By and large, I think the bowl that is Cardiff City Stadium has meant that, since 09/10, strong winds haven’t affected matches as much as they used to at Ninian Park. Today’s game with Leyton Orient was a bit of an exception though as the litter frequently seen blowing around the pitch at ground level was an indication that, even if it was not as strong as it was in other parts of the country, the remnants of Storm Amy made for conditions that had not been seen too often in the stadium’s sixteen year history.
For me, the strength of the wind offered a partial excuse for a City performance which was error strewn and sloppy as they luckily came out 4-3 winners in a game where they were indebted to keeper Nathan Trott for their win.
However, Head Coach Brian Barry-Murphy refused to use the conditions to try and explain away a City performance which could diplomatically be called mixed. For BBM, the main problem was that against an effective high press from the visitors, City were too slow in getting the ball away from their defensive third and too slow to get the ball forward.
Thinking about it, BBM was probably right. After all, although the O’s weren’t quite immune from Cardiff’s penchant for giving the ball away in potentially embarrassing positions, the wind didn’t seem to cause them as many problems as it did us.
The BBC’s stats show us losing almost all of the outcomes that tend to shape a game quite decisively
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c15kd750v08t#MatchStats
Sides that lose the tens of little battles that help decide a game as completely as we did don’t tend to win the war, but, although I’d place luck and fine goalkeeping near the top of any list of reasons as to why we won, there were also substitutions by BBM that worked and occasionally inspired attacking play in there as well.
However, the plain truth is that I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that in the first half, two of our back four (Osho and Kpakio) had a mare, our central midfield two (Wintle and Joel Colwill) were second best by a long way and Isaak Davies on our right couldn’t get going.
Kpakio, given more chance to attack, improved in the second half, but this was “compensated” for by Joel Bagan having his worst forty five minutes of what’s been a good season for him, while our midfield continued to splutter. The introduction of David Turnbull, poor against Burton in midweek, brought some order to the midfield Yousef Salech got a chance to play alongside Callum Robinson in what became a 4-4-2 and it proved to be an experiment worth repeating, while Omari Kellyman made his best contribution yet with some truly fiendish far post corners a highlight.
When City got into the lead for the third time, BBM made a defensive substitution by introducing Will Fish into what became a back three.
This brings me on to just about the only real issue I have with BBM at the moment – his rotation of centrebacks. I don’t get it and our defensive record has got a lot worse since we started doing it. Fish and Lawlor were doing a fine job in the middle of the back four and didn’t need to be broken up like they have been.
The game began scrappily, but, in a trend that continued throughout most of the ninety minutes, the goals, with one or two exceptions, were of a quality that was far superior to the quality of football on show.
City had generally been second best when a good cross from Chris Willock on twenty minutes found Callum Robinson in a bit of space and he did well to hold off a couple of defenders to guide his shot beyond Tommy Simkin.
The goal didn’t settle City down though, Trott had already made the first couple in the string of good saves that won us the three points. After the daft penalty he gave away on his debut against Bradford City, Gabe Osho had settled down pretty well, but here he was a mistake waiting to happen and City’s lead would only last eight minutes as Osho played a blind, seriously under hit back pass into the path of Aaron Connolly who easily beat Trott to level things up.
City stumbled in at half time lucky to be on terms and then proceeded to make a calamitous start to the second half. If the right side of our defence was a disaster area in the first forty five minutes, it was the left that was really struggling when play restarted – Bagan was all over the shop as the excellent Dom Ballard drew a great save out of Trott and then Connolly’s shot was deflected on to a post by Lawlor.
The young centreback was I thought one of only two City players who maintained their passing standards in awkward conditions (the other was Rubin Colwill) and it was wholly in keeping with his fairytale start to his career that, with his team under the cosh, Lawlor proceeded to score an outlandish first senior goal in keeping with this madcap game.
Lawlor, as had happened a few times, was under pressure from an aggressive Orient press about five yards inside his own half, but managed to work his way clear and was allowed to advance thirty yards before hitting a twenty yard shot that Simkin should really have kept out.
