I’ll begin this last off season review piece by going back six days to our last warm up game against AS Roma, a team which finished third in Serie A last season and so will be competing in the Champions League this year.
I can recall watching a friendly game at QPR just over twelve months ago and thinking we can do really well in the coming season because, at times we made an established Championship side look very ordinary that day. To be honest, I had the same feeling while watching us score four times in the first twenty minutes or so at Forest Green – although, of course, allowances had to be made for the opposition being three levels below us.
However, it was the same against Roma in the first half especially and the Italian exasperation as to what was happening to them could be gauged by the fact that they were reduced to squabbling amongst themselves. Of course, much of this was down to frustration at how poorly they were playing, but I’d say it was as much to do with how they were being outplayed by opponents who, in the first half relentlessly and aggressively pressed them to distraction.
The Roma falling out came midway through the second half after Ollie Tanner put us 4-1 up and. although the visitors generally had the better of what remained of the game as City introduced three players with a combined age of forty eight, there were no more goals. Therefore, we ended our pre season programme with three consecutive victories with a goal difference of 15-3 (20-4 if you include the behind closed doors game with Crawley) – unlikely as it may have sounded at the time, that 6-0 hammering by Midtjylland seems a world away now!
There’ve been some impressive results for Championship teams in pre season games this year – Birmingham beat Barcelona in a penalty shoot out following a 2-2 draw, Wrexham beat Manchester United and then Leeds and I thought Bristol City’s 4-1 demolition of Newcastle was an eye catching result which made a bit of a statement to the rest of the division – although I note a full strength wurzels team was beaten 1-0 at home by League Two side Walsall in the First Round of the Carabao (League) Cup last night!
However, I would argue that Cardiff 4 Roma 1 is a more notable result than any of those. Yes, just like City against Midtjylland, the difference between the sides in terms of preparedness for the new season was clear, but this was still a strong Roma side with quite a few what you’d call first teamers in the starting line up – it’s also worth remembering that Rubin Colwill, Dylan Lawlor and Will Fish were all absent through injury last Saturday.
Talk of Newcastle takes me back fourteen years to when we beat them by that same 4-1 score in our final friendly game before the 12/13 season when we ended up winning the Championship. In many ways, City were as impressive against Roma as they were in demolishing the Geordies, but you’ll not get me me predicting a league title for us in nine months time! What I would say though is that I agree with something Brian Barry-Murphy said at the end of last season – he thought we’d be a “dangerous” team in the Championship. I reckon we can be the sort of side that will occasionally stun unwary and, possibly, over confident, opponents who have far more spending power than us.
The reason I won’t go any further than that is that, even with those injured players back, I don’t see us as having sufficient squad depth at present to sustain a top eight, or even top half, position over a long season – although we have finally seen some activity in the incoming transfer side and I’ll come on to that presently.
Returning to the Roma game, It’s funny that what was in many ways a top class performance should contain four such scruffy goals. We’d already shown that we had the capacity to hurt Roma down the flanks as Chris Willock found Yousef Salech who forced goalkeeper Mancini into a sprawling save when Cian Ashford put us ahead with less than three minutes played. Oliie Tanner got past his man down the right after a perceptive pass by Perry Ng and pulled back a cross which just evaded Salech only for a Roma clearance to hit the scorer and loop into the net for a fortunate opener.
City looked up for the game all over the pitch with Alex Robertson showing that if we do sign a new number six, he can’t just expect to walk straight into the team – while the Australian may lack the physique some consider necessary in a deep lying central midfielder, he certainly has the technique and anticipation needed for the role on this evidence. Tanner was far better than he was in his half at Forest Green, Joel Bagan was very good again, Gabriel Osho completed a very encouraging pre season, Salech dominated big reputation centrebacks with his physicality and Ashford, playing in the number ten role, showed he should be a contender to occupy that role despite me thinking that it’s now probably the position we’re strongest in.
Roma looked rushed and rusty as City gave them no peace in a high octane start which caught the visitors completely on the hop and Willock and Joel Colwill both went close before Salech made it 2-0 after half an hour. Salech’s closing down of a defender had created a goal against Forest Green and here he led the press to charge down Mancini’s intended clearance and was rewarded by seeing the ball divert into an unguarded net.
Osho and Calum Chambers were an effective defensive partnership that only got one thing wrong all afternoon as they both pushed too far forward to allow Wesley to run through a yawning gap to close in on City’s goal only for Perry Ng to bring him down for a penalty which would have seen the defender cautioned or maybe worse if there had been league points or cup progression at stake.
Argentinian World Cup winner Paulo Dybala stepped up to take the penalty and produced a wretched effort which Nathan Trott was always going to save if he dived the right way – to be honest, the keeper produced a better save in denying Wesley a few minutes later.
Roma might have felt there was a way back into the game after they began to show some attacking teeth, but then Tanner picked out Salech with a cross and the striker’s header found Ashford who clipped the ball over Mancini only for a defender reach the it just before the City player and his desperate attempt to clear crashed against Ashford and into the net.
