Cardiff City bowed out of the League Cup at the Second Round stage with a 2-1 defeat to Norwich at Cardiff City Stadium tonight and while i daresay most of the headlines will be taken up by our centreback woes, us fielding the competition’s youngest ever player and maybe the continuing failure to bring players in, I’d also highlight how little we’ve managed to test the goalkeeper of the two Championship teams we’ve faced at home.
A total of six efforts on target in games against Wrexham and Norwich is a disappointment and a surprise for a team that is reckoned to be always giving the opposition a chance because they’re so attacking in their outlook. We’ve had three on target efforts in both games and in another similarity with the Wrexham match, we only looked convincing in attack once we were past the ninety minute mark.
While we can make excuses for the goals we’re conceding because we’re currently playing full backs, 15 year olds and central midfielders who are well under six foot tall in central defence, we’ve only really attacked with fluency and menace in one of the six halves we’ve played against Championship sides so far.
It’s too early to conclude that we’re going to struggle to create much, but Saturday’s visit of a Sheffield United team yet to concede a goal in three competitive matches before their visit tonight to Blackburn will once again present a severe challenge to our creativity and shooting.
Noah Anyadike was certainly the pre game headline maker tonight because, at 15 years and 98 days old, he became the latest holder of the record for our youngest ever player and, as mentioned above, the youngest player to appear in the League Cup. Anyadike showed his inexperience at times, but generally did pretty well in a debut that lasted just over fifty minutes until he picked up an injury (BBM later described it as cramp which is entirely understandable under the circumstances) which forced us into, once again, playing without a specialist centreback.
For all I know, there might have been some sort of raffle/draw held among the rest of the team to decide who replaced Anyadike at centre half. Well, the unlucky, and unlikely, winner turned out to be Alex Robertson and, in the event, he didn’t do badly in a role you’d have thought he was totally unsuited for physically. Upon taking up his position alongside Joel Bagan, Robertson immediately brought about one of three on target efforts with a good long ball to pick out the run of David Turnbull whose volley was pretty well struck, but straight at goalkeeper Grimshaw.
Turnbull had what was probably our best goal attempt before we scored with a first half shot from what must have been close to thirty yards which flew no more than a foot over,However, with Chris Willock again looking more like the 24/25 version of himself than the 25/26 one and Isaak Davies having a fruitless evening, there was very little of quality coming from the flanks.
City dominated possession for the first fifteen minutes or so, but once Norwich settled into their game they carried more of a goal threat than us in the first half in particular.
City weren’t great at defending set pieces when we had centrebacks, so it’s hardly surprising that with Anyadike possibly being our tallest outfield player at the time, we fell behind to a simple header from a corner as the unmarked Mathias Kvistgaarden nodded in from eight yards.
Trott did well to deny an unmarked Liam Gibbs shortly afterwards while all City had to offer in return was an under hit twenty yard daisy trimmer straight at the keeper by Callum Robinson which turned into the other one of our on target efforts.
The loss of Anyadike early in the second half saw Rubin Colwill introduced and he went on to show why he is fast becoming indispensable for us as he orchestrated our efforts from a deeper than normal position. I can’t remember Rubin giving the ball away once and there definitely was an increased fluency to our play, but it made little difference in terms of much of a threat on the Norwich goal – credit for that should, to a large degree, go to their defenders for a series of fine blocks that diverted what may have been goal bound efforts to safety.
Norwich sub Anis Ben Slimani headed against the crossbar as the visitors continued to look the more dangerous team. However, it was another sub Ante Crnac, making his first appearance in ten months following an ACL injury, who sewed up Norwich’s win as he turned in a cross from Andre Brooks from around ten yards.
For me, this goal shouldn’t have stood because of a foul on Joel Bagan by Brooks. However, referee Gavin Ward, who I thought was poor overall, waved play on and within seconds, the ball was in our net.
Ward blundered again when he failed to give what was an obvious foul on Rubin out on the Ninian Stand touchline and so when he took out his anger on Norwich captain Matteson (who Ward took too long to book for persistent fouling of Joel Colwill.- Matteson committed six fouls in all) he was shown a yellow card for just about the worst foul I’ve seen from him – a foul he would never have committed if the official had been doing his job correctly.
Ward also turned down what appeared to be a more than reasonable shout for a penalty for an apparent foul on Jack Moylan two minutes into added time, but the ref’s ineptitude cannot be used to be the basis for any we wuz robbed stuff. If we have been “robbed” at all this season it’s because we have been so short of specialists in an important part of the pitch, but, even then, I’d argue we could have done more to address that situation given the nature of the injuries to three of the absentees.
Norwich looked comfortable winners after going two clear until a fine finish by Salech gave City a consolation goal with around three minutes of the added six played. The chance came via another fine ball from the back by Robertson which Salech moved on to as Grimshaw advanced. At first, it looked like the Danish striker had taken too long about getting his shot away and the chance had gone, but Yousef knew what he was doing as he took the opportunity to turn wind up merchant Harry Darling inside out before shooting left footed into the corner of the net from about sixteen yards.
Ronan Kpakio momentarily raised hopes of an unlikely equaliser as he burst past two or three defenders, but then took an extra touch when he should have shot and he was closed down by Norwich as a result. A minute or so later it was all over and City had suffered their first loss since their 6-0 beating by Midtjylland in their opening pre season game more than six weeks ago.
I’ve decided to leave any further comment on our transfer dealings until after the window has shut (whether that decision can survive Saturday’s game if we’ve not signed anyone by then has to be open to doubt though!) and so I’ll limit myself to a straightforward presenting of the facts as outlined in BBM’s post game interview.
Our Head Coach said the signing he thought we would have made by kick off time last night had been delayed by issues which he was confident could be sorted out quickly and when asked if he thought the player would be in by his next meeting with the media on Thursday, he crossed his fingers – I may be wrong here, but I got the impression that the player concerned was a centreback.
BBM also said he hoped to be very busy with transfers in what remained of the window, while adding that we had spent so little up to now in the window that money should not be a problem for the type of players we were after.
The under 21s had three or four players who might have been involved last night in their team for the lunchtime game at Wigan Athletic as they out the disappointing result and performance last week against Barnsley behind them with a 5-2 victory. There was a fourth goal in three matches for Troy Parrott and we built on a half time lead of 3-1 with further goals by Jake Davies and Herbie James. The other two first half goals were scored by forgotten man Kion Etete – wonder if he can play centreback?