Having lost their lead within ten minutes first time around, could City protect it this time? No chance, within about ninety seconds the O’s scored a farcical equaliser. Lawlor, having maintained his standards so far, made two mistakes in a scramble which saw so many examples of poor defending from City. Ironically, Kpakio’s best piece of defensive play of the afternoon saw the ball deflect off him to Idris El Mizouni whose half hit twenty yarder took two deflections (the second off Joel Colwill) to roll into the net with Trott helpless.
The keeper had even less chance when Ballard scored the goal of the game with a lovely curling effort from the corner of the penalty area after a shot had been deflected into his path.
It was hard to see a way back into the game for City at this stage, but BBM’s subs helped get City playing again and within ten breathless minutes they were ahead again!
Dozy Orient defending played its part mind as they failed to respond to a ball boy swiftly retrieving the ball for Kpakio’s to take a quick throw in to Rubin Colwill whose cross found an unmarked Salech who headed in from six yards.
Two minutes later, City put together their best move of the game as Colwill, Robinson and Kellyman set Kpakio running to the bye line from where he pulled the ball back for Robinson to turn in what proved to be the winner from eight yards.
The Londoners’ substitutions didn’t work as well as ours did, but Osho blundered again to give Connolly a clear run in on goal only for Trott to come to our rescue again and he was also there to plunge forward and fall on the ball in added time when it looked like the visitors were in for a leveler.
City go into the latest international break in third place then with some wildly fluctuating performances in the last fortnight – the best thing about today was definitely the result!
Both the under 18s and under 21s are in better, more consistent form than their elders currently. The Academy lads beat Swindon 5-1 this lunchtime in the EPL Cup thanks to goals by Allmark and two each from Sykes and Hilaire-Clark.
After trouncing Millwall in midweek, the under 21s came out on top in a derby clash with Bristol City at Leckwith yesterday afternoon thanks to quick fire second half goals by Gabriel Keita and Noah Williams that left the wurzels with too much to do in the remaining twenty minutes or so.
In the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Championship, Ton Pentre scraped past Penrhiwceiber 3-2 to keep their hold on top spot, while Treorchy Boys and Girls Club drew 1-1 at home to Cwmbach Royal Stars in Division One (East).
My thoughts exactly, Paul.
Maybe we were mad north-north-west, the direction the gale came from. If only there had been some method in it! Spills led to thrills, though. It was crazy but fun, far removed from the dour diet forced upon us last season. Trouble is there are times when just putting a foot through the ball is the sensible option, not turning into trouble just outside your own penalty area. How we won goodness knows. After 15 minutes I said this is going to end up 6-5 and I wasn’t far wrong as it turned out.
So, it was naive, but fun. Just no way to go about winning the league. Orient’s devil-may-care spirit seemed to infect us and it became a ludicrously open game in which they were too quick and lively for us for the most part. They made a lot of chances but also wasted a lot; we converted four from far fewer. Ruthless City, then, one might think. Truth be told, their goalie had a bit of a mare. As did Osho who just got away with it mainly. Again he grinned after his every howler, which only exacerbates this fan’s irritation with him. Dylan Lawlor was different class as I saw it. With Fish he had a good partnership going, didn’t he.
Obviously I’d be feeling far less complacent now if we’d ended up losing 4-3, as we would have done if the gods had been playing fair. Any number of great saves by Trott made him our man of the match by a mile.
Thank-you, Paul, once more for your report on the goings on at a windy CCS. We got out of jail and I’m pleased for that.
Due to a dose of, ‘the lurg,’ it wasn’t until this morning that I got to watch the game in its entirety. If you thought watching the game, as it happened, was difficult try piecing together a coherent picture of the game from mobile phone updates and the occasional Sky Sports reports. These constraints led to a tortuous afternoon’s work for me between bouts of the cold shivers. Thoughts went back to an earlier time when I had to phone up the Bluebirds’ Club at the end of games, from the red-phone box situated between the chip shop and the pub in my village for results. That red phone box is long since gone but the emotions are the same when you don’t see the action. It wasn’t any easier yesterday afternoon.
