Team A has forty nine per cent possession, team B has fifty one percent of the ball, team A has nine goal attempts, team B eleven, both of them end up with four efforts on target, team B has eighteen touches in the opposition penalty area to ream A’s nine and Team B wins the corner count five to two – what would you predict the outcome of the match to be?
My answer would be a draw, probably 1-1, with team B possibly edging a win by a single goal margin, but I’d be spectacularly wrong, because team A was Burnley and team B Cardiff in this afternoon’s match at Turf Moor which ended in a 5-0 win for the home side!
That’s a freakish outcome and, to a degree, it was a freakish result. Scott Parker, who I really liked and rated as a player, has two promotions from the Championship to his name as a manager and he could well get a third one this season, but he’s not revered at Fulham or Bournemouth for taking them to promotion and I can understand why – Parkerball always strikes me as efficient and bland with little to get you out of your seat as his teams get the job done without showing the full extent of their collective ability.
For 90 minutes, today’s game was typical Parker fare, his team honestly weren’t great in building up a 3-0 lead which had more to do with the extreme generosity of their opponents than anything spectacular on their part. However, two great shots from distance in added time did add that spectacular element and six points from two games with a goal difference of 9-1 means Parker and his team have hit the ground running.
I accept this will sound mad if you did not watch the game, but City were, by some way, the better side in the first half. Actually, maybe I should qualify that to we were better than them in the middle third, but a propensity towards sometimes chaotic individual errors ensured that this was never going to be reflected in the score line which saw us two down against opponents that had just one on target effort in the opening forty five minutes.
City had made a decent, untroubled start to proceedings when Dimi Goutas rolled a back pass to Ethan Horvarth on nine minutes. Having now seen it plenty of times from all sorts of angles, the pass was maybe very slightly overhit, but that was the only slight thing which may have inconvenienced the keeper. The ball certainly didn’t bobble on its way to him, but Horvarth, under no real pressure from Burnley forwards, got his foot into a strange position to my mind and the ball rolled under his foot, then trundled over the line with the keeper scrambling it out before it hit the back of the net. There was no doubt though that it was a goal though and the only surprise for me was to see the farcical goal recorded as an og against Horvarth and not Goutas. Sadly, it was a goal that felt like it had been coming for months as Hovarth has never been that convincing with the ball at his feet.
I’ve said once or twice that we’re going to concede the odd soft goal in the coming weeks through playing out from the back, but this wasn’t one of them, this was a big standard back pass to the keeper of the kind we’re too keen on playing as a matter of course.
City responded by taking charge of the midfield with the veterans Siopis, Ramsey and Ralls combining effectively. Within a few minutes, Ramsey had sent Yakou Meite clear in a one on one against the keeper. Around half an hour later, Burnley captain Josh Brownhill found himself in a similar position and you just knew he was going to make it 3-0, just as you knew that Meite would not make it 1-1 because City first team players do not score from positions like that. Meite’s shot crashed against the post and out as the lack of a natural finisher on the club’s books was keenly felt yet again.
There are hopes that Wilfried Kanga can prove to be that instinctive finisher we’ve lacked since Sory Kaba’s loan spell and he put a simple finish away with the minimum of fuss when keeper Hladky pushed a Callum Chambers header out into his path. Kanga was clearly offside though and the goal was rightly disallowed.
There was a much more marginal offside given against Kanga when an impressive first time pass by Chambers found him unmarked on the edge of the penalty area, but the Ivory Coast international’s response to a glorious pass by Ralls that put him in on goal was disappointing as he seemed to lack the confidence to drive forward with the ball as he allowed home defenders to catch up with him and then crowd him out.
It felt like a goal was coming though, but when it did, on thirty one minutes, it was down to another Cardiff defensive implosion.
