There’s a game I refer to occasionally on here where QPR came to Cardiff City Stadium in 2019 under Mark Warburton’s management and played us off the park only to head back to London with a 3-0 defeat. It was, possibly, the oddest game I’ve ever seen as the visitors sliced through us so many times but never had anything to show for it, while we picked them off with very isolated attacks to net three times and leave our opponents wondering what they’d done to deserve such rotten luck.
Now, I’m not saying that this lunchtime’s 4-0 win over Plymouth Argyle was Cardiff 3 QPR 0 revisited. It was a somewhat strange affair though in which the visitors must have been very pleased with what was happening up to the forty minute mark as they had kept their top of the table opponents quiet for almost all of the first half, only to then concede three times in the ten minutes either side of half time! Two of those goals coming via big deflections off the same player, Brendan Wiredu, who has already managed to score an own goal and collect a red card in his first month as a Plymouth player following his summer signing from Fleetwood.
Wiredu could not be blamed for either goal today because both shots were on target and so neither of them qualify as an own goal, but the deflections were substantial and the goalkeeper may have been able to make a save without them.
By the end, I don’t think Plymouth could have any complaints about the outcome, there were plenty of opportunities for City in the last twenty five minutes or so and they might easily have conceded one or two more, but 4-0 flattered us – I’d say 2-0 would have been a fair scoreline.
So, these two teams that were separated by two points last season as they accompanied each other into League One continue to head in vastly different directions in this formative campaign. Plymouth had been able to convince themselves they were over losing their first four league games when they beat Blackpool 1-0 last weekened and followed it up with a draw at Swansea in the League Cup in which they were, reportedly, unlucky to lose through a penalty shoot out.
However, here they came up against a vibrant and confident young team that appears to have total faith in their new Head Coach’s approach – they also have a goalkeeper who has not conceded a league goal yet despite having played in our last five games in that competition and two teenagers in their back four who have been called into the Welsh senior squad for next week’s game in Kazakhstan.
City have also just signed a player who, in many of the media stories I’ve read on the transfer, is reckoned to be a Championship level player, someone who the Luton (his former club) fans are saying is better than any centreback currently at their club – furthermore, they’re asking why didn’t they try to sign him themselves?
Well, if Gabriel Osho really is too good for this level, then I suspect that it was the BBM influence that persuaded him to come here. Osho played under our Head Coach during a loan spell at Rochdale in 2021. Osho is someone BBM clearly rates as he is one of the players he insisted on bringing in when he first arrived (a major reason for `our almost non existent inward transfers in the last three months) and the feeling is mutual based on what Osho had to say about his former manager after his signing was completed yesterday.
It was somehow typically BBM that Osho was not in the match day squad today because BBM is an unusual manager/Head Coach. He’s someone who doesn’t just talk about giving youngsters their chance, he actually does it. He talks about wanting a small squad when so many this summer have been determined to have a huge turnover of players and, as someone who has consistently argued we need more signings to provide the on field leadership that I felt was lacking, I’ve got to admit that I’m coming around to thinking that just two, possibly three, more by Monday will be enough.
I still believe there was a lack of leadership last season, but BBM decided to tackle it by the unusual step of letting the players decide who should captain them and so, we find ourselves in the position where Rubin Colwill, of all people, is our captain for most games and yet is anyone saying we lack leadership now?
For me though, BBM’s biggest triumph is that he somehow managed to create a feeling of momentum almost before a ball had been kicked in competitive action. You think back to his team selection for the season opener with Peterborough- a debutant keeper, a back four barely averaging twenty years old, a midfield that contained someone who, at 28, was five years senior to any of his team mates and younger players preferred to their seniors up front.
We went in at half time 1-0 down that day and, forget about a drop in standards, I’m doubtful if last season’s side would have been able to turn things around, yet we came out and proved ourselves to be better than our opponents as the victory margin this time was harsh on us rather than flattering us. What could almost be called a bunch of kids had turned things around and, even if last season’s team had been able to do the same thing, I’m sure they wouldn’t have done it with the verve and panache that Turner, Kpakio, Lawlor, J Colwill etc. did.