Again, City’s Achilles heel was clear for all to see as our 4231 tamely met the opposition’s sweeper system. Suffice to say at the umpteenth time of writing it needs to be sorted … and quickly.
Let’s get the Man in Black Report out of the way at the start. Having read yesterday numerous X-Cert reports of his handling of the encounter I was fearing the worst as I settled down to watch the match. That said, considering the conditions, he attempted to let the game flow but, as a consequence of that, the amount of grappling and pulling of shirts he let go was quite remarkable. Just focussing on the last few minutes of the game, the Orient skipper, and centre back, Omar Beckles deserved his marching order. Two incidents of this nature, within moments of each other went unpunished. The latter should also have resulted in a penalty. If ever there was a time to twin the Windy City of Chicago with Cardiff this was the weekend to have made it official so terrible were the conditions. However, everything considered he officiated over an enthralling game.
My gripe for the week is the increasingly prevalent Teddy Bears’ Picnics we get whenever there is a stoppage in play as troops of players make their way over to hear from their manager what they need to do. Oh how I long for the days of Jimmy Scoular. If he needed to get a message across to an errant player the whole of Canton and Grangetown got to hear it … even during play!
Three goals conceded at home is not good. Was it the wind or City’s profligacy? Poor defending with probably 4 opportunities to clear weren’t taken for the visitor’s second goal whilst a push on Lawlor’s back was deemed a cigarette paper’s width the correct side of legal in the preamble to Ballard’s excellent strike that made it 2-3.
I must say I have always liked Callum Robinson and never remotely gravitated to the negative comments made by some in previous seasons. His 2 goals were wonderful examples of the striker’s craft … the first from a delightful through ball from Willock; the second from an inch perfect pull back from Kpakio into the channel where he makes his near post runs. It was an incredulous writer who, when looking at a stats website, found out that Robbo only had 17 touches during his 87 mins on the pitch. But there again, you only need 2 to score 2 goals. Colwill provided a sublime sand-wedge of a chip for Salech’s 6 yd header at the near post to make it 3-3. However, Lawlor’s excellent run half the length of the pitch, either side of freeing himself from being held by a red-shirted visitor and unleashing an unstoppable short that hit the net for the winner will take a long time to be forgotten. Moreover, Kellyman now seems to be settling in quite nicely as his fitness improves.
Trott, despite letting in three, had an inspired outing making numerous excellent saves. Our Eddie Murphy look-alike was imperious. Kpakio, a neat footballer for sure, is now allowing a sprinkling of mistakes into his game following his meteoric rise to the First Team. Perhaps he’s a future winger and played much better from 65 mins when we went 442. Osho, strong in the challenge and purposeful when striding forward had just one of those games. There were good bits but a few bloopers, too. As I’ve written before, he’d be in my midfield.
So we won 4-3. It could have been 6-3 or 3-7. It was just that crazy.
Thanks, as ever Paul.
Like you say, the 2 men up front together should be persevered with.
It is staggering that it is only now that the management have woken up to the fact. I submit that had we played a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2 from last January, we might well have stayed up.
And Steve is correct in saying that Kpakio is neat going forward, but hardly the real deal defensively. And when he mentions Jimmy Scoular, I immediately think of the great teenage full back of those days: Peter Rodrigues.*
Now THERE was a real full back: a boy who was always ready to surge up the touchline, but whose greatest quality was his fantastic tackling. Ronan alas, whilst having the ‘surging forward’ bit, alas conspicuously lacks a ‘tiger in his tank’ when it comes to tackling.
As for RWC… he is darn right about Osho’s fatuous grin… which is even more irritating than that kamikaze backpass… a pass that anyway was totally unnecessary.
A note to Pepitis sufferers: STOP PASSING BACKWARDS…!!
Btw, I have just got myself a copy of RWC’s autobiography… and a really engaging read it is.