I didn’t hold Goutas at all responsible for the first goal and, to be fair, he was left somewhat isolated out on our left flank here, but, to allow himself to be completely skinned by Jay Rodriguez was shockingly bad. Rodriguez has had a very good career and has been capped by England, but he’s thirty five now and I bet he must have felt like all his Christmas’ had come at once as Goutas launched himself into a lunging tackle from yards away that never got remotely close to the forward – I very much doubt that another Championship centre back will put themselves in such a position against Rodriguez all season. Rodriguez continued into the box and rolled back a cross that was half cleared into the path of Luka Koleosho who scored from ten yards out.
Within minutes, Ralls, who had been showing us the type of creative player he could have been if he hadn’t been turned into a ‘bread and butter” midfielder by Neil Warnock, was forced to hobble off with an injury and was replaced by Rubin Colwill. The half ended with a feeling that City were in the process of losing the superiority they’d enjoyed and the fact could not be denied that, for all of their impressive passing, they had been a lot worse than their opponents in both penalty boxes.
The start of the second half contained little to suggest City were going to stage a dramatic fight back, but they were then effectively blown away when Burnley dispossessed O’Dowda inside their own half and a quick exchange of passes left Brownhill free to run thirty yards through a yawning chasm in the visiting defence before slotting the ball past Horvarth to make it 3-0.
City had now lost their attacking threat and with Burnley, seemingly, happy to see the game out, there was a lack of drama in the next forty minutes or so during which Malachi Fagan-Walcott was brought on for Chambers to make a league debut in which he did nothing wrong.
Sadly, added time saw Aaron Ramsey prove that no one can wind back the clock, especially when you’re a footballer who has had more than his fair share of serious injuries.
The miscontrolling of a simple ball when Ramsey was in acres of space was unusual in such a talented player, but it was born from tiredness as was the way he was then easily brushed off the ball, but Zeki Amdouni’s thunderbolt a few seconds later from thirty yards that bounced down off the crossbar and over the line (it didn’t look like it crossed the line to me, but you can’t argue with a decision like that now in these days of goal line technology can you) was a very harsh punishment for the midfielder.
Within a few minutes, Ramsey was robbed of possession again deep inside the home side’s half and they again broke quickly for veteran Johann Berg Gudmundsson to drill a low shot from twenty five yards beyond the hapless Horvarth to complete the scoring.
So, City find themselves at the bottom of the table having scored none and conceded seven with the away South Wales derby, for which we seldom show up, and a home game with fancied Middlesbrough to come.
Unsurprisingly, Erol Bulut finds himself under pressure tonight, but, in truth, I agree up to a point with his post match comments – you’d never believe it looking at the score line, but I thought there were some promising signs from City today.
I’ve stated that I’m giving Erol Bulut a clean slate this season and, as someone who believes you should never sack a manager two games into a campaign, I’m not going to join the calls for his dismissal now, but, as someone who had serious doubts about the decision to give Bulut a new contract in the first place, I’d like to make a few observations about today and things in general at the club.
- Bulut’s selection was the usual same old, same old today. City’s crop of promising youngsters were either ignored and omitted from the squad or, like the fit again Cian Ashford, left unused on the bench, just like he was for most of the second half of last season. What we saw from the youngsters in Tuesday’s cup tie may as well not have happened as Bulut followed the precedent of last season of treating non league games as an irrelevance when it came to selection for Championship fixtures – it was so telling that the youngest players in today’s starting lineup (Kanga and Chris Willock – who I thought was our best player) were 26 years of age!
- That said, the Siopis,’ Ralls and Ramsey triumvirate showed that it does have a part to play as, for half an hour or so, they worked very well together . However, Ralls going off injured and Ramsey’s nightmare last few minutes offered a reminder, which shouldn’t really have been required, that it needs to be managed properly and you would have thought that the lesson that you shouldn’t play Ramsey for the whole game would have been learned last season. As soon as we were three down, Bulut should have been looking to take Ramsey off, but, for some reason, he seems determined to keep him on for the full ninety this season when he is selected.
