One of the multitude of League One podcasts said on a preview edition that they may as well present the winners trophy to Cardiff City if they emerged victorious from their game at Bradford City this weekend. Well, I wouldn’t go that far myself after our excellent 2-1 victory – Lincoln in second will fancy their title chances as I write this just as they’re beginning their tricky looking game at Luton even if they end up on the wrong end of the scoreline today.
However, if you’re third placed Bradford or any of the other teams still harbouring top two hopes they’re going to be looking at that minimum nine points (plus a better goal difference) gap as the main part of this afternoon’s programme begins and think they might well be realistically looking at just the one automatic promotion place left to fight for.
I recall that last season Walsall were eleven points clear I think it was at the top of League Two around this stage of the season and didn’t go up, but, for a few minutes in the first half today, we once again looked like a team that other sides at this level cannot live with. While we’re capable of putting together passages of play like we did between the ten and twenty five minute mark in such an important match as today’s it’s hard to see us suffering a Walsall like implosion unless a degree of complacency brought on by things like hand them the trophy already pronouncements creeps in.
BBM opted for experience today – in fact I’d guess his side had the highest average age of any he’s picked this season. The centreback selection was quite surprising, first because Calum Chambers, who was said to be doubtful after not training this week following the injury which kept him out last week at Leyton Orient, was captaining the side while, secondly, Gabriel Osho retained his place which means he’s started in our last three away matches now.
With Ronan Kpakio out injured, it was Perry Ng and Joel Bagan at full back and the midfield axis of Ryann Wintle and Alex Robertson is increasingly looking a first choice with this manager who loves to rotate his team. With Omari Kellyman missing after his withdrawal last weekend with a groin injury, David Turnbull was the pick in the advanced central midfield role.
Ollie Tanner got his second successive start on the right and Chris Willock was on the left again with Yousef Salech leading the line on a double personal anniversary – it was his twenty fourth birthday and a year to the day since he signed for us.
Interestingly, it was Matt Turner on the bench despite us having signed Everton goalkeeper Harry Tyrer on a contract until the summer of 2029 following the lifting of the transfer embargo yesterday that we’d been placed under after a delay in filing the club accounts for 24/25.
Twenty fourth year old Tyrer never played a first team game at Everton, but has clocked up over a hundred and twenty senior league appearances during loan spells at Chester, Chesterfield and Blackpool with him having played virtually a full season in goal for the Tangerines in 24/25. Therefore, given the length of the contract and his CV, you would guess that he’s here as a genuine first team contender- indeed, if we weren’t to go up and Nathan Trott didn’t sign permanently for us, I would definitely expect Tyrer to start next season as our first choice keeper.
When Bradford came to Cardiff City Stadium and won so impressively back in September, they did something that’s not been done much at all in recent seasons – turn us around, so we attack the Canton Stand in the first half.
City have tended to do the same thing when they win the toss in away games this season and so it was Bradford playing towards the end they love to attack after half time and us towards the two thousand plus City fans who’d travelled north for the lunchtime kick off.
Such was the quality of our performance through the large majority of the first half Bradford failed to have a goal attempt of any sort while attacking what’s called the Kop.
Turnbull signalled the start of our period of domination when his cross cum shot got a slight deflection which forced home keeper Sam Walker into a diving save and the Scot was very close to getting a decisive touch to Bagan’s cross a few seconds later.
Turnbull didn’t have to wait long for what was only his second league goal for City though – just two minutes in fact.
In a season full of fine City goals (there’s going to be some cracking goals missing out on the top five in any goal of the season competition!), this was another one to enjoy as Turnbull received a pass from Tanner following an incisive Robertson burst with the ball, beat a man to work himself some space and shot across Walker high into the net from twenty odd yards.
On a pitch which looked a little difficult, City now managed to pass the ball slickly and quickly to mount some fluent build ups, one of which ended with Robertson shooting not too far over from just outside the penalty area.
Cardiff sensed the opportunity to get what might prove to be a decisive lead against a home side that were, to be honest, chasing shadows at this stage and the second goal arrived ten minutes after the first one with the game’s first quarter only just having been completed.
Bradford would be disappointed to have conceded from a short corner as Ng and Tanner combined to allow the latter to fire over a low cross which was back heeled in from six yards by Chambers.
The second goal marked an end to our inspired spell. We stayed in control in the immediate aftermath of the goal, but our passing was not as accurate and crisp as it had been – was there also an inclination to sit back a bit thinking the job had already been done I wonder?
From the fortieth minutes onwards, Bradford started to present a goal threat, especially when centreback Curtis Tilt’s spectacular overhead kick flew a yard wide. Home manager Graham Alexander was annoyed after the game that his side weren’t awarded a penalty when Sarcevic went down as he ran into Chambers. Alexander insisted it was a definite penalty, I disagree with him. In fact, I think that there was more of a foul on Bagan in the build up to the corner we scored our second goal from, but, then again, I’m as biased as Alexander is I suppose.
Predictably, the Bradford manager had nothing to say about the shocker of a tackle by Joe White on City sub Cian Ashford as he threatened to get clear of the home defence just before the end of the game. It really should have been a red card, but referee David Rock decided on a caution instead.
Both sides made changes at the interval with City’s looking to be enforced as Joel Colwill replaced Ng at right back.
One of Bradford’s subs Humphrys blasted over from a good position, while, at the other end, Osho, City’s man of the match in my view, had a header cleared off the line.
However, the atmosphere changed as Bradford came up with a goal that was similar to and probably better than Turnbull’s as Jenson Metcalfe curled his twenty yarder in.
Now it was a case of City hanging on to their lead and, although it was certainly nerve wracking at times, they did this with some assurance (Trott only had the one on target effort at him all game) in added time especially to clinch what could be a season defining victory.
The results are all in now and it’s good news really. It took Lincoln less time to go 2-0 up at Luton than it did for us to do the same at Bradford, but the difference was that Luton came back to draw 2-2, so we’re six points clear now at the top with that better goal difference. Stockport are fourth after edging out struggling Rotherham 3-2 at home, Bolton were 1-0 winners at Wigan in the day’s other lunchtime kick off, but Huddersfield in sixth surprisingly went down 3-1 at Burton and have this evening sacked their manager Lee Grant, while Stevenage’s slide continues with a 3-0 loss at Exeter.
There was a thriller in the under 18s’ first game after their mid season break this lunchtime when they entertained QPR at Leckwith. After falling a goal behind, Jack Sykes brought things level just before the break and further goals by Sykes and Leeyon Phelan looked to have won the game for us going into the last quarter, but the visitors fought back to level the score, only for sub Lee Papirnyk to secure a City win with a winner two minutes into added time.
In local football, Ton Pentre, the early season leaders of the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Championship continued their slide towards mid table obscurity with a 2-1 home defeat by Cardiff Bay Warriors and there was a disappointing 3-0 home defeat for Treorchy Boys and Girls Club in Division One (East) at the hands on Nelson Cavaliers.
Yes Paul, you are so right
Quite a remarkable passage between (roughly) mins 10 and 25 … I have not seen a City team play such thrillingly FORWARD PASSING soccer for a great many years… indeed, if ever.
Re the keeper purchase: this tells me not so much that Trott may be going come May, as BBM does not have great confidence in Turner.
Oh and a point re Turnbull’s goal… suddenly I am reminded of Steve’s recent YouTube link to that short film of his hatful of spectacular goals for Celtic. So then maybe there really is more to come from David in this department.
I agree with you that neither of the two big penalty shouts were indeed valid… and that of the two, the Bagan one had the stronger shout. I don’t think I agree with you re the pulling down of Ashford on the halfway line: yes it was outrageous in its crudity, but there was no danger of broken bones and there was no obvious ‘last man’ claim, what with two other Bradford players alongside and a whole half a field to run to get to the opponent’s goal-line.
The ref quite rightly showed a yellow… and I thought he was quite outstanding throughout.
DW
Jeez, “I thought the referee was quite outstanding throughout”. You must be the only one in amongst the 2.000+ away fans who thinks that.
The standard of refereeing in L1 has been shocking, and yesterday’s ref ‘s performance whilst not falling into the shocking category, was poor by Championship/Premiership standards.
Thank God we’ll be back in Championship next season.
Thanks Dai and a welcome to Alun as well for what I think is his first contribution on here. I find myself occupying the middle ground between you two when it comes to Saturday’s ref. On the one hand, I thought he was one of the better ones we’ve had this season, but I have to temper that by saying we’re talking about a very low bar here and, having watched the incident a few more times on the club website video of the whole game, I’m more convinced than ever that Mr Rock got it wrong when he only opted to show Bradford’s Joe White a yellow card for his “tackle” on Cian Ashford.
The pictures don’t confirm my initial suspicion that White raked his studs down Ashford’s Achilles tendon , but this picture
https://x.com/marklewiscarter/status/2012883640376582304?s=61&t=opXYWu2ILhmySD2aRt-GNg
shows the beginning of the contact made on Ashford’s calf – the shirt pull merits a yellow card (although personally I think it should be a red to try and get all of this “taking one for the team” crap out of the game) because White was not the last defender, but there was an additional element to this foul which makes it more sinister than just a shirt pull.
Thank-you, Paul for your your report on Saturday’s game. I, too, did not think the Sarcevic/Chambers incident was a penalty. But more of that later.
Back in the day when television was still nearly a decade away BBC radio featured a programme where the great and the good, well at least in the view of the post WW2 BBC were concerned, gave answers to questions supplied by the audience. The minds who featured on, “The Brains’ Trust,” had no equals in the pre-tv age. Bertrand Russell, Jacob Bronowski, Robert Boothby, Malcolm Muggeridge, Aldous Huxley et al used words like putty, moulding their answers to perfection as they sculpted their answers.
That City’s starting XI, probably the most experienced side chosen this season, still averaged just 26.1 yrs shows how far the Bluebirds have moved to reduce the age of the squad since BB-M’s appointment. Incidentally the average age of the home team was 28.1 yrs.
After a tense opening 10 minutes, City got into the groove of their passing game and for the next 20 minutes produced their most exquisite passage of play for many a long year. Football seemed such an easy game to play. Passes found their man and the home team were opened up at will. This was akin to, “The Brains’ Trust,” of football; a veritable masterclass of their craft. City’s play was really that good.
Based on his games at Celtic, I have made a case for Turnbull to play further forward. His strike at Bradford will be more persuasive than any words of mine for that to happen in the #10 role. That goal (a la Willock at Luton) was a peach whilst Chambers alertness of mind allowed him to turn in the ball into the far corner for City’s second. Bradford were so off the pace it was difficult to believe they started the game in third position.
Had Osho’s header not hit a Bradford defender in the face after 53 minutes, the performance would have been sublime. Some minutes later, Metcalfe’s effort from the edge of the box, again saw a lack of closing down from a corner. Ouch! It made the remainder of the game a far more tense affair than it should have been. City’s passing regularly missed their targets. Tanner, in the first half, Turnbull now in the second were the main culprits. City struggled to keep possession (47%) whilst their passing accuracy, falling almost 20% below some games this year (69%), added to a lack of fluency as the game progressed. The longer it went on the more tense it became.The paucity of full back options resulted in substitute Colwill (J) being asked to play at right back. Not surprisingly the hosts made much of this during the second 45 minutes.
The most contentious event of the game centred on that Sarcevic/Chambers’ collision in the box during the second half. I say collision and not foul for like you, Paul, I did not think it was anywhere near a spot kick. The Bradford player turned into the City defender and knocked him off his feet.
Referee, David Rock, had a good game. He was not swayed by home players and was consistent throughout. A Bagan penalty shout was also turned down. In his 141 EFL Lge 1 & 2 games Mr Rock has awarded 29 penalties at a rate on one every 4.86 games. It is also interesting to note that, as far as I’m concerned, the most ugly non-penalty award this season was at Wimbledon where Colwill was the victim of a vicious scissors-kick that could have broken his two legs. That match the referee awarded no penalty and no red card that the challenge warranted but a goal kick. The referee that day was the same Mr David Rock. The one at Bradford he got right. The one at Wimbledon he got wrong.
During the first half City gave a masterclass of the art of football. In the second it was more like another BBC programme called, “Just a Minute,” where the greatest exponent of this quiz show was Kenneth Williams. Here panellists had to speak for 60 seconds on a given topic without, hesitation, repetition or deviation. Oh that City could have done the football equivalent of this show in the second period. Inexplicably City players hesitated on the ball, repeatedly misplaced passes and try as they might could not deviate from a mistake-laden end to the encounter. Perhaps I am too dismissive of events. City did withstand Bradford pressure and came away with the object of the exercise even if there was the football equivalent of, “Just a Minute,” thrown in during that second half. But those twenty first half minutes of, “Brains’ Trust,” football will live long in the memory, long after the mistakes of the second fade. It was a good day to be a Cardiff City fan.
Paul boyo… and fellow MAYA members…
Yes indeed, it is nice to have a new contributor to the fold in Alun… particularly one who takes comfort in knowing that he has 2,000 comrades who think the same as himself.
It just so happens that it bothers me not one jot that I am in a minority of one… there have been so many occasions in my 13 years or so as a MAYA man, that even if it did seem an exposed position to be in, rest assured that I felt I could happily undergo the ‘ hundred years of solitude’ of a Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
I stand by my judgment of the referee… although Paul’s extra info on the raking studs aspect to the foul on Ashford does indeed make me suddenly think hard about my apparently gushing praise.
I ask myself ‘what if it was the EPL and cameras and VAR were involved, and they’d picked up the rake? Surely Stockley Park would have invited the ref over to the screen for an onfield review?’
And the answer of course is yes. Alas, I can only assume that the ref like many others observing that foul, was so staggered by the (WWE worthy) hands action in the agricultural nature of that ‘assault’ that the sinister nature of the foot action escaped him.
I’m sorry folks to tell you that there has not been a referee ever born (from Sir Stanley Rous to Pierluigi Collina) who went 90 minutes without making an error… just as there has never been a footballer either.
The key question for me here is, what if the roles had been reversed with Ashworth assaulting Wright… with all 22 players in the reverse positions on the pitch. Would he have been shown red?
I genuinely do not believe he would… whereas so many refs get intimidated by the home supporters… even top refs.
Who can ever forget the howls of the crowd at Wembley and Harry Kane leading a posse of Tottenham players in getting Joe Ralls sent off by Mike Dean about 7 years ago… when Joe was also guilty of a similar vulgar ‘professional foul’: one that was less damaging physically on Lucas Mora than Wright’s foul on Ashworth seems to have been.
But hey… as Samuel Clemens famously said ‘it is difference of opinion that leads to horse races’. Let us agree to disagree.
And if Alun was one of the 2,000 City fans at the game, then he has my unqualified support. Bravo!
But let us understand the purpose of the travelling fan. He/she is there to cheer on the lads… he is not there to try to tell us that his ‘naked eye’ view of an incident is somehow superior to that obtained by the TV cameras of Sky Sports. It isn’t.
From my many years of watching City in the flesh all over England (until immobility hit), and from being devoted to the crowd’s somewhat hampered view in the brilliant The Life of Pie vlog… I thank the Lord for a good telly view of incidents through all the 90 minutes.
So I stand by my opinion of the referee at Bradford… I was hugely impressed by his total unwillingness to succumb to repeated crowd and player appeals for Bradford penalties… many refs would have cracked under the pressure.
Oh and before signing off… ‘chapeau!’ to Steve for a brilliant contribution there. I was particularly struck by his detective work and his memory re David Rock being the ref at Wimbledon.
I too remember the fact he missed the penalty and I seem to recall mentioning it on the MAYA game thread. I’ve already spent far too long on this piece to have time to look up what I said, but rather think it was along the lines of ‘was the ref totally sighted? The linesman was just 15 yards and saw this massively aggressive tackle from the left back clearly… and should have flagged for the pen.’
Or is my onset dementia mixing games up again? Right… gee I am missing my lunch. And as a devout trencherman, let me tell you that this will not do.
TTFN,
Dai.
I like your “The Brain s Trust” and “Just a Minute” analogies Steve. My take on it is that we have to remember that we’re playing in the lower divisions and although I feel quite a few of our players have the ability to perform well at a higher level, for now they are lower divisions footballers. Dai and I have differing views when it comes to what I’ll call modern day passing football, but I’m in agreement with him about sides in League One and Two and lower trying to play as if they are Pep’s Manchester City – it’s too risky and over the course of a season would prove to be counter productive. However, up until now, I would say that City have, broadly speaking, made a success of playing in a manner which I think is very hard to be good at for lower division footballers.
Therefore, it’s to City’s, and their coaching staff’s, credit that they’ve got where they are by playing in an ambitious and risky manner by the standards of the league they’re in. However, because they are lower division footballers, some of whom looked not good enough for the championship last season, I think it’s only natural that we’re going to see more Just a Minute stuff than Brain’s Trust.
The promising thing is that City are capable of putting together relatively long periods of Brain’s Trust football. Twenty minutes or so of it won us a very important game on Saturday, but fifteen minutes of it at Wycombe didn’t, while we lost at Lincoln, but for fifteen minutes at Sincil Bank we looked at least a level above the team that is most likely to beat us to the League One title. Most encouraging for me is that our style of play proved effective against higher level teams (albeit Burnley, Wrexham and Chelsea did not field their strongest line ups).
BBM, as well as many who write and make podcasts about League One, has often said that City will improve over the course of the season under the type of coaching they’re now receiving and I think we’re seeing signs of that in recent games as, in possession, our Brain’s Trust periods are getting longer and, out of possession, the Not the Twenty podcast is in the habit lately of pointing out that the amount of on target goal attempts by opponents we’re allowing is a lot lower than it used to be.
I’ll also share Dai’s praise of you for that research work on referee David Rock. Dai is right to point out that the linesman had a better view of the clear penalty at Wimbledon when Joel Colwill was brought down, but it seemed such an obvious foul to me on first viewing that it’s disappointing that Mr Rock, seemingly, did not see enough of the incident to award the penalty – there is the possibility that he gave the Wimbledon defender some latitude because the incident happened so early in the game, I’ve never understood why bad fouls in the opening minutes of a game are often treated more leniently than they would be in, say, the eightieth minute, but they are.
I looked up Mr Rock’s career on Soccerbase and it looks like he’s not taken charge of a single EFL game above League One level since he broike through into this level of football just under a decade ago. That seems a bit harsh to me because, certainly compared to many other refs we’ve had this season, he’s struck me as someone who did a pretty good job overall.
However, it could possibly be that Mr Rock is prone to making at least one error a game which gets him marked down by the assessors. That one at Wimbledon was just plain wrong and a new front on view of the tackle by White on Ashford on Saturday in this video
https://tv.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/videos/00f07c27-0a77-4a3d-b619-8b1019f50f30
makes it look an even worse foul – I’m more convinced than ever that Mr Rock should have got his red card out for it.
Dai and Paul, thank-you both for your kind words. They are appreciated.
I guess we are the archetypal PL side relegated to the Championship: not good enough for the former but too good for the latter. However, to our credit, unlike the relegated PL sides, this relegated Championship squad has done it by jetisoning the old and hoisting our flag to the young.
Can I be permitted a post-script to the Ashford foul? I’ll admit that on viewing the game on Sky I didn’t grasp the full facts of the challenge. Having seen it now from behind the goal it did look far worse of an incident than I thought on Saturday afternoon. Had a red been awarded I don’t think anyone could have complained. Even if Mr Rock got that one wrong, I still think he was a cut above the pool of poor EFL 1 refs.
A further point: back when these new fangly-termed, ‘assistant referees,’ were linesman they got involved in the reffing of matches far, far more. When was the last time you saw the newly titled assistant referee signal for a penalty or much else for that matter? Many today even wait to see the way the ref gives a throw in before signalling. Argh!
Still reeling over Man City’s shocking performance last night. Having seen the highlights, they were lucky it was not an even bigger defeat. But it’s karma, I reckon. All that pass-pass-pass sideways and backwards has finally bitten Pep where it hurts.
Something curious happened to me last Saturday, as a one-time devout Man United lover ever since I saw the Busby Babes beat us 3-2 at Ninian in April 1956… and caused my dear sister Marjorie eleven years my senior, to nearly break her nose (chasing dithering me, at the end of the game) on the virtually empty terraces and colliding with the metal bar of a crush barrier. She was chasing me so that she could get me to Ninian Park Halt so as we could get the Football Special steam train back to Porth before ‘the ship sailed’ so to speak (oops, ugly mixed metaphor)…
But, after we stemmed the bleeding, catch it we did. And I had caught the Matt ‘BB fever’… no not the Brigitte Bardot fever… which I got a considerably heavier dose of, when I was about 12… and which I never truly freed myself from… even when in the last few years when her hairdresser was the wind and the rain, and her ‘face resembled a wrinkled map of France’.
However, I did not prove faithful in my love affair with Man Utd… the arrogance of their ‘glory hunter’ fans, coupled with the bullying of match officials and journalists by their longtime brilliant manager… made me an ABMU* man… until last Saturday lunchtime that is.
But weirdly, God forgive me, I found myself cheering on the team who wanted to attack-attack-attack… and best of all, seemingly almost delighted in having less than a third possession… yet would have won the game 5 or 6-1… were it not for City’s keeper.
Which brings me to BBM… there was me the other day, highlighting his somewhat surprising post-match comment that we had taken ‘too many risks’. I said at the time, words to the effect ‘when Trott idiotically dawdles and gives away a shocking goal in the opening minutes, who does BBM think made him that cavalier in his approach to the importance of keeping a clean sheet?’… i.e. what did he expect?
Well, the sad news is that it was pointed out to me that the biggest ‘unnecessary risk’ BBM pinpointed in his comments was that we were shooting too often and not progressing the passing move further… YCNMIU**, eh?
So wow… he has indeed got a ultra heavy dose of Pepitis. This ‘don’t shoot’ philosophy might see City sweep all before them in our ‘Third’ Division… but will be a veritable suicide note in the Championship.
*Anyone But Man United
**You Could Not Make It Up… even if you tried…!!
DW.