With City having put so much into the first half and BBM not making substitutions as early as he’d been in previous friendlies, they lost some of their intensity and it wasn’t really a surprise when Dybala pulled one back from around fifteen yards out. However, any thoughts of Roma turning around the deficit were ended within minutes by a fourth home goal as Robertson’s long pass was out of a defender’s reach to leave Tanner free on goal, only for the winger to lose control of the ball which was then played straight back to him and he then placed his shot beyond the keeper.
To be fair to Roma, they could have been given a free kick for a foul by Chambers in the build up to the goal. However, it seemed a bit over the top for Dybala and midfielder Soule to almost come to blows as the red mist appeared to gather over many of their players.
The visitors hit the post late on as the game inevitably flagged with so many substitutions being made, but there was no doubting the worthiness of City’s win which was achieved in what has become the BBM style.
Unfortunately, there have been no video highlights on the club website yet of another notable City win from last Saturday as the Under 21s went to Liverpool and won 4-3. Thierry Katsukunya and Caden Voice both headed in from corners to put us 2-0 up in eight minutes and Cody Twose added a third goal before the break. Liverpool scored early in the second half only for Jake Davies to restore our three goal lead and, despite a home fightback which saw Liverpool score twice late on, we held on for a win to go with the draw we got at Chelsea a couple of weeks ago.
The Under 18s won their latest friendly in midweek as they edged out Japanese side Gamba Osaka 2-1 – we took the lead with an own goal and then Leo Papirnyk provided a late winner after the visitors had levelled early in the second half.
On the transfer front, I’ll start with the bad news that we had to admit defeat in our bid to sign Jens Dahl. In the end, Tromso got the bidding war they wanted to an extent as Hull submitted an offer which was, it seems, not far short of £10 million and this took the player out of our financial reach. This all happened last weekend and. after an initial claim that Dahl was on a plane which flew from Tromso to Cardiff on Sunday, it became inevitable that the Norwegian was headed for Humberside to sign for a team that nobody outside of Hull expects to stay up this season – I say “inevitable” mind, but I’m not aware of Dahl’s transfer being confirmed yet.
About the time the news of Hull’s bid broke, it was claimed that City were in negotiation with Lincoln City for their attacking midfielder Jack Moylan. This was a name no one had mentioned as a possible target among the media and City podcasters, but it turns out that a Lincoln supporting friend of MAYA Feedback section contributor Mike Herbert had informed him that we were after Moylan in the week before the story broke – I’m claiming this as a Mauve and Yellow Army transfer exclusive for no other reason than it’s the closest we’ll ever get to having one!
My initial reaction to the Moylan link was mixed. On the one hand, it “felt” right, but, on the other, it seemed odd that newly promoted Lincoln would sell him to one of the teams which came up with them. My scepticism also came from the knowledge that as Moylan was widely regarded as Lincoln’s best plater, was many people’s choice as League One player of the season (he was selected in the League One team of the season and was a nominee for League One Player of the season), he was probably destined for a higher rated team than us.
However, as the week went on, it became clear that this may well be our first outfield signing of the summer and Moylan’s arrival was confirmed on Wednesday evening. Moylan has signed a four year contract and, after initial reports that there there was a release fee in his Lincoln contract (reported as either two or four million pounds), it seems this is not the case, so my guess is that we’ve ended up paying nearer four million than two million for him.
As for what sort of player we’re getting, Moylan describes himself as a number ten who tends to favour the left hand side. The eleven goals he scored last season despite injuries limiting him to just thirty one league appearances is above par for him over his career, but with him generally regarded as the player who gave a disciplined and largely functional Lincoln team most of its “Xfactor”, he contributes as much, if not more, on the creative side of things compared to just goal scoring – to my mind, if someone asked me to think of a BBM type attacking player, I’d come up with someone like Moylan.
As I mentioned earlier, Moylan plays in a position where we may well be at our strongest, so could it be that Rubin Colwill will operate more as a number eight or is the injury that has restricted Rubin’s pre season reckoned to be serious enough to keep him out of games on a regular basis?
Another question which springs to mind, is Moylan our plan B to Dahl’s plan A? I think not, they’re different types of player and so I’d say it’s more likely that he is one of the three targets we were hoping to sign this week as reported by Wales Online about ten days ago.
As to whether we end up with three new players by the time we play Swindon tomorrow, that seems very doubtful now. However, the same reporter wrote yesterday that this was still the hope and, if that could not be managed, then the plan would be for the other two to arrive early next week. Yesterday’s story stated that one of the targets was someone who played all along the front line and would be a loan signing, while it was also claimed that there was still an intention to bring Omari Kellyman back to the club despite the arrival of Moylan and the possible arrival of another front player.
So, that’s the end of these reviews for another year. The plan now will be for me to publish a report on the Swindon game either tomorrow evening or on Sunday morning and then it will be back to the normal programme of quizzes, reports and comment throughout the season.
My thanks to those who stuck with the blog over the summer and I’ll finish by saying that while I would prefer more players in than we’ve seen up to now, I’ve not looked forward to a Championship season as much as this one in ages!