- Alex Robertson, the midfielder so many fans were desperate to see us sign because he would give us some much needed legs in midfield was an unused sub today, what’s that all about? Also, it’s hard to see the logic behind freezing Ryan Wintle out of the first team picture and the continuing selection on the bench in front of someone like Eli King of Andy Rinomhota, who was being loaned out to Rotherham last season.
- We’ve now conceded sixteen goals in our last four league games and our best defender, who played and scored in the week, was not even in the squad today. Mark McGuinness was also missing for all but the last few minutes of one of those four matches. The reason McGuinness wasn’t there today? It seems he’s on the verge of being sold – fans of other clubs would look at that and think it was madness!
- On the subject of defending, Goutas was a good defender for us for much of last season, but his form suffered towards the end of it and, although I’m still not sure who it was who lost his man for the initial header with Sunderland’s first goal, Goutas was clearly not marking anyone when the cross came in – there were plenty of players who appeared culpable with that goal and Goutas was certainly one of them. Now, he has the second goal today to be chalked up against him as well.
- Ethan Horvarth had a nightmare today. Some were blaming him for the first three goals, but I don’t think he can be faulted for any of the five apart from the first one – that was all his own work though and it has to be right up with the worst goals of its type I’ve ever seen. I think it’s fair to say that many City fans are from convinced that our best goalkeeper is playing every week and, after what happened today, I’ve joined them.
- Despite what I say in points five and six, above, I’m pretty confident that both Horvarth and Goutas will be there in the starting eleven next Sunday at Swansea because some seem undroppable in league games under this manager, while others, Rubin Colwill for example, are never picked in the starting eleven no matter what they do in preceding matches.
- I’m struggling to see signs of Erol Bulut’s management of the club developing in a way which suggests he is learning about the Championship. I like the fact that he is trying to implement a new style, but in so many ways, Bulut’s management has regressed since November and he appears to have lost the knack of producing well organised, tactically astute defensive sides that formed the basis of his reputation, such as it was, when we appointed him.
- I found the degree of support during the summer for Bulut on social media sites like Twitter mystifying, just as I found the chanting of “we want you to stay” at some of the closing games of last season truly baffling. Yes, he took us into mid table which I accept was something of an achievement, but the level of general performance and many of the end of season stats were suggestive of us being in a false position – once again, the word freakish seems appropriate when describing our top half finish.
- Despite this, we can’t really be looking at a situation whereby we’re going to sack another manager who we not long ago gave a new contract to so early in the new season can we? Although I wouldn’t be wholly disappointed to see it happen, I can’t help thinking that financially it would be a bonkers decision by the City Board to sack Bulut, but that hasn’t stopped them in the past has it!
Finally, after the under 21s disappointing 1-0 home defeat by Sheffield Wednesday in their first game of the season last Wednesday, the under 18s made it two wins from two at lunchtime today with a 2-0 triumph over Birmingham at Leckwith – Osian Rees and Lennon Talbot scored either side of half time to secure the victory.
Oh, let’s not forget the two cricket games taking place this Sunday, best of luck to Glamorgan in their One Day Cup Semi Final with Warwickshire and to the Welsh Fire women’s team in their Hundred Final against London Spirit.
To my mind Goudas was partly responsible for Burnley’s first two goals. I can remember the revered Wilf Grant emphasising that a back pass should always be away from the goal, not to the keeper’s feet. (I should add that our current keeper seems somewhat hesitant in thumping the moving ball up the pitch, and I frequently told my grandson that this particular goalkeeper would have problems). All such features were made obvious by the Goumas backpass.
Mr Grant also emphasised that when a very quick winger came past you and raced out wide, you had to run back at an angle away (not close from the) winger in order to be the best place to prevent the cross. Goudas showed a lack of spede and the wrong angle.
