Sam Bowen and Tom Sang went from being on the substitute’s bench for the senior team for the first time on Saturday to getting absolutely drenched at a near deserted Leckwith Stadium in a losing cause on a truly miserable post Christmas Monday afternoon (although, ironically, the weather started to brighten up virtually as the full time whistle blew!).
A young City team with Joe Day, the returned from Wrexham Mark Harris and sub Shamar Moore the only members who had played any first team football for the club were beaten by a solitary goal scored late only a much more experienced Coventry City – more than half of their starters had played some first team football during their careers.
Bowen and Sang were among the better performers in a City team where centrebacks Ben Margetson and Trystan Jones both did well, while Joel Bagan managed a great clearance off the line, but tended to be disappointing with his crossing from left back.
Bagan’s goal line clearance was one of a few incidents where Coventry looked likely to score in a match generally low on quality and goalmouth action and as the visitors had more of them than City, I suppose the win given them by experienced French forward Maxime Biamou”s header (he’s played over fifty times for their first team) with just over fifteen minutes left was deserved.
There was only twice really when City threatened a goal and they were unlucky to see the same post hit in the second half – the first time when Sang worked a bit of room for himself to shoot from twenty five yards – Coventry keeper Ben Wilson,, who played four times for our first team between 2014 and 2016, could only watch as the ball hit the outside of the upright and went out for a goal kick.
Wilson was a spectator again as Harris jabbed a shot from the edge of the penalty area which this time rebounded out from the woodwork with City, as was the case all through the afternoon, not having enough players in forward positions to cash in on such an occurence.
Apart from that, it was pretty punchless for Cardiff and I’m afraid there was little here to dispel the gloom that has settled over the club in the early stages of 2020 with the QPR debacle, another FA Cup tie where the club do not play to anything like their “seeding” and the tragic, early death of Chris Barker.
As for the Fourth Round of the Cup, we will travel to the winner of the Blackpool v Reading replay to be held at Bloomfield Road next week if we come through our replay at Carlisle a week tomorrow – we’re the favourites out of the our teams involved if you use league position as your criteria, but that’s not worked too often in recent years, so I’ll not be getting too excited at the prospect of us playing in the last sixteen for now.
Finally, I’m very pleased to say that the blog’s partnership with the Owl Centre will continue throughout 2020 – there will be periodic pieces throughout the year about the Centre’s progress.