It is available on Amazon Prime…
https://shorturl.at/93Acg
Talking of links leads me to say that my regular DAIGRESSING newsletter has brought protests from about 18 readers… 4 of which were adamant they wanted no more mailings…. which of course is their right. What is NOT their right however, is to make efforts to get Hotmail to restrict my mailings… just because my views on Mr Netanyahu are too strident for them.
So the three of you who contribute to MAYA who are getting my newsletter should look for the edition I mailed this morning in their junk under my daigressing@gmail address.
* I am reminded that when he played for Cardiff, he was always called by fans and the Welsh Home Service as Peter Rod/REEG/ez. Only when he moved to English clubs did reporters accede to his wishes and pronounce it the Portuguese way… viz… Peter Rod/REEGZH. We in South Wales had assumed it was Spanish in origin, like Hernandez… but of course it was not spelt with the Spanish ‘ez’ suffix: viz… Rodriguez… but with the Portuguese ‘ues’.
The difference between the two countries one sees today in Brits being unable to pronounce Bruno Fernandes‘ name correctly… they wrongly give it a Spanish pronunciation, whereas in truth it should be Fern/ANDZH.
And don’t get me started on the name Martínez: folk who should know better like Gary Neville talk of the Portuguese manager and the Villa keeper as MART/in/ez. No boys, the rule with pronunciation stress in Spanish is that if the word ends in a vowel, then you stress the penultimate syllable… (e.g. Bar/cel/O/na) and those words ending in a consonant get the last syllable stressed … (e.g. Ma/DRID)… but these rules are trumped by an accented syllable… and thus the accent over the ‘i’ in Martínez… means that the 2nd and not 3rd syllable is stressed.
Oh dear, I am getting carried away…!!
TTFN,
Dai.
Spot on again Paul – and everyone!
To say we got out of jail was an understatement. A real thriller and now seen the highlights which confirmed some of my initial observations on the day.
The wind definitely a factor which seemed to bother us more than Orient. But that doesn’t totally explain the farcical defending.
Only a few weeks ago we were praising this as the strength of our team, and now realising how vulnerable we are if everyone is not totally on their game.
Paul quite correct in that Lawlor virtually faultless ( never mind the worldie goal), but Kapakio and Bagan took it in turns to have terrible halves of football. And Osho, well just didn’t learn his lesson from the first error – which was so unnecessary with an opponent on his shoulder surely he must have realised before hitting his poor back pass? There is a decent footballer in there, but like Bagan and Kapakio, one that seems much happier playing forward than undertaking the basic defensive fundamentals.
Everyone agrees Fish and Lawlor the best combo so hopefully the manager will stop tinkering now unless there is an injury or cup game.
Before the errors set in it just felt like something was missing in midfield with none of Davies, Colwill J or Wintle linking well or properly getting into the game. With Orient set up to play and give it a go, then I hoped that BBM would sort things out at half time. However, he seems to now do the Bulut thing and wait until 60 minutes before making any changes – although he got it right this time!
Kapakio playing in a more forward role looked happier and Kellyman made a difference with some real accuracy to his passing and corners. Great to see our 2 main strikers playing together and, again, hope that BBM can see this as a better set-up in certain games. Doesn’t have to be an either/or but do need to get the right balance in midfield to support it.
Finally, how good is Trott? Must be the best keeper we have had for years and so glad to have such a commanding presence there. Without him it would have been another downer going into the international break. I just hope that man6 lessons were learned by all concerned on Saturday.
It is 7am and I have just woke up after 2 hours sleep from 5am to 7am. This is what sleep apnoea does to you… despite a CPAP machine, your sleep patterns are never the same after you are diagnosed. In my case it was November 1998 when I spent the night wired up and filmed at the sleep unit at Llandough Hospital… being advised by the Sister that if I needed to use my urine bottle for a pee in the night, then to do it with my back to the camera…!!
But what was I doing between 2am and 5am? The answer is, because I sleep somewhat fitfully, I was wide awake… having gone to sleep at just before midnight, but was seemingly refreshed and ‘ready to go’, on just two hours of counting zeds.