Increasingly, the serious examination they had at Port Vale in their second game looks to be a positive part of the team’s development and, tellingly, the two away matches that have followed have been won while achieving clean sheets.
There’ll be bad days to come, I’m sure there will, but , even at this early stage, we’ve proved we can be successful at this level. Six games in, we have the most points, have the best defensive record and only two teams can match our total of eleven goals scored – let’s be honest, the Manager of the Month award is BBM’s already isn’t it and who can claim with any justification to have been better than us in August?
Clearly, it’s a case of one month down and nine to go, so this sense of momentum is not guaranteed to last, but, for now, we have it and I’d argue that it won us the game today.
Take away momentum and that was a could go either way game today for forty minutes – we were’nt any better than Plymouth, but the side that had negative momentum then conceded twice to give them an excuse to feel sorry for themselves. To their credit, I thought Plymouth coped well with going 3-0 down, they had a go at us and Nathan Trott had a few chances to show his ability, but did they really believe they could come back? Put us in that position when we next play at Stockport and, rightly or probably wrongly, we’ll be thinking we can turn it around.
City made two changes from at Luton with Joel Colwill replacing the injured David Turnbull and Yousef Salech coming in for Callum Robinson. Salech missed an early chance when he shot was deflected wide, but he’d already been penalised by a League One type referee and it all only added to the striker’s sense of frustration that the goals aren’t coming at the rate they once were. However, are we seeing the BBM effect here as well? It’s runners into the box and wide players that appear to getting the chances theses days, not so much the one up there leading the attack.
So, maybe we’re going to have to get more used to watching games like this where our main striker gets little or no chance to find the net, but, if we are, what I’ll say is that, just as on Tuesday, I saw a lot more evidence of good hold up play and an effective all round game from Salech.
With Cian Ashford having one of his periodic quiet matches, there was more threat down City’s left than their right as the in form Chris Willock and Joel Bagan combined effectively at times.
One lovely move saw Bagan pull back a cross that Joel Colwill was about a yard away from finishing off, but that was about it for forty minutes until a period of pressure which was more thud and blunder than blood and thunder was brought to an end by a perfectly delivered Rubin Colwill pass that Ryan Wintle didn’t have to break stride for as he fired high into the net from twenty five yards out for what has to be the best goal he’s scored for us.
The response to this goal was interesting – angry at an alleged handball by Ronan Kpakio (having now seen replays of the goal, I can’t see anthin wrong with it) being missed by the officials, the visiting fans (an impressive estimated 3.000 of them) burst into a chorus of “1-0 to the referee” which didn’t last too long as they were soon 2-0 adrift with no help from the officials involved!
At the same time, Rubin Colwill was getting biooked for whar I can only presume was protesting about him not by giving a penalty for an alleged foul on hm. So, the ref was getting it in the enck from both sides.
Did referee Scott Oldham deserve such stick? My first reaction is not really, he wasn’t as bad as some of the officials we’ve had, but a look at the match stats make for illuminating reading. Mr Oldham penalised City fourteen times for fouls and Plymouth six – this despite it being an open season for centrebacks to do whatever they like to the strikers they are marking, while the player being constantly fouled gets penalised for the moist trivial things as in. the incident I mentioned earlier when Salech had his only real sight of goal.
Every referee we’ve had this season in the league has allowed cenrebacks to constantly foul Salech when he’s played, yet, while I wouldn’t claim. that our centrebacks are not guilty of the odd foul, they showed again today that their preferred method of dealing with the striker they’re marking is to intercept the ball before it reaches him.
I feel it’s reasonable to say that Fish and Lawlor commit less of what I would call fouls per game than our opponents’ central defenders do, but, despite this, Mr Oldham awarded fouls more than twice as many fouls against.us – he also booked three City players compared to one from Plymouth.
So, when I say Mr Oldham didn’t do a bad job, I say that by the standards of the officials it appears we get week in, week out in League One – I don’t get why there is a big difference over how Salech was refereed in the Championship compared to League One, but there definitely is one.
