Just two League games this weekend because of the Second Round of the FA Cup and a chance for Bradford City and Cardiff City to open up what could be seen, by the standards of this season, as quite a big gap over the rest in the struggle for the automatic promotion places.
Bradford did their bit by increasing Plymouth Argyle’s angst in the relegation zone with a 1-0 win at Home Park and when their match winning penalty went in early in the second half, they took over the leadership of the division.
At Cardiff City Stadium, two team’s whose thirty three matches so far this season had produced ninety eight goals fought out the goal laden tussle which many had predicted and the average number of goals per game in their matches has now risen just above the three mark following City’s 3-2 win this lunchtime over Huddersfield Town in an exciting affair involving two sides that look good enough for a top six finish on this form.
Given how much Huddersfield have spent in the two summer transfer windows since they were relegated at the end of the 23/24 campaign, I reckon their target when this season started would have been top two, not top six. However, although it’s too early yet to say that automatic promotion is out of their reach, they are conceding too many goals currently to make such a prospect realistic.
It’s now twenty eight conceded in eighteen matches for Huddersfield and that figure is undermining the healthy thirty they’ve managed at the other end. Indeed, with our three today making us the division’s leading scorers with thirty one, you can see that Huddersfield possess the fire power to be top two challengers.
However, trying to put my City bias to one side, I thought a win for us by a single goal margin was about right – we scored three lovely goals, two of which illustrated what sets us above many teams in this league and, although we weren’t faultless at the back, we tended to look the more secure of the two sides.
City retained three of the team well beaten by AFC Wimbledon in the Virtu Cup in midweek with, rather surprisingly for me, Dylan Lawlor continuing in central defence, Cian Ashford was on the right wing and Omari Kellyman given the number ten role.
Nathan Trott returned in goal with Perry Ng, Will Fish and Joel Bagan coming into the back four. Captain for the day Ryan Wintle and David Turnbull were the central midfield two and Chris Willock and Yousef Salech joined Ashford up front.
You can debate whether it was down to City making a very good start or Huddersfield seeming to be adversely affected by the early kick off time, but when City took the lead on just six minutes, it felt like a goal had been coming.Â
The truth is that it was probably a bit of both as City worked the ball from back to front in fluid fashion as Kellyman freed Willock who rolled a pass to the overlapping Bagan whose précise cross from the bye line was nodded in from six yards by Salech on the far post.
Huddersfield couldn’t continue to be as supine as they had been in the first quarter of an hour and they showed signs of attacking life as Bojan Radulovic was given the space to volley inches wide at a corner.
City were generally in control of proceedings though. Willock and Ashford, twice, were worked into threatening positions, but their shots didn’t overly trouble visiting keeper Lee Nicholls..Â
It was the Willock, Bagan and Salech combination that came closest to a second goal though as what would have been a carbon copy of the first one was denied because the cross this time was a little bit high for the striker who couldn’t keep his header down.
As I approach the age of three score years and ten there are still footballing mysteries that I am no closer to solving than I was at the age seven when I really started getting into the game. One of them is how come a team can start a match as well as City did and then look as careless and dozy as they did at the start of the second period?
I suppose the most likely answer to that question is complacency, but I don’t think this was the case here, it was more that City couldn’t wake themselves up after their quarter of an hour break.
You could see Huddersfield were beginning to fancy their chances and if it felt like a goal was coming after six minutes of the first half for City, the same applied but in reverse in the second one.
What made the Huddersfield equaliser all the more galling when it came was that it was from a move that Bradford had taken the lead from on their way to their win here in September. Marcus Harness rolled a corner into the path of Leo Castledine whose well struck first time shot from twenty five yards flew into the net with the aid of a deflection off Kellyman – Tommy Leigh’s effort for Bradford was not deflected, but that apart, it was identical to Castledine’s equaliser.
The next ten minutes or so completed the visitors best period of the game as City struggled to find their earlier fluency and, once again, it was BBM’s substitutions around the hour mark which changed the game.Â
This time, Turnbull, Willock and Kellyman made way for Alex Robertson, Isaak Davies and Joel Colwill and within a minute or two the changes had done the trick as we regained the lead.
Once again it was a fine goal, although, as it turned out, none of the newcomers were directly involved in it. Wintle’s great ball inside the full back gave Ashford the opportunity to beat his man and cross from the bye line. This time the cross was from the right, not the left, but there were clear similarities between our first two goals as Salech headed in at the far post from even closer in than he was for the opener.
City had now got their mojo back and took charge of the game again as Ronan Kpakio replaced Ng and, with four minutes left, they looked to have wrapped up the points as they went two goals clear with another marvellous goal.