And what did I do to fill the time before my mental energy ran out? Well believe it or not, I watched spellbound, as Dave Jones gave us a two hour insight into the vicissitudes of managerial life… and not shirking talking about the elephant in the room… and we all know what that was…
And although I ought to allow a day or two to allow my thoughts to marinate, here are – in no particular order – some initial impressions to what was a quite riveting vodcast… with ‘the Beast’ Jon Parkin as one of his interlocutors..
1. Never has DJ impressed me more.
2. Can he really be still not 70 years old? Looks about 57 to me.
3. First 30 minutes of interview largely on his Cardiff years… and also references in the final quarter of an hour.
4. Wonderful Nathan Blake anecdote about 5 funerals of grandparents on a Monday…
5. Who knew DJ had punched Neil Warnock?
6. Very interesting on Jay Bothroyd: how DJ regularly conned him into raising his game thinking that he was being watched by Team England management; his subsequent 10 minutes on his debut playing for England; and those disastrous first 15 minutes against Blackpool.
7. Calling our training facilities ‘Dogsh#@ Park’…!!
8. Claiming he would not urinate on Jeff Stelling… even if he was on fire.
9. Touching words on the recently departed Milan Marandic.
10. Paul… answer me this please: who was the Cardiff based journalist (now dead) who he hated?
11. Fascinating on Sam Hammam’s behaviour.
12. Very funny relating Terry Burton’s explanation of him and DJ having nothing in common… except one vital thing… viz… a love of football…
13. Fascinating on his flare-up with John Toshack. Who knew?
14. Very sound thinking from DJ on how there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to tactical thinking… he makes fun of the absurd new descriptions of a ‘number 8’ and a ‘false centre forward’…etc… and says that however many times you try and invent the wheel, it is still… ROUND.
15. He is given a sympathetic easy ride on the criminal sex charges. Interesting on Rupert Lowe’s behaviour. Do I believe DJ’S accusers? No. But had I been in this interview I would have pointed out that the guy behind the wicked unfounded charges of a pedophile ring in Westminster, is now behind bars. I would have asked DJ why it was he thought the CPS decided not to prosecute those who slandered his name and very nearly incarcerated him? After all, when the judge threw out the case against him, DJ had been widely quoted at the time as saying he now wanted the police to arrest his accusers.
Right… at 78, I am off now to get my Covid and flu jabs. Excuse any typos… no time to proofread at 8.20am. I hope I have not missed telling MAYA readers some other vital bullet point from a wonderful interview. I probably have… my memory is unreliable these days. But these are just a few things that have stayed with me from a wonderful two hour interview.
https://tinyurl.com/35ktkcnw
TTFN,
Dai.
Back from my 2 jabs and an additional 3 hrs sleep… just read ‘wot I rote’ this morning, and send apols for a poor choice of word at the start of #12.
Strike ‘relating’ and insert ‘repeating’…
DW
Firstly, appologies to you Dai and all of the other contributors on here for my lack of contributions to the feedback section. I touched upon the reason for this last week – there’s what might be called a hostile takeover trying to be forced through at Crdiff City Supporters Trust presently and, as the person whi records and registers all new members joining, there has been something like a 50 per cent increase in membership- imn the last two months. I’ve spent ten hours doing Trust work on Monday and Tuesday – it’s not been as bad today because I only had three weeks worthon there, b ut it’s almost like being back in work again!
The reporter you asked about was Steve Tucker Dai and, before he passed away, Dve Jones contactied him to aologise for some of the things he said and did to him whule he was manager of City. Apparently, Steve Tucker had no inkling it was going to happen and I seem to remember him saying he got quite emotional when. he read Dave Jones’ letter.
Dave Jones became known as the “surly scouser” among some City fans and there was plenty of ecvidence to jkustify that apparently, but there were also occasional gestures like the one to Steve Tucker which suggested it wasn’t really quite as straightforward as some thought when it came down to our former manager’s character.