Three minutes after the opener, a pass by Ashford found Willock with space to shoot from the edge of the penalty area and goalkeeper Luca Ashby-Hammond was left flat footed by the deflection off Wiredu.
Five minutes into the second half, Rubin Colwill was given far too much time in the Plymouth penalty area, but it was the deflection off the hapless Wiredu which provided the inadvertent touch over the diving Ashby-Hammond from the resultant shot.
The young Plymouth goalkeeper impressed with three saves to deny Rubin and Willock was twice just wide, while Lawlor might have done better with a header from a corner, but Ashby-Hammond would have been disappointed not to have kept out sub Isaak Davies’ effort in added time after he had cut in from the left to shoot from about fifteen yards..
I mentioned Ashford not being as effective as he has been recently, but no one played poorly with Wintle, Bagan and the two centrebacks being impressive, bit I think my man of the match would be Joel Colwill who was making important contributions at both penalty areas right up to his substitution on 87 minutes which saw Perry Ng go to right back and, intriguingly, Ronan Kpakio switch into midfield.
Two goals by Mannie Barton and one by Jack Sykes were enough to give the under 18s a 3-1 win at Fleetwood this lunchtime and, finally, in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance, there were mixed fortunes for Ton Pentre in the Championship and Treorchy Boys and Girls Club in League One (East). The former were 2-0 winners at previous leaders Llangeinor FC to move a point clear at the top, whereas the latter were beaten 4-3 at home by Cwrt Rawlin FC to leave them eighth out of twelve with a win and a defeat from their two matches played.
Thanks Paul. I was thinking the same. The positivity running through our team now is indeed a joy to behold.
Our swift return to the Championship is already a forgone conclusion if you ask many (over-excited?) supporters. But who can blame them? BBM and his boys are light years ahead of anything we saw last season. Possession stats like we’ve never had but no tippy-tippy stuff, eh Dai? Skill and stamina in abundance. Rubin Colwill – I’ve got to mention him – always had great feet but now has the thrust to go with it. And brother Joel – I’m so glad you gave him a special mention – was running, tackling and passing all over the park – he hardly put a foot wrong. Yes, the defence has yet to concede a single outfield league goal, so where is Osho going to fit in? Up front is about the only area of doubt. Robinson looks like an old man in this company, Salech maybe a bit sluggish too. Perhaps, as you infer, they’re no longer the focal point they used to be and are finding that hard to adapt to. If Trott kicks long, it’s usually, with great accuracy, to the feet of a winger who links up with other players to create far more well-worked chances that just whipping over a cross.
If I too may go down memory lane…
It was 24th August 1985. I was back in Cardiff for the first time in 18 years. From high up in the back row of the grandstand I looked down, literally and figuratively, on about 6,000 subdued fans and thought of all the huge pulsating crowds amongst whom I had once cared so passionately. We lost 0-2 to Chesterfield. Alan Durban was manager. You’ll recall that name with horror! He was about to get us relegated for the second time in two years, to the old Fourth Division. Swansea went down that season, too. Newport who stayed up became the top team in Wales. I felt strangely above it all, even pleased for the smattering of away fans who had put the miles in, strangely sane for a football supporter. I mention this because it struck me I had got to the same stage of indifference by the end of last season. And, just like then, after Frank Burrows took over, I would soon be whooping like a teenager again, as I did this afternoon. We’re only in the third tier, f’godsake. But the football opiate is well and truly back in my system.
It’s all going too well. O, please God, not the sale of Toshack all over again! Next Tuesday can’t come soon enough!
Great report Paul, and lovely to see BB euphoric.
As for yesterday, I thought we played really good positive FORWARD football with no crazy square passes in our own third. I do so agree with BB re Robinson: but it is no surprise to me as he has been running on empty for the best part of a year now.
Methinks though that he has a warm relationship with BBM… judging by the way I have more than once seen them all smiles hugging each other on the touchline. Could it be the fact he is an ROI international…?
I’d also give the right wing starting slot to Aberdare boy Davies… bringing the boy from Treorchy on as his sub.
