I’ve made a few mentions of the excellent Elis James’ Feast of Football podcast over the last few months and make no apologies for doing so again, because it was on there this week that Danny Gabbidon, who appears on it with Iwan Roberts, repeated a prediction he first made a fortnight ago – Cardiff City will not win an away match in the Premier League this season.
Yesterday’s 1-0 defeat by Everton at Goodison Park means that Neil Warnock’s team have just the one point, from a 0-0 draw at Huddersfield in August, to show from six away games so far, so you can see where Gabbs is coming from.
However, just as City’s first ten matches this season offered hope in the fact that the majority of their fixtures had been against clubs at the top of the table, fans of an optimistic bent can take some comfort from the fact that those five defeats we have suffered have all been on the grounds of sides in the current top eight (this will become the top seven if Bournemouth can move above Man United today by avoiding defeat in their home game with Arsenal).
Bournemouth, the surprise team of the league so far, were our first away opponents on the season’s opening day and after our visit to Huddersfield a fortnight later, the fixture computer landed us with trips to Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool and Everton, so, to be fair to City, they’ve not had many away games yet where they could realistically contemplate possible wins.
A few weeks ago when I was looking past the fixture at Liverpool on October 27 at the run of more winnable games we had up until the New Years Day visit of Spurs, Everton did not appear to be as daunting a test as it looked just before kick off yesterday.
Last season, Everton spent the first half of the season at least looking like a possible relegation outfit despite spending something like £150 million in the transfer market in the summer of 2017. However, after a stuttering start this time around, they are now looking a much more solid outfit with their recent record of one defeat in seven matches enabling them to break into the top six and with Manchester United continuing to splutter (they drew 0-0 at home with Palace yesterday), I’d say it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that they will still be there come the end of the season.
In their last match before the November international break, Everton displayed what I believe to be the main reason for their improvement this season as they drew 0-0 with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in a game they probably shaded – Everton appear to be much more solid defensively this time around.
Neil Warnock said that he encouraged his team to believe that they could win the match when he spoke to them at half time with the game goalless, but, for me, a point from a 0-0 draw always looked as if it was as good as it was going to get for us as, rather like in the single goal home defeat against Leicester, we looked like a side with a player who had been signed as a full back leading our attack.
As I mentioned before, I feel Callum Paterson is playing centre forward for us on merit when you consider what he has done compared to the other contenders for the role at the club, but, to repeat myself again, I can only think of Huddersfield as a possible team in this league where the Scot may get into a first choice team at centre forward.
Any hopes we had of scoring were not helped by the fact that Paterson only really had Kadeem Harris as company in terms of someone with natural attacking instincts among our other nine outfield players in the starting eleven.
While the decision to relegate Josh Murphy to the bench in favour of Harry Arter, available again after the suspension which ruled him out of the Brighton match, was understandable in many ways, it did leave us short of serious counter attacking options on the rare occasions when we could look to break.
No, my reading was that this was a starting line up designed to “keep us in the game” long enough for us to unleash the likes of Murphy on an Everton side that would have been getting increasingly desperate for a breakthrough as the minutes ticked by and, to be fair, it came pretty close to working – in terms of the denying Everton bit until the closing stages part anyway.
The fact of the matter was that City did a good job of keeping Everton at arm’s length for forty five minutes or more as all members of the back four did a solid defensive job with Sol Bamba, perhaps, being the pick of the quartet.
Generally speaking though, the cover in front of them tended to tell a story of a midfield which was finding it harder to cope as a general failure to keep possession offered a clue that the task of keeping the home side quiet as attacking force was going to get increasingly difficult.
Yes, the notion that possession of the football is all important has taken something of a beating in the last year or so. However, despite the “anti football” sentiments of the likes of Jose Mourinho, who only works for clubs who have the financial resources to sign virtually any player in the world and yet he, apparently, still prefers to prey on opposition mistakes in possession for attacking opportunities, football, surely, has to be a harder game to succeed in if you are only going to have twenty nine per cent possession as we did yesterday?
