After two games where the team responded superbly to the dreadful events of 21 January when they lost the man who was supposed to score the goals to take them to safety, Cardiff City showed why they are still most people’s choice to accompany Huddersfield and Fulham (beaten 3-1 at West Ham this evening) back to the Championship tonight with a shambolic 5-1 home defeat by Watford.
Before attempting to pick apart our performance, it’s only right to give Watford due credit. Although we have been heavily beaten by five of the big six clubs, I would say that only Manchester City have caused us more defensive problems than them this season. At Vicarage Road in December, they really should have beaten us by more than 3-2 as their pace and quick, neat passing in the area just in front of our back four tore us to shreds at times.
This time, they were more ruthless and consistently troubled us on the break, but it also needs to be said that they were given considerable help along the way – mostly by us, but the ref did his bit as well.
For the second goal of his hat trick, Gerard Deulofeu showed that he is one of the quickest attacking players in the Premier League (and just about the slowest one at returning to his own half after scoring!). His first goal was a placed shot from the edge of the penalty area and his third a cool finish from a one on one – they were all quality efforts, but each of them owed something to careless, clumsy or inadequate Cardiff play.
This was worryingly poor from City and, for me at least, worryingly poor from our manager in terms of our selection, tactics and substitutions – presumably, Lee Peltier and Victor Camarasa were injured, because their absence from our eighteen made no sense otherwise.
Into Peltier’s place came Sean Morrison after an absence following his burst appendix last month. It was originally reported that our captain would be out for eight weeks, but, as it turned out, he was back in the side in just over half that time and I’m afraid his performance suggested that he had been rushed back too early. Morrison struggled to cope with Watford’s pace and movement and, in some respects, is an easy scapegoat to focus on, but there were others who were just as culpable as him.
Morrison’s selection came as a surprise, as did the dropping and non use from the bench of Bobby Decordova-Reid, a player who it seems to me is left out of the team at the slightest excuse – certainly, the standards applied to him seem to be much harsher than the ones applied in other areas of the pitch.
Josh Murphy and Leandro Bacuna came into the team as well in place of the aforementioned Decordova-Reid and Aron Gunnarsson. Three changes (one of them enforced it would appear) seemed a few too many when you consider the magnitude of the win at Southampton in our previous match, but, more than that, the way our team was deployed struck me as strange.
Peltier had played more as a right sided centreback in the Southampton match, so Morrison for him made sense in terms of it being just a straight replacement, but, elsewhere, I must admit to being stumped by our tactical approach.
Foster behind Janmaat, Mariappa, Cathcart and Masina does not strike me as a defence to rank anywhere near the division’s best, but with Doucoure (a top six team quality player for me), Capoue and Hughes in central midfield Watford have a nice mix of steel, technique, guile and mobility that we could not hope to match even if we had not decided to leave them with a man advantage in central midfield. In front of those three, Deulofeu and Pereyra, while ostensibly wingers, are rounded attacking footballers who, unlike our collection of fitful wide men, offer a threat across the full width of the pitch.
Stick the old warhorse Deeney at the top of that team and you have a lot of strength through the middle of the park and yet we went with Bacuna as a kind of right wing back, Joe Bennett as a left wing back with man marking responsibilities, Murphy as a left wing and an often isolated Callum Paterson stuck out on the right as a target for long balls aimed at his head.
All of this left Joe Ralls and Harry Arter to cope with a fluid Watford team that was very effective in an area where we were undermanned.
The feeling that the Warnock, Blackwell, Jepson brains trust was having something of an off day was added to by odd substations that saw Junior Hoilett replace the ineffective Murphy, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing on for Ralls and Kenneth Zohore on for Oumar Niasse. The upshot of all this was to leave Arter as virtually a one man central midfield while it looked like we had five players being used predominantly in wide areas.
As is his wont, our manager blamed the officials in defeat, but in as far as one incident can define a game in which your team has lost by four goals, he had a point this time.
I was right up the other end of the pitch when Janmaat appeared to bring down Murphy in the Watford penalty area just before half time with City only 1-0 down at the time so didn’t have the best of views of the incident. However, instinctively, you get an idea with penalty claims in the split second after the incident has occurred and, more often than not, it turns out to be right. I expected to see ref Simon Hooper point to the spot after Murphy went down, but, for some reason, he chose not to.
Tellingly, the overwhelming verdict of various men and women in the media at half time was that it was definitely a penalty and Neil Warnock even said after the match that Watford players and coaching staff were admitting that a foul had been committed by their player, so I think it’s fair to say City were cheated somewhat by the official here.
However, it’s hard to be overly sympathetic towards a team that presented Watford with their first three goals. For the first one, Bruno Manga made one of those errors he is too prone to when he lost possession of the ball on the edge of his own penalty area. Watford’s second goal was gifted to them by a weak Bennett free kick which dropped yards short of its intended targets – so, from a position where we were threatening an equaliser, about seven or eight seconds later the ball was in our net. With the third one, Arter simply passed straight to a yellow shirt when he wasn’t under a great deal of pressure and, again, the ball was in our net within seconds.
So, there’s something of a back to square one feeling about things tonight. This was our fourth very disappointing display in our last five home league games and if we don’t see a big improvement against Everton and West Ham there are, realistically speaking, not going to be sufficient opportunities to pick up points we need at Cardiff City Stadium after that.
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Thanks, Paul.
When you haven’t seen the game it is a great help to have an almost completely objective view of the performance.
Do you think events off the field have worn down our manager’s enthusiasm for the fight. As the spokesman for the club he has been under a lot of pressure to say the right things in the right manner.
Coming after those two wins this is a very disappointing result, and even worse a, by all accounts, very poor performance.
Coming to the penalty decision, wrong it may have been but what the hell they are professionals. Warnock’s suggestion that this made a big difference on the night shouldn’t hold water. Why not use the ‘bad’ decision motivate you.
I have read this morning on one of the forums that the ref was struggling to keep up with play and therefore wasn’t in a good position to view the incident. We are given information on how far a player runs during a game, do we have the same figures for referees? Is there a case for having two refs so cutting down on their work load. Hell, while we are at it why not four assistant referees and surely these days we have the GPS technology to take the offside decisions out of the ‘linesmens’ hands?
Watching the West Ham – Fulham match last night and Fernandez did “a Derek Tapscott” style header to get the goal at the far post. In “real time” it was difficult to see on the television but, of course, Sky replayed and replayed it and there was certainly a suggestion that the ball went from his head to his hand before it crossed the line. The officials had probably got it wrong but in fairness they don’t have the luxury of a dozen slow-motion views – give ’em a break.
Then Carragher went into a rant about players deliberately setting out to fool the referee – surely, being an ex-player, he is leaving himself open to charges of hypocrisy here.
We are going to have VAR in the Premier League next season what do you think would have happened with the two incidents last night?
Good morning Paul – I am commenting somewhat earlier than normal as I feel I want to rid myself of my pent up anguish sooner rather than later. From the moment my step son and I heard the team announced on the way to the ground I had a foreboding that this may not be our night – but I didn’t expect that. No wonder the stadium emptied at a rapid rate after the fourth Watford goal and there may well have been as many of the opposing supporters in the stadium as ours when Deeney scored the fifth. I will always stay to the end no matter what, but last night it was tempting!! And by the way, from where did we get the 30,000 plus figure?
But back to our performance, or lack of it. With a centre back combination of Bamba and Manga we have prospered but with Morrison in the mix, it was chaos. The first goal a right shambles. Bennett’s free kick into the box – just dreadful. I could go on chronicling defensive mistake, one after the other. Players wandering around the pitch looking for someone to mark leaving yawning gaps everywhere. And it is no good our supremo blaming officials, he selected the team. Some weeks ago I mentioned my doubt of the abilities of our Everton loanee before he arrived. Thank goodness he is not allowed to play on Tuesday.
You are so right about our mid-field. Arter cannot do the work of three. Murphy was hooked off when he failed to track their full back going forward which resulted in another Watford goal, so is replaced by Hoillett with neither attacking nor defensive improvement.
Watford are a decent side fully deserving of their league position. In his programme notes, NW indicated that alluded to the fact that they are a club that we should aspire to replicate. Gosh have we some way to go.
I was concerned when I saw the line up, although that’s happened a few times this season and I’ve been proved wrong. Not last night though. Wales Online had an article in the week about whether Reid or Camarasa should start. With Camarasa presumably still injured, surely Reid should have played.
Morrison straight back in after a long layoff was also never going to work.
Hopefully a better selection can bounce back against Everton.
Paul, Excellent report on last nights game. Well we were all baffled by Warnock’s team selection and not keeping a winning side. Why drop Reid. I mentioned before that we play better without Morrison. He was taking the long throw in’s which got nowhere, the free kicks outside their penalty were always aimed for him and got nowhere. The midfield was a shambles Niasse did not impress either, he had one chance and blew it.
I was talking to Roger Gibbons after the game, he could not understand why Warnock had changed the formation of 4 4 2. to what it was. He also said that he would make a big play on the penalty not given. Warnock said the lads were playing well towards the end of the second half.He was the only one. I noticed in the second half he was ranting and raving not only with the Officials, but his Assistants also. Last night result is down to Warnock. Not looking to good at the moment for staying up. I see that Burnley have beaten Spurs 2-1. Not for a long time have I seen Supporters leave the ground early. Lets hope he drops Morrison for Tuesday’s game against Everton.
Guys. Let’s be realistic about this. Whilst it’s easy to criticise team selection after 90 minutes and a 1-5 loss do any of us understand the mental drain on the players due to recent events.
Then they go into last night’s game and within a few minutes it was clear the stance the officials were taking. In front of me city had a clear throw in and the linesman gave it to Watford. That was the tone for the first half.
Then right at the end it is exasperated by not giving us the penalty.
City must have gone it at half time wondering what the hell must they do to get a decision from the idiots officiating. The penalty was on top of what looked to me a sending off when Niasse was through and the player was just booked.
NW said the players were demoralised. It is easy to see why and it’s also easy for us to day they are professionals. It is not easy to get over things, professional or not, that is why we have mental health care.
Hooper and his linesmen got into their heads and ruined the game as we will never know what the result may have been.
He was up with play and just ignored it. Players cheat but so do refs. This was a clear example as was the non sending off of chambers when we played Fulham. Why do they seem to so readily give decisions against us????? Ie. Ralls sending off, yet not so readily give them to us.
Thanks to all who I have replied. Colin, regarding Neil Warnock, I think if the Sala tragedy was solely responsible for any decision Neil Warnock made to quit, he would have done so by now, but I wouldn’t be completely surprised if he decides come May that the cumulative effect of this season’s pressure persuades him to call it a day – a decision I reckon he would regret within a week or two!
I can’t do anything else but agree with you regarding Jamie Carragher. It annoys me when I hear ex players talking about “taking one for the team” or “good fouls”, but at least they are being honest and describing what goes on in the pro game – any one who earned a living from the game (and many who don’t) would get a bollocking from their manager if they told them they didn’t commit a “good foul” because it wasn’t the right thing to do.
BJA, you, (and Ian and Geoff!), join what is now a very large number who said they feared the worst when they heard our team selection before the game (I’m one of them). All credit to Watford, because they were good, but we shouldn’t be losing in that manner to a club like them – to me, Friday had the feel of Cardiff 0 Hull 4 from our previous season in the Premier League. Regarding the non penalty, I think most City fans see it as the non issue that it undoubtedly was. Just say it had been given and the score was 1-1 when Bennett took that awful free kick, we would still have pushed as many players forward as we did at 0-1 and the ball would still have been hit in a way which took six or seven of our players out of the game straight away, Watford would still have broken in the way they did, they still would have scored a few seconds later and so we would have been in a position where we had to chase the game and therefore open to further counter attacks.
Ian, I’m in complete agreement with your comments about Reid.
Geoff, I said on a City messageboard that Neil Warnock is probably the most praised manager I’ve seen at the club, so it is only right that he is criticised when, as so many City fans appear to agree, he has a poor game – you can’t blame him for mistakes like Bennett’s free kick and Arter’s pass for the third goal, but it seemed to me that we had not learned a thing from the way Watford had constantly caused us problems at their place.
During the first half of the season, I had Burnley down as one of the sides who could finish below us, but their season has been transformed from the moment they started picking Tom Heaton every work – the problem with Burnley doing what they are is that they are one of the very few clubs (no more than two or three) in this league that we can be realistically compared to, so the inevitable question to arise if they stay up and we go down is why couldn’t we emulate them? Of course, the Sala situation has to be considered, but I think it’s reasonable to say that Sean Dyche’s record in the Premier League is far better than Neil Warnock’s.
Not sure if Sala would have made much difference for us. On the you tube clips and his highlights reel he seemed to score most of his goals from high crosses into the box and that is something we don’t do much despite having a plethora of wingers. It’s the reason Madine didn’t thrive with us and Niasse has not scored. Does not really matter in Zohore’s case as he is useless in the air anyway.
Added to that we are not very good at set pieces and don’t get me started on the completely ineffective long throw.
Hi TOBW
Keep up the great work on your blog. I have subscribed,as requested, to try to help you keep going with it. Hope it helps a bit.
On the way to the ground in the car with my two mates, I checked in on Twitter to find out the team news. My reaction to it was a loud ” Oh no”. My two mates responded by asking what the matter was………”I don’t believe it, Morrison’s back in”, I uttered in response. A short discussion then followed about the possible folly of bringing him back and upsetting the recent make up of our back four.Sadly, we were proved right in our misgivings.
After 5 or 10 minutes of the game the two of us who sit together started discussing what sort of line up we’d gone with, as frankly, the pair of us were both left scratching our heads as to what the hell our plan was. We were totally & utterly mystified and it appeared that our troops on the pitch were equally puzzled as to what they were being expected to do. It looked to us that our midfield was non-existent and I commented that it looked as if Watford had generously been granted the Freedom to the City of Cardiff for the night. It certainly proved to be the case for the majority of the rest of the game.
We were an utter shambles at the back and to me the most obvious cause of this was the manager’s wont to accommodate Morrison in the defence.With Morrison in place it seemed to unsettle the rest of the defence and unbalance the whole team set-up.
I could go on further but I also wanted to comment on a few other aspects from Friday night’s debacle.
Why oh why, does Warnock ( + Jepson&Blackwell) keep persisting with making all 11 players come back to defend corners & most freekicks? It immediately gives the opposition an advantage should we defend these situations successfully and retrieve the ball quickly, as we are generally left with no opportunity to get the ball out quickly to start a swift counter attack.We should leave at least one pacey player up on the halfway line to guve the keeper the chance to hoof or throw it long to put the opposition on the back foot. It also means that our opponents need to keep at least 2 players back to manage the situation. I get really annoyed about this.
The other things are, how did the ref not give that obvious penalty and how did he not show a red when they brought down Niasse,I think it was, on the edge of the area when he was last man? The officials, all of them, were abysmal but sadly it seems we seem to be victim to this as standard, from game to game.
The other thing that the ref was particularly guilty of, was allowing the Watford players far too much time after each of their goals, for their celebrations and the delayed restart of the game. This has happened on far too many occasions, this season and it’s about time that they clamped down on these ridiculous over the top celebrations.
I just hope that Warnock sees sense on Tuesday and he keeps Morrison, a good arm’s length away from the starting line up.We need ALL 3 points from the Everton game and some favours from teams playing our relegation rivals.
Pr, I have always tended to believe that as a rule referees make honest mistakes as opposed to them being dodgy or bent (not saying that you don’t get the odd corrupt official, but, generally, an obviously wrong decision is more likely to be a mistake). Although Neil Warnock was annoyed at Simon Hooper after the game, he did also say that he liked him as an official and I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that Hooper himself admitted to making a mistake when he saw a reply of the incident. I was close to that linesman’s decision you mention as well and I agree it was a shocker, but my feeling when Niasse was brought down was that the ref probably thought Watford’s left back would have got across to cover, so a red card wasn’t warranted – i wouldn’t argue with that interpretation.
Alfred, welcome and thanks for your message. I agree with you in that we would have had to have altered the way our wingers play if Sala had got to play for us. It’s strange, we play an aerial game when the ball is launched from back to front by Etheridge, but our wingers tend to cut inside to shoot or knock over low crosses when we are attacking in the last third of the pitch. Agree with you about bringing everyone back for defending corners – Warnock is just the latest in a pretty long line of City managers who have
Welcome to you as well Iain and thank you very much for your Patreon donation. If it is true that Peltier was unavailable through illness, then I suppose Morrison’s inclusion makes more sense, but I would say that it wasn’t fair on him either to throw him in at the deep end like that after a debilitating illness and so little match practice. Agree with you about bringing everyone back for defending corners – Warnock is just the latest in a pretty long line of City managers who have done this mind.
W