DW
It’s always good to hear from you Royale and we’ve reached the end of the window without any major outgoings. I’d persuaded myself that Alex Robertson would be sold because he looked like someone who didn’t want to be here in the pre season games he played in. Robertson’s a bit of a forgotten man at the moment, but two seasons ago, Portsmouth fans were rating him the best player in League One before he got injured. We not only kept all of our players, but also made a couple of signings in the closing days of the transfer window. It seems to be accepted that Osho is a Championship standard player, yet, as you say, you have to wonder where he’s going to get in the team at the moment. I knew of Osho and think he’d did not at all badly in the Premier League with Luton, but Omari Kellyman is quite a new name to mw – I knew of his big money transfer to Chelsea, but not much more than that. For now, I’ll fall back on a couple of very encouraging things I heard about him yesterday – the first came from a Chelsea fan whio said he was surprised to hear ablout Kellyman being loaned out because he thought he’d be in the first team picture once he got fully fit following his hamstring problems. The other came in a podcast which said it had the feel of a top six Championship loan, not a League One.
The doubt about both deals has to be the fitness element, Osho has a reputation for beign injury prone, Kellyman missed a great deal of last season and I’ve read that the latter will need to be gently introdced back into things, so it may take a while before we see him making much of an impact. However, add those two to the current squad, where the new recruit keeper who is making such an imlpact and, if I were a neutral, I’d be saying Cardiff are already looking like Champions, but, I’ll not be doing thatfor fear of jinxing things!
Dai, I read an article about BBM’s time as manager at Rochdale and it mentioned that he had a penchant for signing Irish players – in particular from around the Cork area. Robinson is interesting as he is not sulking because of his pretty ordinary form – as you say, he seems to get on well with BBM (the highlight package I saw yesterday showed the two of them celebrating our second goal together and he’s always there to join in with the celenbrations after a goal although he must be thinking that this is a team that has scored sixteen times in eight games in all competitions and he hasn’t got one of them yet.
Think Kellyman may have an influence on who plays on the wings from now on. It’s interesting to hear that BBM sees Isaak Davies as a striker. Therefore, if current scoring trends for Salech and Robinson continue, who’s to say that we won’t see Isaak, leading the attack from the start of a game quite soon. I’m a big Cian Ashford fan and, although he was a six out of ten in a team following of seven’s and eight’s on Saturday, I though he was very good against Wimbledon and Luton, so I’d be loath to leave him out, but, maybe the greatest sign of how well were doing is that players like Ashford, FDavies, Chambers, Ng, Turnbull and Robertson are going to face a battle to keep their places because of what the likes of Kpakip, Lawlor, Joel Colwill, Mafico and Nyakhuwa all players who were considered to be nowehere near the first team for league games are doing this season.
Thank-you, Paul, once again for your report on the Plymouth (h) game. You said much of what I was going to write. Whist sitting in the middle of the Ninian Stand, some 35 minutes into the game I had decided to forget about the action and just focus on the handling of the match by the referee. You wrote eloquently about the said topic so will just mention one or two things.
Clearly the standard of refereeing in the Third Division is worse than the Second Divsion / Championship. If you can be a bit of a Luddite on such matters I am and it will never be League 1 to me! Readers will be aware of my occasional references to Arthur. We stood together behind the Grangetown End goals in the late 60’s. He had caustic comments he’d hurl to any who’d care to listen during games. One such match he bellowed of the man in the middle: “He couldn’t referee a game of darts!” Many have said, many times, that that a particular referee is poor and it will even out over a season. I’m still waiting. My Father always used to say: “There are 3 sets of Laws of the Game. There are the official Laws, one for Man Utd and one for Cardiff City.” In short, opposition teams can play like it’s a rugby league game whilst we have to approach it like a game of netball. How often do we see an opposition player foul repeatedly (with no caution) only for a City player’s first offence go into the book? Salech repeatedly gets his shirt pulled up to his shoulders and nothing is given. This weekend end’s Man Utd penalty is salient. Not that that late incident was unjustly awarded but if that is the threshold, as Arthur would say; “They owe us a million!” Ok that might be far-fetched but I’m sure you get my drift. Moreover, Plymouth’s #11 and #17 were constantly in the referee’s ear during most of the game and yet seemed to be able to act with impunity. Over the ebb and flow of the game a foul count of 14-6 and 3 cautions to one against City would be a surreal summation of the match. Yet according to the referee it was. More relevant was City’s 10 shots on target to the visitor’s three.