Realistically, City are going to be second in the possession stakes (often by some distance) in the large majority of their games this season, so I’m not saying that I was expecting parity in that area yesterday, but there were times when players, who you know can pass the ball better than they were showing, were surprisingly sloppy.
Therefore, the game, increasingly, took on the air of inevitability that you often get when a so called inferior side does a good job of keeping their goal intact for something like 60/70 per cent of a match and yet you just know that somewhere along the line that one goal will come along somehow and all of the previous good work will be undone.
There was much to admire in City’s play yesterday and, once again, you can’t help but wonder about referee’s attitudes when it comes to “little” teams against “big” teams in this league after yesterday’s official, Paul Tierney, proved to be another one who gave us very little throughout the ninety minutes. I’m not saying he was the reason for our loss, but I do think that, often, what are always hard enough tasks anyway are made that much tougher by officials who consistently show that slight preference for the more established Premier League team.
Yet, even if you accept we did well defensively and that the ref could have been a bit kinder to us in his decision making, there is for me still a feeling that it’s all not quite enough – we aren’t too far away at all from being a team which can have genuine hopes of avoiding the drop, but we aren’t quite there yet. For example, when Huddersfield visited Goodison earlier in the season, they found a way to get that goal and so came away with a 1-1 draw.
Therefore, I think my main concern about our away record so far is not our lack of points which, hopefully, will see us picking up some more in the next month or so from places like West Ham, Watford, Palace and Leicester, but more our lack of goals – ironically, the only ones we’ve scored on our travels so far have been at Stamford Bridge and Anfield.
Neil Warnock is increasingly talking in terms of what he hopes to do in the transfer market in January as he comes across as someone who recognises that the chance is definitely there to make this season a success, in our terms at least, with the right signings next month (ideally as early in the month as possible) and I hope there is some truth in the speculation linking us with a loan move for Liverpool right back Nathaniel Clyne.
If his team are prepared to let Clyne go out on loan, then I suspect there will be more attractive options than Cardiff open to the England international, but, for me, he is exactly the sort of player we should be looking to bring in if we’re serious about wanting to stay in this division.
Although there are a lot of games to be played between now and January 1, our position is such that a couple more wins somewhere along the line should have us going into the transfer window still in touch with the sort of teams we’ll need to overhaul if we are to survive, but I can’t help thinking that our January business will have to be a bit more ambitious than what we did during the summer. Only Greg Cunningham out of our four permanent summer signings started yesterday and his place must be under threat from Joe Bennett – any January signings must, surely, have to be more likely to be regular first team picks than the quartet from the Championship brought in so far.
I didn’t get to watch the whole of yesterday’s match because I decided to watch my third Bleanrhondda FC game of the season so far. With my seen two, lost two record for a team whose total number of league defeats since the end of the 2016/17 campaign numbered just two, I went along to Blaenrhondda Park with the feeling that, for their own good, I would have to cease my support for my local team if I ended up watching another defeat.
Blaenrhondda’s opponents were Aber Valley FC from Abertridwr, a team near the bottom of the table who were probably in a false position because of the number of games in hand they had on the sides around them.
In that respect, Aber Valley were in a similar situation to fourth placed Blaenrhondda who had six and four games games in hand respectively on the two sides immediately above them going into yesterday’s game.
Happily, I’m not going to have to knock my attendance of Blaenrhondda matches on the head because they came out on top by 2-0 in a match which it’s probably fair to say they did enough to win in, but not much more than that.
Blaenrhondda scored their goals quite early in either half at times when they were showing that little bit more quality than their opponents, but Aber would have led in the first few minutes if their number seven had not had a complete air shot (he may have had a bobble off a pitch which wasn’t exactly trustworthy in that respect) at a great chance from fifteen yards after a fluent counter attack.
However, the home team generally looked the more likely scorers in the early minutes and they made their superiority count when they had a two on one advantage on the far post as a cross from the right came over and Shane Davies was left with a straightforward chance, which he put away with the minimum of fuss.
