As far as I was concerned, the two full backs were the only ones playing to a good standard in that first hour or so and they both did well in the closing stages as they virtually played all of the game in the Sheffield United half as auxiliary attackers. Blake just shaded it as the better of the two for me as he looked a very confident and committed footballer in everything he did (surely he has to make his senior Welsh debut on Wednesday), but McNaughton, who confirmed the impression of the previous Saturday that he was back to his best, ran him very, very close and. although I still think we need a specialist left back, he looks perfectly capable of doing a good job there for the time being.

Our lack of options at left back, takes me on to the fact that we only had four substitutes yesterday. Although some have, possibly correctly, said that Dave Jones might have been trying to prove a point about our tiny squad and that we could have had a full compliment there if he had picked a few of our youngsters, it is blatantly obvious that we need more players. On that score, it was pleasing to hear Dave Jones say after the game that TG had reassured both him and the team that he remains fully committed to the club (he was there again yesterday along with Vincent Tan’s son) and that he would be disappointed if at least two newcomers didn’t arrive in the next couple of days – names doing the rounds on the messageboards and in the media currently include Jon Stead (in a player plus cash exchange which would see Ross McCormack leave for Ipswich), Marlon Harewood, Andy Keogh, Jason Roberts, Michael Tonge, Seyi Olofinjana and Lee Naylor.

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