Thankfully our quick-fire 3 in 10 sorted them out. Wintle, scorer of a wonderful goal, is going from strength to strength; Willock, who took his chance well, is finally coming into a bit of form whilst Colwill (R) settled it as a contest. Davies’ strong run form the half-way line finished with a lovely strike to make it 4-0. So we are top with 16 pts after 6 games as the international break beckons. A good start to the season for sure.
Thanks Steve. You mentioned two Plymouth players being in the referee’s ear all game reminded me that in the run up to Wintle’s great goal, Rubin Colwill was fouled in the penalty area. I don’t particularly blame the ref for not giving a penalty at the time because I missed it myself. However, I ask what else can Rubin’s yellow card be for if not dissent for complaining about the non award of a penalty? This happened before the alleged handball by Kpajio which led to Plymouth fans singing “1-0 to the referee” after the goal. Maybe the language Rubin used merited a booking, no one knows apart from the two men involved – the fact is Colwill’s yellow looks harsh and backs up the foul and yellow card stats count which, clearly, do not reflect the type of game it was. Yet,in the range of refereeing standards we’ve seen in our first half a dozen matches of this season, I’d say the guy in charge of the Plymouth match was not too bad.
I’ve not seen enough of this league yet to know whether the sort of treatment Salech is getting game in, game out is typical of how challenges between strikers and centrebacks are officiated, but, clearly, Salech has not been treated in an even handed way.- what is not clear is whether this has happened because he’s wearing a Cardiff kit – I tend to disagree with contention that there is an anti Cardiff agenda among referees as a whole, but I can believe that any individual ref could be biased against any club. I suppose six games is not enough to draw definite conclusions from, but it would wrong to deny that the standard of refereeing we’ve seen so far has been poor.
Paul, compadre…
You wonder if 6 games is enough to draw conclusions on refereeing standards; it is certainly enough for the NTT2O duo to lavish praise on BBM.
Gee, how I like these two boys… so incredibly well-informed. It has taken me nine years to become aware of their weekly mailing and podcast. I have now signed up, admittedly shamefacedly…
https://tinyurl.com/tavt3u22
Just spent a half hour watching a most enjoyable YT video report from a Plymouth fan on his trip to Cardiff. Well worth a watch is this.
It seems that there is a large group of them (I would estimate these pals as numbering about 25-35) who attend every away game (well WEEKEND ones, at least)… travelling in a minibus and several cars… and often setting out before dawn, given Plymouth’s geography.
What a grand bunch of lads. They are however asked to leave their Cardiff ‘Spoons’ (too boisterous?); and a few are ejected from the Queen’s Vaults after a barman takes offence to a joke re the Welsh language.
And we then get footage of the game, where our cameraman is deliberately filming the back of Plymouth fans’ heads… so as not to infringe EFL copyright.
Great stuff… these fans are a credit to their club. If only they had their two big centre backs from last season, and Ryan Hardie up front firing in goals… then they’d be a lot happier.
I enjoyed this film so much that I have just watched the filming of their trip to Lincoln. They are an unlikely band of men: not a potential hooligan in sight.
https://tinyurl.com/3mhtfcn3
TTFN,
Dai
your first post was the first one I’ve had in ages that the softawre held back for me to approve Dai in the way it used to do with some of your posts for ages, yet your second one (which I’ve now deleted) made it through as normal. God knows what bhappened there, I’m just hoping it’s a one off, but WordPress does move in very mysterious ways.
The not the top 20 podcasts are excellent, so much better than that one with the smug Derby fan(s) about the Championship that’s name escapes me at the moment (the Second Tier?).
