It all happened within a couple of hours last night!

Posted on May 20, 2026 by The other Bob Wilson

I think the FIFA World rankings list has something like 210 teams in it, which means that close to a quarter of all of the football paying countries that football’s governing body recognises will be competing in the upcoming World Cup Finals to be staged jointly by the USA, Canada and Mexico.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to a World Cup tournament less than this one (and I can go as far back as 1966 for World Cups I have a memory of watching) – the fact that the tournament will, no doubt, have Donald Trump lording it throughout as if anything memorable that happens is entirely down to him only adds to my lack of enthusiasm for the “extravaganza” we’ll be experiencing through much of the summer.

I must admit though that a general boredom with football is playing a part in my lack of enthusiasm for the World Cup. A set of Play Off Semi Finals which hit no great heights on the drama/entertainment fronts have not helped (only the second leg of the Salford v Grimsby League Two tie had the sort of drama I’d normally associate with the Play Offs). Indeed, I must admit to being much more interested in Glamorgan’s surprisingly bright start to life in Division One of the County Championship than I have been in the final dregs of the the 25/26 domestic football season.

That changed somewhat within a couple of hours last night though when three attention grabbing things happened on the football front.

First, Arsenal were crowned Champions of the Premier League without kicking a ball as Manchester City were spared what would have been a deserved defeat at Bournemouth by an injury team Erling Haaland goal. Nevertheless, a point leaves Pep Guardiola’s side four points adrift of Arsenal going into Sunday’s final set of fixtures.

Normally, I’d be all for a team that has not won the league in twenty two years breaking up the Man City/Liverpool/Chelsea dominance of the title in the last fifteen years or so, but I can’t help thinking that, in Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, one of the least impressive Premier League campaigns of the last thirty odd years has got got the title winner it deserves.

For forty five minutes against Fulham recently, Arsenal showed us the team they can be. However, certainly in the last few weeks of the campaign, it’s been very much a case of carefully does it for Arteta’s men as a series of dull 1-0 wins (not the least being the home victory over already relegated Burnley secured by a set piece goal on Sunday and the VAR assisted win at West Ham the previous week) have seen the Gunners returning to the defensive roots which have characterised the club’s approach for most of my football supporting life.

In saying that, Man City’s never quite fully convincing performances through the period where they’re supposed to see off all opponents as they come through with the late run which usually sweeps them to the title, probably means Arsenal are deserving Champions. For all of the carping of people like me, this could, arguably, turn out to be the Gunners’ best season ever if they could follow up their Premier League win by seeing off PSG in the Champions League Final in ten days time – that seems a long shot to me mind and, hopefully, the “beautiful game” will prevail in Budapest!

I mentioned Bournemouth and, for me, they’ve been, just about, the most watchable team in this season’s Premier League, but, sorry I can’t get too excited with the “battle” between them and Liverpool to secure whatever position they need to qualify for next season’s Champion’s Leaguer (is it fifth or sixth? I really do not know as I lost patience with the whole thing when it became four teams from one country competing in a tournament meant to be for Champions!). No, my interest will be at the bottom of the table as we find out which one out of two teams who really should be nowhere near the relegation zone, Spurs and West Ham, will be playing in the Championship next year.

Spurs always lose to Chelsea and they duly did so last night once again, by 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. This means that the North London giants will go down if they lose at home to Everton on Sunday and West Ham beat Leeds at home. Such an outcome seems unlikely to me as, much as it sticks in my craw to say this, Leeds have been one of the more watchable teams in the top flight through the second half of the season and have shown a resilience that makes it seem unlikely to me that you’ll get an “already on the beach” type performance from them of the sort you associate with teams that have nothing to play for on the final day of the season – whatever happens at Tottenham, I don’t see West Ham beating Leeds.

Returning to the Play Offs, I thought the second best match among the ones staged in the past week or so was the Second Leg between Southampton and Middlesbrough where the Saints came back from conceding very early on to clinch a 2-1 aggregate win late in extra time. Generally speaking, the standard of play in this Championship Semi Final over the two games was much higher than in the other one between Millwall and Hull where the Tigers won the battle of the big cats with a 2-0 Second Leg win in London and I had Southampton down as big favourites for the Final scheduled for Saturday.