For a while, it looked like Blaenrhondda would be adding to their lead, but they rather lost their way in the second quarter of the match and Aber Valley got to half time believing that they were still well in the game.
However, the home side came out of the traps at the start of the second period like a team who had been told to sharpen things up and they immediately had a great chance from a one on one which ended with the keeper making a decent save. Within minutes though, they had doubled their lead after good work by Davies on the right flank culminated with one of those crosses which is into an area which makes it impossible for a goalkeeper to commit to because he isn’t sure whether someone is going to get a touch on it – in this instance, although Blaenrhondda’s number nine got very close to it, the cross drifted into the net at the far post.
Just as in the minutes before and after their first goal, you saw for a while why Blaenrhonnda are the highest goalscorers in their division, but, again, their intensity faded somewhat. The home team still looked the more likely scorers and were to hit the post in the closing minutes, but decent chances went a begging and the final stages could have been made a lot more tense if Aber had not been foiled by a fine save from a header from a corner and if one or two other attempts had been a shade more accurate.
In the event, Blaenrhonda were able to celebrate what I believe was a first league clean sheet of the season and with the sides in second and third places drawing with each other, it was a good day for them. They may not catch Porthcawl at the top, but look strong contenders to finish second if they can get no more than decent results in the games in hand they have.
Goalscorer Davies stood out as a talented individual whose ability to beat an opponent offers a clue as to why his team are so free scoring (Blaenrhondda have one or two other players like him), but I was most impressed by their composed number five who had to go off with an injury about midway through the second half – he always had time on the ball, defended more than adequately and was able to launch many attacks with high quality use of the ball from the back.
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Thanks, Paul.
I have seen nothing of yesterday’s game but looking at the stats it all seems much too predictable.
In different circumstances the 1-0 defeat to a team that has been playing really well I think we would accept what looks a decent effort on paper but I think we all know that we are have to become more creative if we are going to survive.
It seems the travelling fans did a grand job again, they deserve much praise.
I do hope we get three points against Wolves……..any chance?
I listened to the game on Radio Wales ,it appeared that we contained very well ,and defence was back to its standard of last year .
I can’t gather enough details on Cunningham performance to support the view of many that’s he’s not up to it (feel another Bryson moment coming our way ).
As you point out Paul it was a contain and grab a draw game , to say we may never win away I’m not sure as yesterday’s game even the Bournemouth and Spurs games , if we could have summoned some luck,who knows .
I think if we played Huddersfield and Newcastle now in a ten man situation we would win , as we have leaned how to play and adapt.
And product is our issue .
Bloody Zohore and his mental approach to the m
game has cost us (there I’ve said it)
A team selection that contained THREE centre backs, FOUR central midfielders and a utility player as our sole striker was only going to end in one result, sadly. Whilst the 2,400 fans were again magnificent we posed virtually no threat on Pickford’s goal save for a pulled Paterson shot (1st half) and a Camarasa thunderbolt (2nd period) which brought a save.
Whilst, as a team, we competed, individually City were some distance behind their corresponding players. Gomes (Everton #8) was light years ahead of us, and his team. Then I found out he was a Barcelona loaned. Ah.
A 1-0 defeat looks ok, if a 1-0 defeat is ever ok, but in truth we offered little.
The ref? No one had a kind word for him at the game. He booked Etheridge for time wasting yet allows Sigurdsson tame an eternity to leave the pitch when substituted … his performance in a nutshell.
Even though Mr Warnock continued to rely on Zohore for so long (a decision I still think was a huge mistake) it seems fairly obvious that our manager would like to play with a centre=forward who has the will to challenge for aerial balls, hence his choice of Paterson up front. At the same time he plays a centre-half as right back and then says we need a genuine right back and a centre-forward. With all due respect we have an experienced right back who could bomb forward to great effect as he did in his first appearance for the club. I mean Calum Paterson. I wrote at the time that the Scottish manager would certainly be casting an eye over this exciting right back. However, Paterson has been damned as not a right back and has been pushed into a number ten role and then into the traditional number nine role. Unfortunately, in most games he is coming up against a centre-half (often more than one) who is physically taller than Paterson and able to outjump him for the high balls, even though Paterson continues to show immense courage and determination. If we urgently need a genuine right back (as we do) perhaps Paterson would have been better deployed in that position.