Plymouth vlogs are always worth a look at when we play them. The one you pot a link to is very good and I’d rate it the best of them, but this guy goes off on some spectacular rants – including at the end of his video on Saturday’s match.
https://youtu.be/Yo1EzYzvGbU?si=PBqObK2B_D0EBeXa
I find him a bit “stagey”, but then you’ll hear something that will make you think you’re being too cynical about him (he was almost howling at the moon in his video after our 5-0 win over them last season) and I must admit you have to admire someone who is travelling from Cornwall to Carlisle to watch Truro play there on Saturday.
Big thanks Paul for this vlog from the Truro guy. It was quite an education… and I came away with not just new insights into the psyche of Pilgrims fans, but also with a new word to stick in my ‘upstairs library’… viz. ‘JANNER’. Alas I have no confidence that the word will stay in my brain – or ‘upstairs library’ as I prefer to term it – since my stock of words is massively depleted of late. I fell head over heels in love with the English language as a youth, but alas she is something of a faithless lover these days and is deserting me when I need her the most. The meaning of relatively simple words now often evades me. I put it down to those years of playing with an old heavy lace-up leather football as a kid, trying to improve my neck muscles by constantly heading the ball against a high wall in York Terrace in Porth. A time-bomb that has exploded 65 years later.
But… enough feeling sorry for myself… back to this Cornishman’s interesting vlog.
Like you say, hat’s off to him for his travels. (One learns that he also supports Truro, and is off to Carlisle the week after that Cardiff game. Wow…!! That is true dedication.)
It is easy to forget how long a county Cornwall is: Neil Warnock bangs on about his Cornish home, but his farm is just 20 minutes over the Tamar Bridge… as indeed are Ginsters pasties. Truro however is a serious shlep from the Tamar… so that adds to this guy’s travelling.
His hand held selfie stick coupled with his rolling gait, might lead some viewers to feel a trifle sea sick queazy, but I quickly ditched my land legs, and switched to mariner mode to really enjoy his walk around the Castle, and eventually all the way to what he quaintly calls ‘Ninian Park’ (Tell me Paul, is this a one-off, or do other away fans call the CCS ‘Ninian Park’ too?)
As for the end of the game, I was disappointed to see our stewards insisting the Plymouth fans leave the shelter of the stadium to be drowned like a rat by a downpour, and equally disappointed by our vlogger getting paranoid about a fairly innocent press statement alluding to Plymouth being easy meat in recent years at the CCS. C’mon me Janner boy, there was nothing disrespectful in that. No need to rant about it.
But to sum up, I came away from watching that link you sent Paul, with a high regard for this Son of Kernow.
Thanks again.
TTFN,
Dai.
No, I think his Ninian Park reference is a one off Dai, I’ve not heard it from any other opposition supporters.
If you’ve got the time, here’s the videos from last season, I suppose it makes his reaction to the media department’s post on Saturday more understandable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX2edldc8Ow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX2edldc8Ow
Thanks Paul for these two links… it was actually one link… you have accidentally duplicated it.
Very interesting. I now see his shtick is doing his pre-match and summing-up commentaries… whilst WALKING. That seems to be his USP.
A few things I learned from it:
1. He lives in Bodmin not Truro, but him attending home games of both clubs involves a trip not dissimilar to a Cowbridge to Swansea commute.
2. He was so right in holding a grudge against Perry NG after provoking a Plymouth red card at the CCS earlier in the season.
3. And I learned that the total embarrassment I felt at the time over Omer Riza’s disgusting time-wasting tactics at this 1-1 Home Park game, was if anything, a restrained reaction on my part. Watching it again today, I cannot think of a more shameful exhibition in our club’s history. We were time-wasting from the 13th minute. You could not blame The Janners (as I have now learned to describe their fans) for thinking that when Jak did his hamstring near the end, he too was using up the minutes.
I never want to see a City team behave like that again.
TTFN,
Dai.
Apols to RWC… the first contributor to this thread.
Bizarrely I confused him with BB… probably because Chris’s well-expressed views and football philosophy so neatly dovetail with BB’s.
I have only just noticed my error. Sorry to both of you fine fellows.
DW