However, the tie against Boro was played out against the backdrop of a rapidly developing story which, of course, had to be called “”Spygate”!

Back in 2019 I think ir was, Leeds got off lightly when one their employees was caught spying on one of their Play Off Semi Final opponents Derby County’s pre match training sessions. Leeds, essentially, got away with it because there was nothing in the EFL’s disciplinary rule book to cover such matters at the time. Now there is and a precedent which saw Canada kicked out of the 2024 Olympics Women’s Football tournament for spying on their upcoming opponents, Australia, suggested a stiff punishment was coming the Saints’ way (the Canadian chief coach also lost her job as a result of the scandal).

Nevertheless, it came as big shock to me to hear last night that Southampton had been expelled from the Play Offs, with Middlesbrough taking their place in the Final and, furthermore, they’ll begin the 26/27 Championship with a four point penalty. Southampton had pleaded guilty to the charges, but what wasn’t known until last night’s verdict was announced was that there were two additional charges for instances of spying by Southampton before they played at Oxford on Boxing Day and at home to Ipswich last month – it’s worth noting that in the games played after the spying incidents, Southampton lost at Oxford and drew with Boro and Ipswich!

With all of the logistical problems such an outcome causes, the appeal against the verdict Southampton are mounting is due to be held today with the outcome to be announced this evening it seems. Therefore this expulsion from what is always called the most expensive game in football (it’s now being reported that victory on Saturday would be worth £200 million to one of the teams taking part) might well have been reversed by this time tomorrow.

I admit that was my feeling when I first heard about Southampton’s expulsion last night as it did strike me at first as being a bit OTT. However, I had my mind changed by something a Southampton fan of all people said in a podcast I’ve listened to this morning. His argument was that people are saying the punishment is overly harsh because of the sums of money involved and the footballing prize on offer for the winner – if, say, a team had been chucked out for spying on their next opponents in the Vertu Trophy, no one would have batted an eyelid.

I agree with that and so I would say that the odds are probably on the punishment being endorsed by the Appeal panel (consisting of different individuals from the original one) with the possibility of some additional punishment (a further points deduction?) on the grounds that, having pleaded guilty to all charges, Southampton have acted frivolously in appealing.

So, for now, it seems City will be facing Southampton in the Championship next season, but they will be doing so without the services of Ryan Wintle who won both the Supporters Player of the Season award and the Player’s Player of the Year award less than a month ago. The news emerged yesterday evening that 29 year old Wintle would not be offered a new contract after his current one runs out at the end of next month.

Before going on to Wintle though, I should say that the permanent transfer of Nathan Trott to City was announced about a fortnight ago, presumably for the pre arranged fee of £1.5 million. Although there had been stories claiming that Trott had turned down City’s initial offer, I was always confident that the deal would go through despite speculation that other Championship clubs were looking at him. Frankly, it was clear that BBM rated him highly and, let’s face it, the keeper made a great start to the season which meant that, although his form plateaued somewhat over the following months, he did nothing to dispel the very favourable impression he made in the opening weeks of the campaign.

Also, earlier this week it was confirmed that one of the soon to be out of contract trio of first teamers, Perry Ng, had signed a two year extension on his deal, while we still await news on the third of them Joel Bagan.

The news on Wintle has been confirmed though by both the player and the club. My immediate messageboard response was to deem the decision “ridiculous” based primarily on the opinion that, as the winner of, arguably, the two most prestigious end of season awards concerning a team that has won promotion, you just do not let such a player go on a free.

I was a bit surprised to be in the minority with my response, but, having had a night to sleep on it, I now believe I was hasty to deem the decision ridiculous even though I still think it’s a wrong one.