Mr Warnock has also said we need what I assume to be a genuine centre-forward. Yet, we signed one at the end of last season in Gary Madine, but since then he has been as visible as Lord Lucan. Has he been deliberately frozen out? If we do sign someone else for that position, will the same happen to him? Madine has at least the physique and experience to challenge for balls that Paterson cannot simply because he is not as tall as the defenders he comes up against. If Madine is now considered not good enough even to be on the bench, is there another option with the current choice of players?
As Steve Perry implies above, where is the logic of playing THREE centre-backs when at least one of them is playing out of position. If Gary Madine is not to be given an opportunity (for whatever reason), and if we do need a towering centre-forward who could face central defenders with a degree of physical equality, why not use one of our three centre-backs as a target man. It happened yesterday in a desperate last-ditch attempt to score a goal at the end of the game, so why not try it from the start? We don’t have the skill and vision of the majority of Premiership players, so there would be nothing to lose if we revert back for most of the game to a blunt instrument hoofball type of performance, and bugger those critics who moan that it’s not pretty football as they know it!
Hi Bob
Do you fancy responding to a Q&A ahead of our game next, to be published on westhamtilidie.com
Paul – Thanks as ever for your words. It is clear to me that NW just does not know his best eleven, nor sadly, does he seem to trust his own judgement in the transfer market. As you rightly point out, Messrs Murphy, Reid and Smithies of those who cost money in the close season, were on the bench not to mention others signed last season consigned elsewhere. And Paterson who represents his country as a full back playing centre forward is madness. So when he mentions we need three or four others which is true, I shudder.I expect Mr. Tan does too.
Just finished watching Huddersfield take apart our next opponents. Just hope that we don’t catch Wolves on the rebound.
Have to agree with BJA. I also have just watched Huddersfield best Wolves. My glass was emptying by the minute!
Thanks for your replies, I may be wrong, but I think I’m detecting a bit of a change of mood regarding our manager in some quarters after Sunday – I don’t just mean on here, it’s there a bit on messageboards I read. I still believe he has built up a store of goodwill from City fans which means that it will probably be some time yet before we start hearing widespread calls for him to go, but it does seem to me that the “trust in Warnock” mantra is not being repeated as often as, perhaps, people begin to reconsider their opinion of the line that Neil Warnock cannot manager at this level.
To deal with some of the pints raised;-
1. Colin, watching Wolves yesterday, we’ve got to have a chance on Friday – Huddersfield were good, but I was amazed by how much Wolves had deteriorated since they were last on TV, I found myself wondering if they had problems in their dressing room?
2. Russell, agree with you about Zohore, and what might have happened against Newcastle and Huddersfield. As for Cunningham, I thought that overall he did pretty well, but he was caught on his heels for the goal and it seems to me that Bennett has been left out for similar such slip ups – my view is that Cunningham only keeps Bennett out for his defensive solidity, but if he is going to be caught out like he was for the Everton goal, then Bennett’s better all round game should see him chosen.
3. Steve, I mentioned that Harris and Paterson were the only attack minded players in our starting line up, but, in truth, Paterson isn’t really a natural striker is he – I’ll mention again that Paterson is currently the best striking option available in my opinion, but who on earth could have predicted that thirteen games into our season we’d be relying on those two up front?