The Goudas problem, I believe, goes back to last season. He played on the right hand side centre back and was excellent. The left hand side centre back was McGunness, and the two men linked with each other. And now, what ‘s happening! It seems likely that McGunness is being sold. Being sold down the river, I feel. It reminds me of someone years ago saying the government was selling the nation’s silver. Playing footballers not in their best condition is sometimes necessary, but to continuing doing it can be suicidal.
All this said, Cardiff in the first half were very good yesterday. There were signs that the new style Cardiff might be on the up and up. God, don’t I believe so!
Thank you Paul – I do so agree with almost all you say, but Managers are paid a lot because they are expected to organise teams so they win. No wonder Bulut is telling us we should forget what happened on Saturday. I hope we don’t. And since many of our younger players, so many of them local players, are doing comparatively well let’s see them on the pitch playing as first team members.
You are kind about our goalkeeper’s own goal – no doubt it will be shown on screens for years .. I hope it might discourage our players for seeking to perfect their skill at passing the ball across and back again and again and again, usually without even looking to see if a pass forward might be an alternative possibility!
Oh my giddy aunt, Paul… what a superb couple of opening paragraphs from you. They are so thought-provoking. I take the point you make, but I would be less than truthful if I do not think the whole affair made me also ponder on the truth (or otherwise) of the famous dictum ‘there are lies, damned lies, and… STATISTICS’. I confess this adage has lodged itself firmly in my psyche the full sixty years it has been since I first read it.
So much so, that when I see articles full of stats (and especially those that use the dreaded Ice Hockey term, ‘xG’), I say to myself… ‘this is all bolloxio’; time to watch a stirring documentary on YouTube, like Ken Russell’s famous Edward Elgar one, all those years ago for BBC’s Monitor… which I have watched about thirty times and never tire of… it being the total antithesis of dry stats.
But as the great KK said “he’s a walking contradiction/Partly truth and partly fiction”… and whilst I hope there is nothing fictional about my mutterings, I certainly have the capacity to contradict myself… as I will now do in this next paragraph.
I want to hit you with a statistic…!! And it is this… viz… when the woeful Millers – doomed for weeks to be relegated – demolished City in the final game of last season, it was the first time they had scored 5 goals in a game all season… indeed, in 44 of the previous 45 games they had not scored more than two goals in any of them, but did manage a three in game where they were on the losing side.
Yet, in that 46th game, they destroyed us. And that told me everything about Mr. Bulut’s total inability to motivate his team.
And I immediately suggested on WOL that Vincent should not give him a new contract, but given that Aaron Ramsey would basically be spending more time on the treatment table than the pitch this 24/25 season, then Vincent could avoid being taken to the cleaners by letting Aaron become player/manager in name, with the emphasis (in reality) being very much on the second half of that job title.
Of course the (half?) wits on WOL comments section, thought this hilarious. ‘No experience’ they said.
As if years playing under Arsène Wenger doesn’t rub off on his players: the process of osmosis means that if you have any kind of light on in your upstairs library, then much of his wisdom will rub off on you.
And if that was not enough, I quoted chapter and verse on John Toshack’s astounding performance at the Vetch Field.
This is what I said at the time…
‘…
I have to smile at readers of WalesOnline who are seemingly experts on maturity.
What do I mean? I mean those folk who say that Aaron Ramsey is far too young to be made City boss. Do they not realise that at 33, he is only a year younger than Russell Martin was when he became a manager? And that he is only a year younger than Danny Rohl who has pulled off a miracle at Hillsborough?
And even these guys are ‘late flowering’ when compared to current Germany national boss the 36 year old Julian Nagelsmann, who was just 28 when he took over as boss of Hoffenheim. And of course, much closer to home, our very own John Toshack was also just 28 when he took over the reins at Swansea, and in the next 4 years took them from the 4th tier, to very near the peak of the mountain… so much so that Bill Shankly called him the ‘manager of the century’.
It is a sobering thought that Ramsey is exactly the same age now as Tosh was when he finished in 6th position in our top tier… after topping the forerunner of the Premier League several times that season.
Do I think Ramsey has the qualities of Tosh? No, I don’t. But as I understand it, he is not on a contract based on his number of appearances, and therefore with him being so injury prone, it makes sense for Vincent not to waste his money on the ultra negative Bulut, but to get possible value out of Aaron instead.
I would still far prefer Liam Rosenior.
…’
[I did not add at the time something that I now see as obvious: viz our Mehmet with his proud Turkish blood, was hardly going to suggest we hire a manager who the Turkish millionaire owner at Hull had just sacked…!!]. I finished by saying that I thought Ramsey was a pragmatic middle course to adopt.
But Mehmet blew it and persuaded Vincent to let the bounder have two more years. If we are on the end of a trouncing at SA5 8NY, I honestly feel the urbane Mehmet should fall on his sword.
After all, he has not astounded us with his oath of loyalty to us Bluebirds: not very long ago he was a leading member of a consortium which unsuccessfully attempted to take over Charlton Athletic.
Now, before signing off, some words about the debacle yesterday at Turf Moor.
Our treatment of Jak Alnwick has been a disgrace. I always thought him a better keeper than Alsopp, yet he had to play second fiddle to him for a full season. Then last season we saw the shameful episode of him being dropped for a period when a grossly inferior Icelandic boy was given the gloves.
And now, the ultimate insult: the clueless Bulut has dropped Jak for a vastly inferior goalkeeper who – when it came to offering him a new contract – neither Luton nor Forest thought good enough to make the 3rd choice keeper in their squad.
And judging by the farcical 9th minute incident yesterday, he seems to be the secret lovechild of Peter Enckelman. (And yes for the record I blame him for the second goal too: a chocolate right wrist.)
I so hope Jak wins the Lottery so he can put the proverbial two fingers up to this dreadful manager who has treated him with contempt, and made him captain of our Caribao Cup team as a clear expression of his feelings of guilt.
Incidentally, re the first goal, why was Goutas passing it back anyway? He got the ball passed him by O’Dowda… and a return one-two was on with him.
But I get it ‘Pepitis’ has swept Britain… Guardiola is no doubt a genius, but gee he has a lot to answer for… just look at the havoc he has caused in the 72 clubs below the EPL… ‘EFL Highlights’ on ITV is pure farce.
Forget the Fred Karno’s Army stuff of Divisions 1 &2… did you see the insane attempted back pass to his keeper from Middlesbrough’s Isaiah Jones? He was 35 yards max from the Derby goal…!!
Will Vaulks was another player to cost his side a vital point, by his negative misdirected pass back, well into injury time, stopping his Oxford United getting a merited draw at Coventry. (Mind you, we always knew Will had a rick in him… who can forget that bizarre injury time headed own goal at CCS last season to give us three points over the Owls?)
And of course the EPL are not immune to this playing out madness. Alex McCarthy must be circa 40 years old (too rushed to google*) and has a howitzer of a boot on him. That kamikaze passing out from the back cost his team the match.
Oh Russell Martin… there is something hugely impressive about you… but I just wish that you and Liam Rosenior could both continue to dazzle us with your attacking flair, but cure yourself of ‘goalkeeping Pepitis’.
Ah well… time to count some zeds. I guess that worse things happen at sea.
Commiserations to our Welsh Fire ladies… a thrilling finish… they can be proud of their performance.
Too tired to proofread. Apols for any typos.
*when I use it as a verb I always adopt lower case… like hoovering the carpet.
DW.
Oh dear, my standards are not what they were.
TEACHER:”Dai, you must write a 100 lines with these words…
‘I must learn to spell Carabao Cup’. You are bringing down the tone of Paul’s blog.”
“But Miss, give me a chance: I am still trying to master the spelling of Rumbelows!’
DW
Oh dear, Paul… I have spotted another error in ‘wot I rote’…
Will Vaulks committed harakiri at Coventry… not Norwich.
I wouldn’t mind making the error, but for the annoying thing is that I saw the whole game on TV… and as I wrote, visualised Will in a yellow shirt in his moment of madness. Yet did not have the brainpower to realise that if Oxford were playing away at Carrow Road, they would hardly be kitted out in their usual yellow.
At 77, a fog is descending on my thinking. If we disgracefully sell Macca this week, it will be my excuse to put down my pen, before I embarrass myself further.
Apols.
DW
Morning all, thanks for the replies. Anthony, you make two fair points when talking about Goutas, first, passing back to a goalkeeper between the sticks is something to be avoided if possible and I’d say that it was certainly possible to do so on this occasion. If Horvarth is to continue in goal (I think he will), it’s something our defenders will be aware of from now on. Second, I agree about what he should have done with the second goal and to make matters far worse, this was no quick young winger he was confronted by, it was a pretty slow centre forward in his mid thirties!
McGuinness certain ly is being sold and there were online rumours last night that Perry Ng could be following him out of the club. We’re supposedly bringing in two new centrebacks who would both be coming here expecting to be playing every week (there’s also the alleged Japanese centreback who I’m not convinced exists), so are we going to be playing three at the back? Alternatively, if Ng is going and we’re continuing with four at the back, I suppose it means a move to right back for Chambers (I honestly don’t think Kpakio is far off the first team mind) and maybe a place on the bench for the manager’s favourite, Goutas.
Graham, my guess is that, with Daland being described as a passing centreback who sometimes steps into midfield, we can expect more of the playing it out from the back stuff, not less – all of which makes the continuing selection of Horvarth all the more baffling.As for the youngsters, what I said above about Kpakio might well be rubbish because there’s the evidence of what happened until the last few, meaningless, games of last season to consider and the selection on Saturday with the youngest players in the starting line up both being 26 to consider. Having watched all of our pre season games and the last twenty minutes or so of the Bristol Rovers cup match, I’m becoming convinced that we play at a better tempo and stand a better chance of opening up an opposition defence when the younger players are involved.
Dai, I’ve corrected your message as requested, but would suggest you just call the cup competion we played in last week the League Cup, like I do, and leave it at that!
Regarding statistics, I’ll always use them if I feel they reflect the way I saw a game going and if they back up what I’m trying to say. As for xg, I tend to agree with you, but, having now seen them for Saturday’s game, I’d say that the xg verdict of a win for Burnley by 0.8 to 0.6 is a pretty accurate reflection on how the match panned out with our low figure offering more proof that, although we did a lot of good things in the first half especially, there was not much in the way of a goal threat at the end of it.
If i understand xg right, Meite’s bad miss would have been responsible for the majority of our score, so there was very little else from us that they regarded as worthy of noting.
As for your statistic, I’m not going to argue, I’ll just say that Saturday was a freakish game that in no way meritted a 5-0 scoreline, but we’ve conceded sixteen times in our last four league games and the heavy defeats by Middlesbrough and Rotherham (plus the one at Norwich a few weeks earlier) could all have been worse on the balance of play. Put those three alongside the individual mistakes which cost us goals at Burnley and it seems to me that the root and branch transforming of our defence which is taking place this week appears to be justified (I say that while noting that McGuinness played no part in those four games apart from a few minutes at the end at Rotherham during which I don’t believe we conceded a goal).
Regarding ‘Pepitis’, I’m not sure he can be blamed for the fact that, even in pre Bulut times, our defenders needed no second invitation to pass the ball back to our goalkeeper, we’ve been doing that for years – there is much that Bulut can be blamed for, but I’d say that, in the case of back passes, all he’s guilty of is not changing something that was in place already when he arrived.
I’ll finish my reply with Will Vaulks, he didn’t score an added time own goal at Cardiff City Stadium last season – I’d say what he did was worse than that. Vaulks needlessly handled a harmless looking Ollie Tanner cross in the Wednesday penalty area with the score 1-1.It was a clear penalty, which Ryan Wintle scored from to give us the win in what from memory was about the ninety seventh minute.
Thanks, Paul.
You are right… it was a stupid penalty that Vaulks conceded… not an own goal.
My memory is pretty much shot these days.
Time to retire, methinks.
My hospital consultant wife knows that my aphasia is signalling incipient stages of Alzheimers. I have had a good run (in two stages) on MAYA… it is crazy just what a hold CCFC have had on me since my first visit to Ninian Park to see Arsenal in 1955.
My heartbeat has increased many times down the years just waiting for the City score in the reading of the football results. Madness, when you think of it. Those players could not care less about their fans in the dole queue as they drive past in their special edition ‘high end’ cars…!!
But of course, I must here immediately contradict myself and say that life is not about logic… it is about EMOTIONS. And just as you give your heart to a person in marriage, so you give your heart to your first club. And that will always for me be my beloved Cardiff City.
Which is why I reckon like a gambler in a casino, it is time for me to get up from the table… before I lose my shirt… (or rather my MIND…)
I feel so sorry for Vincent… a true saviour of our club. He has been badly served by Mehmet and the hapless Bulut.
Will sign off now with thanks for your great help down the years. Although before signing off, and not wishing to break a lance with you, I have to say that you have not grasped my point on Pepitis. I have never suggested that City have only indulged in pass-backs since Mr Guardiola came to the EPL… golly, I would need to be fully gaga to make such a claim, since we have passed back unnecessarily since the current Pope was an altar boy.
Nor am I saying that ‘playing out from the back’ is anything new: gosh, Arsène Wenger
had his team playing that way in season 1996-7. But what I am saying is that Pep’s team has made crazy passes from one side of their own penalty area to the other, almost de rigueur. Not to mention occasional Cruyff turns from his keeper. But of course, he has the players who can usually carry these kamikaze tactics off…
However, here is the rub… millions watching on TV then see lesser teams trying to emulate this stuff… with disastrous results. And if the horror show that is Saturday night ITV football highlights, does not persuade you, then I will bet a Pound to your penny that the same thing is going on at Ynys Park… just down the road from you…
Yet I remember several visits to watch the fine Ton Pentre side of the late 1950s, with attackers Clive Owen, Cyril Hicks, Albert and Norman Davies prominent. Gosh they attacked like buccaneers… and the likes of Billy Baker and Stan Hollyman in defence would have had any defender trying ‘circus football’ in a headlock up against the dressing room wall.
‘Those were the days my friend/we thought they’d never end…’
But ‘end’ they certainly did.
And so will ‘circus football’ one day bite the dust.
Adios… and thanks again.
DW.
Dai, you know you’ll be welcomed back on here any time you wish to return – all of the best for the future.
One thing to add before I finish though, I had to read your Will Vaulks comments two or three times because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – in all of the years you’ve been posting on here (must be ten by now), I can never recall you ever getting something wrong like that. It’s easy for me to say I know, but I’d put it down to a one off rather than. proof of problems with your memory – your memory and recall of events (both decades ago and much more recent) is superb in my experience.
Thanks for your contributions – it was great reading your City related memories, but I learned a few things about life in general reading your posts on here.
I have just read Dai’s most recent (surely not last) post.
It was about a year ago when I wrote about the impact of a goat returning to an old field.
There is clearly still plenty of life left in that younger than I goat and I trust that its return will not be long delayed.
I would like Dai to reconsider his criticism of the xG statistic.
It is of course based on getting into a POMO and then taking a shot at goal!
The stats over the 46 games of the 23/24 Championship season show that for both xGs scored and xGs conceded we were worse than every team except Rotherham.
So as we finished 12th and not 23rd it could be argued that the xG stats are rubbish!
I can’t help thinking though that if Mehmet had fed these stats through to Vincent we would not now be facing two more years of Bulut!