Initially, I suspected that the decision to let Wintle go was a financial one possibly coming from the top of the club, but it seems that it is very much a BBM decision. Many of those supporting the decision on the messageboard conceded that Wintle had been excellent in League One, he had not been fully convincing in the Championship with City, while it was noticeable how little game time he got on loan to a Millwall team which finished in the top half of the second tier in 24/25.,

Those are reasonable arguments. I’d also agree that BBM has built up a considerable amount of credit with supporters during his time here and so many are prepared to trust his judgment and accept his decision. As someone who has found little to criticise oue manager about in the last twelve months, I can understand that view and come pretty close to accepting it. However, as someone who believes that BBM has done what the really good managers do – that is, improve players he inherits when he arrives at a new club – I would argue that the Ryan Wintle of 2026 in the Championship with Cardiff City might well have turned out to be an improvement on the player we had here during the early years of this decade under lesser managers.

What seems clear though is that our manager must have player(s) already in mind as Wintle replacements and while he has re-emphasised his quality over quantity approach to player recruitment, I can only assume that he is being backed by Vincent Tan in terms of getting a replacement for the ex Crewe man as I wouldn’t have thought any one who would represent a definite improvement in the number six role will come cheap.

There has been quite widespread media speculation about one midfielder who is being reportedly tracked by Lincoln, Blackburn and Sheffield Wednesday, but the Reading Chronicle is claiming that City are “leading the race” to sign Welsh international Charlie Savage who is , seemingly, available at £800,000 as he enters the last year of his contract with the Royals.

Savage has been a regular selection for Reading in recent years and had featured in every league match for the Royals before he missed the last three games of the season with an injury picked up in the defeat at Doncaster. It seems that back in January, Oxford had a bid of £500,000 for him turned down while there was reported interest from the likes of Birmingham and Wrexham in him at that time.

Therefore, it appears that Savage is ready for the step up to the Championship, but, to give a City comparison, he was in front of Joel Colwill in the Wales pecking order for midfield positions when this season began and has been overtaken by Rubin’s younger brother now – on the face of it then, Savage does not look like a player who can come in and immediately start improving on Ryan.Wintle’s level of performance for now at least.

I’ll finish by wishing Ryan Wintle all of the best for the rest of his career (I’m sure there’ll be plenty of teams interested in. him in the top half League One, bottom half Championship levels and, maybe, even one or two higher than that). My final thought is that while I’m, reluctantly, prepared to trust BBM to pull another Trott or Kellyman type deal out (I’d only rate Gabriel Osho as a partial success at the moment), I can’t help thinking the reaction to letting Wintle go would have been a lot different if any other of our recent managers had done it – BBM has to now show he really is as good as most of us think he is.

Posted in Down in the dugout, General, Out on the pitch, The Championship | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Cardiff’s final day defensive woes continue as they lose despite scoring four.

Posted on May 3, 2026 by The other Bob Wilson

On the 5 Live this morning, one of the BBC’s radio commentators, think it was John Murray, was asked the following question in all seriousness – “was Tuesday’s First Leg Champions League Semi Final between Paris Saint Germain and Bayern Munich the best football match you’ve seen in your life?”.

I can’t believe there’s anyone reading this who doesn’t know that PSG edged a classic game by 5-4. As for what I thought of it, anyone who is a regular reader of the blog’s Feedback section will know that, with me being no fan of the Champions League, I opted for the National League Play Off game between Scunthorpe and Southend over the game in Paris for my Tuesday night viewing. It was only at half time in the Scunthorpe game that I realised the thriller being played out on the continent may be offering better fare than the ordinary stuff I’d been watching at Glanford Park!

Therefore, I only saw the last hour or so of PSG v Bayern and so I’m not really in a position to comment on best game ever questions, but what I will say is that it was the most I’ve enjoyed a game this season that didn’t involve Cardiff City!

However, even allowing for my rather biased viewpoint, I have to report that Mansfield Town 5 Cardiff City 4 this afternoon was not the equal of the match with the same scoreline from four days ago!

City gave what is becoming a traditionally shambolic last day of the campaign  defensive performance as they made it fourteen goals conceded in their last three season enders following 5-2 and 4-2 losses at Rotherham and Norwich respectively.

