When I saw the City line up for tonight’s season opener with Wrexham at Cardiff City Stadium, my mind went back just over a year to the visit of Peterborough where much of the talk was about how we had gone with the Academy youngsters and there was a feel good factor about the place as we came from behind to secure a 2-1 win.
However, there was also a patched up feel to the City side that afternoon and that’s how it felt tonight when I heard that Callum Scanlon, familiar with the club I know, but only here two days since starting his second loan spell with us, was at left back, Joel Bagan at centreback alongside Gabriel Osho and Perry Ng in front of Nathan Trott. In midfield, Alex Robertson was the number six as expected, but it was Cian Ashford, very good at number ten up to now, playing in the slightly deeper role behind new man Jack Moylan. while Ollie Tanner and Chris Willock were supporting Yousef Salech.
Looking back, we didn’t see a City side that looked like that one against Peterborough too often after that first game and I hope we don’t see tonight’s starting line up too often again because it will mean we’ve got ourselves into something of a mess.
It’s only fair that I mention here that our cause has hardly been helped by injuries to three centre backs. However, with Dylan Lawlor having played no part in pre season following an injury he picked up in June when playing for Wales, Will Fish about a fortnight into what we’re told will be a three month lay off and Calum Chambers suffering with what is seemingly a chronic issue which will never go away completely, you’d think that there would have been time to have got someone in on a short term loan at least.
Last season we were short of new players when the league season commenced and the same thing has happened this time around as well. Yes, there’s still a fortnight or so to go before the window closes to get the number six and winger we really need and maybe the back up striker we could do with, but I’ll take a lot of persuading before I shift from my belief that we’ve made life tougher for ourselves by being too slow in the transfer market this summer.
Carrying on with the similarities between season openers, there was another point of comparison’ Last year, City made it with 1-1 with an outrageous free kick from the “wrong” side by Rubin Colwill and, lo and behold, with us trailing in the 98th minute tonight, Rubin did it again from virtually the same spot on the pitch!
Having seen the goal against few times now, I would say that maybe Wrexham’s expensive new keeper Anthony Patterson will feel that, having got a decent hand on Colwill’s well struck shot, he maybe should have kept it out, but it seems Rubin surprised him with the pace and placement of his shot.
The goal prompted amazing scenes which included BBM sprinting up the touchline to join in the celebrations (our Head Coach was predictably booked for this and he seemed embarrassed by light hearted Mourinho comparisons ,from the media afterwards) as did keeper Trott as the bumper crowd of over 31,000 went nuts – well, all but about 2,000 of them did!.
There was barely time to restart the game and City had ended up with what I have to admit was an unlikely point. Everyone will remember the heart stopping finish to the game, but the truth is that, until we went into added time and a sense that we may yet get something from a game we were largely second best in grew, it had been something of an attacking non event from the second highest scorers in the EFL last season.
City made an annoying and frustrating start in which they handed the initiative to Wrexham by giving away a series of cheap free kicks and such was the extent of Wrexham’s early superiority that I wasn’t too surprised to see the visitors score as early as the third minute.
Of course, the scorer, as it always is, was Kieffer Moore as he seized on to what was something of a hit and hope pass by another new signing Danny Imray to show that ability with his feet which takes him a notch above the usual target man type striker to shoot from an angle above Trott into the roof of the net. It was a well taken goal by the Wales striker, but the two most experienced City defenders Ng and, especially, Osho were slow in getting out and it all had the look of a situation where the forward would have been caught offside by a backline that was both better organised and more familiar with each other.’
For a while, City were having to hang on as menacing balls were played into their penalty area, but they began to assert their passing style on to their game with Moylan prominent in some threatening inter passing around the edge of the Wrexham penalty area.
However, on a night when their passing accuracy was around it’s usual mid eighties percentage mark, City lost that accuracy when it got to the stage where a “killer” pass would be attempted.
Salech saw Patterson dive at his feet to deny him after a poor Wrexham back pass and Moylan sent a half chance some way over, but City’s sole on target effort of the first half was a scooped Ashford effort after some intricate passing and footwork that did not trouble the keeper in the slightest.
Up the other end, Trott produced his best save of the night to keep out a close range Callum Doyle header, Moore headed against the crossbar and the keeper turned aside an Imray effort which looked to be going wide. Therefore, at the interval my feeling was it had all been pretty comfortable for the visitors and, to be honest, I felt like that for most of the second half as well.
Wrexham had some great chances after the break with Trott making decent saves to deny Doyle, who looks by some way the best of Wrexham’s signings since their promotion to the Championship to me, and then the defender shot against the outside of Trott’s near post. Sub Sam Smith fired powerfully but straight at Trott from twenty yards, though the keeper had no chance with a another Smith effort as the ball lobbed over him, but went just wide.
For their part, City brought on the Colwill brothers for their two wingers which meant that Moylan switched to the left and Ashford to the right. Initially however, the changes made little difference – Moylan had our second on target effort which gave Patterson an easier save than his first one had been and then the ex Lincoln man put over a cross which hit visiting captain Dominic Hyam and flew not far wide with Patterson wrong footed.
With ten minutes left, Callum Robinson, Isaak Davies and Ronan Kpakio were brought on for Ashford, Robertson and Scanlon as Ng switched into the middle of defence and Bagan moved to the left. This brought about an improvement in the standard of crossing from that side, but, more importantly, Rubin Colwill dropped deeper to be a kind of ball carrying number six at times and this helped to introduce a little more pace and fluency into our passing.
Having praised the quality of Bagan’s crossing, I should say that the best City cross of the night came from the other side when Kpakio dinked one over Patterson from the byeline only for Hyam to head against his own crossbar and out as one of a series of corners was forced which helped ramp the atmosphere up.
It looked like Wrexham had secured their win though as they were holding the ball up near our corner flag with less than a minute left of the six added on only for Rubin Colwill to win possession and embark on a run which took him clear of a few in red shirts to launch one last attack. This ended with his brother being fouled right on the edge of the penalty area to take the clock past the ninety six minute mark and the rest, as they say, is history!
I wrote in my last piece about the under 21’s fine win over Bournemouth on Friday, well the under 18s were able to follow that up with a 3-1 victory at Wigan on Saturday morning. Wigan scored first, but goals by Tom Prickett, Leo Papirnyk and Tiger Tobin got the latest under 18 league campaign off to a good start.
No Highadmit South Wales Alliance Championship game for Ton Pentre over the weekend, but in the Premier Division, Treherbert Boys and Girls Club picked up their first points of a season in which they will, no doubt, hope they can overturn last year’s relegation. Treherbert made up for last week’s narrow away loss with a 4-2 home win over Clwb Cymric, but it’s two defeats now for Treorchy Boys and Club who were beaten 3-1 at home by Cwmbach Royal Stars in Division One (East).