This one was different in nature to the first two as Wintle’s long ball was skilfully back headed by Salech into the path of Davies whose shot from twenty yards was never going to be saved by Nicholls.
That should have been that, but Huddersfield kept on going and got themselves a lifeline when a cross from their right was turned goalwards by Robertson. It would have been an own goal, but sub Joe Taylor got a faint touch on the ball to claim the goal.
City brought on Callum Robinson for Ashford and had to defend a couple of corners in the six minutes of added time (Trott also had a corner awarded against him for holding onto the ball for too long – the first time I’ve seen this rule applied since it was introduced this season). However, there weren’t any major scares for them as they claimed their third straight league in which they have scored three times.
Keeping that run going at third place Stevenage on Tuesday will be a huge task as they have only conceded twice on their own ground in the league all season, but City have played well in their last two games and showed grit and fortitude at Northampton so there’s certainly no need to go there with any sense of trepidation.
Mixed fortunes for the age group teams this weekend. The under 21s’ rather underwhelming campaign in the EPL Cup looked set to continue last night at Leckwith as they trailed Stockport County 2-1 in the first half. Six unanswered goals after that though gave them a very comfortable win as they stretched clear in a second half in which they scored four times with some of the goals being real beauties that showed what I’ll dare to call the Cardiff Way to best effect. Cody Twose and Troy Perrett with two each (one of Perrett’s was a penalty), Matthews Apter, Trey George and sub Mannie Barton got the goals.
Barton achieved the rare feat of scoring twice in less than twenty four hours today, but his penalty was not enough to prevent the under 18s from another local derby loss this lunchtime as they went down 2-1 at Bristol City.
In local football, it’s looking really bleak at the moment for Treherbert Boys and Girls club who lost again in the Ardal League South West, this time by 3-1 at home to South Gower FC.
In one of the few matches to be played in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance League, Treorchy Boys and Girls Club were well beaten 5-1 at Heolgerrig Red Lion Com in Division One East.
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The big difference was that we had 2 players up front, and we were often looking up front and passing that way before passing across and back. There could have been more SHOTS at goal but we won through Isaak Davies’ terrific SHOT which was greeted with enormous enthusiasm!
Thanks as ever, Paul. And I so agree with you that we were worthy winners.
Ryan Wintle stood out for me: I reckon for the foreseeable future, he should be the first name on the team-sheet when it comes to the midfield.
The Salech goals were to be expected; for the last ten months I have been urging management to play a system where the ball could be played aerially in FRONT of him, and he had support up front. Yesterday, the penny really dropped.
Also, I have been urging we take a leaf out of Vincent’s playbook and ‘shoot more’: and thus our third goal was the goal to give me most pleasure. I urge Isaac Davies to try his luck from distance again at Stevenage: we are unlikely to ‘walk goals in’ there, judging by the record of their defence this season.
However, all in our garden was not rosy. Both goals we conceded resulted from our bizarre desire to pack all eleven of our players in the penalty area… and the players are so concentrated together that it’s the old case of ‘the left does not know whar the right is doing’. In the case of the first goal, Kellyman should be commended for being brave enough to put his head in the way, but I contend had he NOT been there… our outstanding shot stopper keeper would have got his hands to it.
And the second goal was more of the same: Robertson did not need to be there, playing the ball toward his own goal.
And what kind of coaching is it that insists all eleven of your players are in the penalty area when defending a corner? What nonsense is this? A child of seven will tell you to at least insist on two things: that your most ineffective defender be placed one yard inside your own half, so that the opposition will keep two men back to control him; and (as in the case of their first goal) when all eleven are in the penalty area defending a corner, do not compound the error by concentrating all eleven between the penalty spot and the goal line. Madness. Thus it was that because we did not position a man on the D… they were able to casually play the ball back to a totally unmarked Castledine, who was able to hammer the ball into a mass of blue shirts, almost guaranteeing a pinball deflection into our goal.
And having praised our keeper’s handling, I must now be critical of his distribution. Quite poor… maybe Jak can give him some lessons. (Oh for sure, the stylish way Nathan almost ‘caresses’ his short kicks… makes him look the ‘bees knees’ as a distributor… but the sad fact is that their accuracy is often suspect, and his long kicks are hopeless).
Paul, I note you say re Jak… ‘However, there has been some talk of him having family issues back in the North East’.
Ah the lines football managers expect us to swallow, eh?
Remember the non-existent ‘injury’ that ruled Jak out so that a markedly inferior Icelandic keeper could take his place for several games? We all swallowed it, but then came the news that the loan deal with the Arsenal was such that we had to promise to give their player a minimum number of first team games. Why could they not have told us that in the first place?
Anyway, back to the telly. I have just watched the Brighton equaliser… VAR were checking the probable handball and ignored the blatant ‘high boot’ that came within 4 inches of taking the West Ham defender’s eye out.
Referee and VAR must have decided against a crowd riot.
Will sign off now. Thanks again for the report. Switching over to watch Hearts hopefully beat Celtic (1-0 up at halftime).
TTFN,
Dai.
Thanks Paul for another excellent summary.
Another good win and similar to last week – apart from giving away 2 sloppy goals! Cannot believe we got done again by that corner routine that Bradford patented a couple of months ago. Should be more aware of that threat and poor defending.
Aside from that the defending was good, apart from the strange second goal which – on viewing the highlights – I agree with Dai that just too many players in the way and it was like ping pong.Generally though the back four looked solid and comfortable on the ball, whilst not forgetting their basic responsibilities.
Also agree with Dai re another great display by Wintle – mopping up well and an eye for the defence splitting pass.
We looked much better with crosses from the wing to Salech, instead of him lacking support and chasing lost causes. Saying that, his hold up play and awareness of colleagues was excellent – witness his little flick to Davies for his stunning goal.
Don’t think the wind helped much yesterday, leading to some misplaced passes. Obviously, same for both sides but still a factor. However, we overcame solid opponents and sets us up nicely for Stevenage now.
My thanks go to Huw for making me look again at the recording of the third goal.
I pride myself in my ability to ‘spot’ footballing talent, but, d’oh!… I had not fully appreciated that ‘Salech flick’ at the time. It really was so much more skilful than I’d appreciated in the heat of battle, so-to-speak.
And with us mentioning Yousef… let me address these words to him: ‘Please do yourself a favour, and try a charm offensive with referees. Scowling and constantly chuntering in the ear of referees could be the reason why so many big brute centre backs get away with tugging your shirt and worse. Please Yousef, try smiling. They’ll still get away with it a lot of times, but you might be surprised how occasionally you’ll now start getting decisions in your favour’.
DW
Oops… I forgot to say that my goal of the weekend was at the Etihad when Ruben Dias unleashed that spectacular Vincent Kompany-esque drive.
How therapeutic that was for me. In an instant it washed clean from my mind my worst vision of life in Hell.
It made me forget what, exactly?
No… not images of eternal fires and having the wild boar removed and yourself put in its place, speared on a spit and roasted and turned slowly over a fiery cauldron.
No… something far worse.
Simply the horrible trauma of an existence in Hades spent watching Ruben Dias and Manuel Akanji passing the ball square to each other ad infinitum… (or perhaps that should be ‘ad nauseam’…?!)
I mention it, because it relates to both Huw and Graham’s comments. Please BBM, yes we all loved Jack Wilshere’s famous goal – Click ‘maybe later’ here… https://www.bbc.com/sport/av/football/67068895
– for its wonderful FORWARD passing and MOVEMENT, but please realise such a sublime goal is as scarce as hens’ teeth.
But when no such possible moves are on (which is much of the time)… please encourage your players to SHOOT from a distance. Listen… they will not be berated from the terraces if the ball trickles tamely into the hands of the opposing keeper. Just remember to aim for the whites of his eyes and not the top corner, and give it some welly. Trust me, Ruben Diaz did not aim for the ‘top bins’/‘postage stamp’… whatever the vogue phrase is…
TTFN,
Dai.
Paul and others – Late to the party as usual but I just wanted to add, in my opinion, that Kellyman had a fine game even though he was hacked about somewhat and had to be withdrawn early. Playing just behind Salech, he may well have solved the problem of having Colwill major out for some time, He has been wasted out on the wing.
And how I agree with those who are dismayed about our defending at corners. Senseless not having an “out” ball procedure without a player placed further up field to receive. Just inviting trouble. A rapid Davies is the man for me in such circumstances.
Dai, having seen Wilson’s goal yesterday, that must be a contender for goal of the week-end, or month to date, or possibly even season at this early date. No wonder the pundits were eulogising over our former loan player’s (did we really have him for a season) footballing skill. Quite magnificent.
It was a indeed a fine goal, Brian.
And yes, we did have him for a three quarter season’s loan… but he subsequently ‘phoned in’ many of his performances due to two uninspiring managers at CCS… Harris and McCarthy. He wasn’t lacking in effort, but he never set the world on fire.
But interestingly, when his £1.2m loan was nearly up, his agent must have told him thar this was the moment that EPL managers would swoop to try to get Harry’s services.
So he suddenly scores a fabulous hat-trick for us at St Andrew’s. McCarthy called it one of the best hat-tricks he had ever seen.
DW.
Ta Paul for your latest report. Like you I, too, believed we were generally in control of the game and deserved the victory.
Though we were a bit hit-and-miss at times we did the job, with much to spare. The old saying, ‘Never mind the quality, feel the width,’ springs to mind. We got sufficient goals to win the game, pleasing the luddites of the fan-base, by exhibiting lovely wing play to turn the Huddersfield defence.
We so controlled the first half (with 65% possession and double the passes of the opposition) that our 4-0 shots on target and 1-0 scoreline hardly reflected the play. Another two sustained periods of play in the second half each resulted in well deserved goal.
Though Kellyman was withdrawn on 60 mins, for Colwill (J), he could be satisfied with his outing. Nothing better illustrated this than his beautifully weighted pass out to Willock, who fed the overlapping Bagan. His byeline cross was inch perfect for Salech to head home from 6 yds for the first goal. A near carbon copy occurred on the 62nd minute where Ashford’s right wing cross, after running on to a precision 40 yd through ball from Wintle, gave Salech the easiest of back-post headers from a yard. Davies’ goal, City’s third, was a peach as he cut across the 18 yd line and curled the ball into the top right hand corner, past a despairing keeper. Salech’s deft backward header and another laser through ball from Wintle fittingly set up the goal.
Despite some sloppy passages of play, it was a game City won in second gear.
* Bagan’s progress in the calendar year of 2025 has cemented him as first choice left back. There are few better sights for City than the defender galloping to the byeline before crossing the ball.
* Willock’s improving performances this season has been pleasing and, at his best, is a handful at this level.
* Salech’s two goals from pulled back crosses has left us to ponder just how many more he’d have to his name with a similar service.
* Wintle, in a league of Ford Populars and Hillman Minx’s, is fast becoming a Rolls Royce. Not the quickest but does everything with calm poise.
* Kellyman, for me the perfect No 10, always seemed to be in the right place at the right time (Huddersfield’s first goal apart).
Both of the visitor’s two goals were somewhat fortuitous. The first, an excellent strike by Castledine was deflected beyond Trott’s grasp. The second the scruffiest of agonising tap-ins from a yard out.
But a win is a win. Even if the quality was not in greater evidence it was good to see the width.
Hello all and thanks for the responses. Brian, I had to agree with what I heard on Match of the Day I think it was, Wilson’s goal is the best of the season so far in the Premier League and I’m struggling to think of a better one anywhere else.
Got to agree with everyone with our defending at corners, I’ll come to the ball rolled into the path of someone on the edge of our penalty area after just noting that the opposition often get first contact on “traditional” corners and free kicks played in to our box and I can’t help thinking that we’ll need to do better with our set piece defending tonight against a team which are very strong in that area. As for the first goal we conceded on Saturday, as I mentioned it was a virtual carbon copy of Bradford’s first goal in their win down here and I just happened to have a look at some highlights of our win over Reading yesterday only to see them being denied a goal by a great save from Trott from the self same move with the only difference being the corner was on our right this time instead of our left – what’s that old saying about to get caught once by the same thing is okay, twice stupid and three times inexcusable or something like that!
Must admit to not being convinced by Kellyman yet, but I would say that Saturday was his most influential game and so it follows that he l;ooked more at home in more central areas than he does on the wing.
With Salech, can it be that we’re seeing the effects of him taking in the sort of thing we heard in that excellent podcast conversation between BBM, Rob Phillips and Nathan Blake? In his last two matches, he’s been more effective in the all round aspects of the target man’s game (even if his finishing was sub standard against Mansfield) and has not got involved in the sort of grappling that was nullifying his effectiveness for much of the season so far. For me, that was his best performance of the season against Huddersfield and it’ll be interesting to see how he goes tonight against defenders who’ll bw looking to “rough him up”.
I’ll finish by going back nearly fifty years to our 75/76 side which gained promotion from the third tier. I can remember that, after a fairly nondescript first few months of the season, they hit a purple patch around November and December and flew up the table – I’d not seen a City promotion winning team before then, but I was convinced by the exploits of Messrs Buchanan, Anderson, Alston and Evans in particular that we were going up. Watching our last two home games and the way we dug in to get the win at Northampton, I see similarities between this team and the one from the seventies when it comes to this time in the season. In fact, this side was more impressive through August, September and October than the 75/76 one was, where I have my doubts about the current team is whether they are as “streetwise” as their predecessors were – once again, I suspect we’ll know more on that subject after tonight’s match.