Let’s be clear, I’m not going to read too much into today’s game, but we conceded a goal inside two minutes today after Harry Tyrer had been forced into a fine reflex save to give away the corner Mansfield took the lead from. 

We went 1-0 down so early because we failed to deal with the first two high balls into our box, while the four goals which followed all came through a combination of our very high defensive line, shoddy passing and an unwillingness on the part of some to track back. However, that’s not not typical of how we’ve defended this season (apart from at Blackpool), whereas our failure to get first contact on crosses into our penalty area has pretty much been standard fare over the past nine months.

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Tyrer who was faced pretty much with players racing clear of our defence charging in on him for the last four goals – he made some good saves in other situations, but had no chance of saving any of the goals, apart from, perhaps, the one which turned out to be the match winner.

Yousef Salech for Callum Robinson was the one change from the team that thrashed Northampton seven days ago, but, players like Dylan Lawlor, Will Fish, David Turnbull and Chris Willock were well short of their best. As for Salech, he looked like a player that needs a break from the game and a fresh start in a few months time after what has been a traumatic period for him.

City conceded with about a hundred seconds played as Ryan Sweeney found it much too easy to head in on the far post. Willock soon had the sort of chance he buries more often than not, but ended up putting his shot out for a throw in and within a few more minutes, we were 3-0 down.

On twenty three minutes Lawlor carelessly gave the ball away about forty yards from the Mansfield goal, but it was still a shock to see how easy it was for Lewis Akins to be put through on goal with just one pass. The 37 year old Akins easily beat Tyrer after running with the ball from inside his own half and three minutes later we were undone by a long ball over Ronan Kpakio which resulted in a cross to Akins. Lawlor got back to clear the resultant shot off the line, but the ball found its way back to Akins who this time blasted high into the net.

Turnbull had been excellent in the number six role against Rotherham where he had a lot of possession and was given an opportunity to show the full range of his passing. Here though, his limitations when not in possession were exposed and it just looked like we were really missing Ryan Wintle who, once again, was not in the match day squad (it cannot just be a coincidence that, on the three occasions in all competitions this season in which we have conceded five in a game, Wintle has spent no time at all on the pitch)

You can’t help thinking that there would have been wholesale changes at half time if there was anything riding on the game, but the eleven starters were given the ten minutes after the interval to offer more than they had done. There was no noticeable improvement though and so Willock, Joel Colwill and Turnbull were replaced by Isaak Davies, Alex Robertson and Omari Kellyman as we went with a blast from the past 4-2-4 with Rubin Colwill dropping back alongside Robertson and Davies playing through the middle alongside Salech.

Robertson definitely improved us in the middle of the park and Colwill became more influential. Also, within five minutes of coming on, Davies added more evidence to my contention that he’s the best finisher at the club by finding the net from twenty yards with an unerring accuracy that so many of his team mates struggle to match.

This signalled the start of a period where three goals were scored in five minutes. Ollie Tanner smacked a superb left footed volley onto the crossbar and was to hit the woodwork again with another fine effort later on, but he showed the other side of his game with a lazy, misplaced pass which gave Mansfield another chance to slice us open with a single ball. This time Rhys Oates was left in the clear and he lobbed neatly over Tyrer to restore the home team’s three goal lead. 

However, within another two minutes, Rubin Colwill and Kellyman combined well for the latter to hit a weak shot which Liam Roberts (who was so good in the first game between the teams) somehow let slip under his body and over the line with Davies poised close by to add a finishing touch if one was needed.

City replaced Joel Bagan with teenage debutant Noah Williams who I thought was quietly impressive at left back while sixteen year old Paul Moreno came on for the older Colwill to become our youngest ever league debutant.

Before Moreno made his entrance though, Mansfield made it 5-2 as City couldn’t cope with another quick break and substitute Ollie Irow found the net from eighteen yards with a low shot that eluded Tyrer.