4. You make a good point about Paterson Anthony – Alec McLeish was happy enough to play him at right back in two very important international matches and you have to say that you would have thought he knows more about defending than our manager (a winger in his playing days) does. The more I think about it, I believe that what our manager likes best about Paterson is his attitude because, it seems to me that it cannot be true that our manager only found out that he “can’t defend” after he signed Paterson. In saying that, I’ll repeat that Paterson looks the best option for centre forward currently at the club – certainly better than one of our three centre halves who, for me, should all play if we ever go with three at the back or the decision has to be made as to who to leave out if we play with a back four, but I suspect, Bruno will be playing full back until the opening of the January window at least. Gary Madine is at least scoring goals for the Development team now, but a player like him would need support around him and, certainly on Saturday’s evidence, that’s unlikely to happen (certainly in away matches). It’s an indictment on the strikers and wingers we’ve got that our manager turned to those two players on Saturday, but he cannot escape criticism either – we have gaping holes in our team at right back and centre forward when it comes to Premier League standard options and not bringing in a striker of the type Neil Warnock prefers in the summer looked a big mistake at the time, but looks a potentially catastrophic one now.
5. BJA, we may not have the spending power of many others at this level, but, based on widely reported transfer values, we have spent £35 million on five players in 2018 and none of them can be called automatic selections in our strongest starting eleven (Murphy would be in there for me, but, despite me feeling a bit sorry for Reid, none of the other four would). It’s hard to argue with your lack of faith in our manager to get things right in January given evidence like that, but I get the feeling that we might be dealing predominantly in the loan market.
6. Mike, we’ve shown we are competitive at this level, but have you seen any evidence that we have it in us to play as well as Huddersfield did yesterday? We may stay up come May, but, almost certainly, it will not be done by playing in the manner Huddersfield did. We’re a team of grinders (such an approach can work in the Championship) and it’s hard to see that changing under this manager.
Hello Jeff, yes okay – I did one before our game with Brighton, so maybe I can maintain a 100 per cent winning record!
Yes, Bob, that our best attacking option a dozen games in is our fifth option used, which ever way you dress it up, the brutal truth is very poor forward planning by the Club. Furthermore, Harris, after an eye catching performance in the previous game, contributed little at Everton. For me, we have missed Pilkington in our 25.
It has been said that lack of investment tends to poverty and failure. I hope that we will not reinforce that statement this 2018-2019 season.
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Amazing how quickly the things we love can create anger and despair.
This is going to sound harsh, maybe even a little intemperate, but, it seems to me that – yet again – we have worked so hard to go up, and we end up approaching the whole thing with a half-baked, half-hearted, “maybe we can scramble an ungainly survival” kind of attitude.
For this to have been evident for the second time in five years comes close to feeling like a betrayal of our passion for the Club; actually like a kind of contempt for those of us who care…irrationally maybe, but from the heart.
The Club (and I don’t just mean the Manager) has never looked as though it was making a deeply serious attempt at flourishing at this level.
God, I hope I’m wrong – egg all over my face – come May 2019.
Steve, while I can’t see Kadeem Harris as being the attacker who does most to keep us up, the truth is that, even with his very limited contribution so far, he has done more for our cause this season than two who I hoped were capable of making an impact for us at this level in Junior Hoilett and Kenneth Zohore – your point about lack of investment relates to what Lindsday says as well.
Last time we were in the Premier League, I was very critical of Vincent Tan, but I’m reluctant to place blame on him this time around because he had committed as much as Wolves paid in transfer fees this summer to a debt to equity conversion which will make large inroads into the club’s debt. However, I must admit to having a lot in common with Lindsay’s feelings when he says “we have worked so hard to go up, and we end up approaching the whole thing with a half-baked, half-hearted, “maybe we can scramble an ungainly survival” kind of attitude.”.
Make plans for a relegation following a promotion to the Premier League by all means because it would be naive and imprudent not to do so, but, right from day one, the signals coming out of the club at various levels has been one of almost an expectation of relegation, rather than the possibility of it happening. Teams such as Huddersfield, Brighton and Burnley have shown that you don’t have to spend to the sort of levels we did in our first season in the Premier League to stay up, but, in each case, it looks from the outside that they had the belief to follow through on their plans, whereas we have not looked like we have a coherent strategy with the fact we did not bring in a target man type striker in the summer looking like an unforgivable error now – does anyone truly believe that we would have signed Victor Camarasa if we had not had a game against his parent club a few days before his loan to us was negotiated?