Kpakio had begun the season with a goal to beat Peterborough on the opening day and ended it with his second senior goal as, playing more like a winger as the game went on, he tapped in after Tanner’s second effort against the woodwork.

There was still time for a quality finish by Kellyman and this goal ensured that, as League One’s best attacking team (as opposed to best team) we were able to pip Lincoln as the division’s top scorer. However, there’s no way Lincoln, or one or two others, would have defended like we did today.

Still, as I said earlier, that performance was hardly typical of us this season and I’m not going to be too critical about a game which counted for nothing on an afternoon where the real drama occurred elsewhere.

At the bottom, it wasn’t that dramatic truth be told as Exeter never threatened to get the win they needed with Bradford sealing their Play Off place with a 2-1 win in Devon and Stockport secured their Play Off spot by winning at Barnsley. Bolton, already there as top six finishers, were beaten 3-2  by Luton who were thinking they may have beaten Plymouth, 3-2 winners at Northampton after being 2-0 down, to the last Play Off place after their 93rd minute winner when news came through that Stevenage had scored a controversial ninety second minute winner over Wigan to hang on to sixth place.

One thing I learned today is that the wristwatch device which almost instantly tells the ref whether the ball has crossed the line for a goal or not is only used in. the Championship by the EFL. Why this should be is hard to understand, as you would have thought the system would not be financially prohibitive for the EFL.

Having seen the Stevenage “goal” a few times now, I’d say the ball just about crossed the line if I had a gun held to my head, but it’s got to be wrong that a club’s whole season gets to be decided by what is, effectively, guesswork. Given the circumstances behind their Virtu Trophy win and the fact that they were still receiving parachute payments following their relegation from the Premier League, I’ve no great sympathy for Luton Town, but the technology is available to let them know for sure whether they’ve been robbed of the chance of a promotion or not and it’s a mystery as to why it’s not being used.

For bottom of the table drama, League Two was the place to go. Newport County spent most of the afternoon in the bottom two after falling an early goal behind at Barrow who were all but down. With all the other candidates to go down drawing, it looked like all of last weekend’s dramatics in the late, late, late win over Oldham were to count for nothing for County.

Goalkeeper Jordan Wright kept County’s hopes alive with a second half penalty save, but it was looking like they would need a result to go their way elsewhere if they were to survive. However, they roused themselves for a late effort and it was the unlikely figure of ex City left back Tom Davies who equalised in the seventy sixth minute before last week’s winner Bobby Kamwa won it with a trademark curler inside the far post.

As it turned out, County’s equaliser dropped Harrogate into the last relegation place and, forced into having to go for a winner, they conceded a second to lose 2-1 to Barnet and so it might be said County would have stayed up even if they had lost, but I’m not so sure about that one myself.

There will be three Welsh teams in the Championship next season because Wrexham, sixth going into their last game, were replaced in the Play Off places by Hull as a result of their 2-2 draw against Middlesbrough whilst the out of form Tigers were 2-1 winners over in form Norwich. Ipswich scored twice in the opening eight minutes to make their promotion in second place virtually certain – they added one more to comfortably beat QPR 3-0 and go up behind Champions Coventry.

City’s under 18s won their final match by 2-0 at Sheffield United, but their midweek defeat by the same score at Millwall meant that they had missed out to the Lions in the race for a second placed finish and a spot in the Play Offs.

The season in local football was not quite over either – Treorchy Boys and Girl’s Club going down to a 3-1 defeat at Nelson Cavaliers in Division One (East) of the Highadmit League.

So, that’s the end of City’s 25/26 season which means that, although I may get around to writing another piece about this memorable campaign in the coming week, I’ll be taking most of May off before returning with the weekly review pieces that I’ve posted through the past fifteen summers it must be now. Therefore, while it’s not quite appropriate to wish people a good close season because I will still be around posting stuff, it is probably appropriate to thank all readers through the season – in. particular those who have contributed to the Feedback section over the past nine months.

Posted in Football in the Rhondda valleys., General football stuff, Out on the pitch, The Championship, The kids. | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments