This lunchtime Cardiff City’s Academy were beaten 3-2 at Leckwith by Watford which means that, after starting their season with a win, they have suffered two consecutive defeats (the first of which was a 3-1 loss at Swansea). City’s Under 23 Development team were thrashed 5-1 at Swansea in their season opener and then they followed that up with a 2-1 home loss to Bristol City in the only other game they’ve played. Our Women’s team began their season last weekend with a heavy 3-0 loss at Swansea.
Now, I’d say what happens below first team level at a professional football club is of little consequence to most supporters of a team if the seniors are winning most weeks, but before Neil Harris’ side played at free scoring Blackburn this afternoon, their record read won one and lost three if you include the League Cup loss at Northampton.
Therefore, while results at age levels below Under 18 may be brilliant for all I know, the record at Cardiff City in competitive games at the levels that really count if you go by what the club website tends to concentrate on, read played ten, won two and lost eight before the first eleven faced a team which had scored the highest number of goals in their first three matches of the season at second tier level since Middlesbrough managed twelve of them in 1963 (stat courtesy of Radio Wales’ radio commentary on the game today!).
This afternoon, Bristol City won at Nottingham Forest to make it four wins from four to start their season while Swansea saw off Millwall by the same score at the Liberty to make it ten points from a possible twelve for them – the jacks have also had those three convincing wins over us at below first team level, so we are very much the poor relations in the local rival stakes as well so far this season.
To add to all of that, the anticipated sale of Callum Paterson to Sheffield Wednesday went through this week and so we’ve lost a versatile player who was among the squad’s most popular players, if not the most popular one, with the club’s supporters.
I’m not as disappointed with Paterson’s departure as some because it seemed clear he was not going to be getting that many opportunities with Keiffer Moore’s arrival and I can see that it made sense in many ways to let him go.
However, what I don’t get is why we would let someone who still had two years left on his contract, who was our top scorer in a promotion season, someone who scored winning goals for us in the Premier League, go for what I’d call an almost derisory £500,000 (£425,000 once Hearts have been given their sell on fee cut).
I’ve had online discussions with supporters who say that I’m being unfair there, they say that once you factor in the player’s high wage and the new football financial world brought on by Covid 19, the fee is a reasonable one, but I’ve twice asked those who say this to come up with comparable examples to Paterson’s bargain price during this window and nobody has yet.
Anyway, to get back to the point I’ve been leading up to from the start, there were all sorts of reasons, despite our very good recent away results in the Championship lately, to fear the worst at Blackburn today – I was definitely expecting another defeat against a side that I’d say were as impressive as any visiting team I saw at Cardiff City Stadium in 19/20.
From what I’d read prior to the match, my opinion was shared by an awful lot of City fans. Indeed, I was surprised to see how many were starting to be critical of Neil Harris, but maybe I shouldn’t have been really because he was probably nobody’s first choice when Neil Warnock left, apart, it seems, from the Cardiff City Board.
So, I think that even when he was steering us to a record which I believe was the third best in the division over the second half of last season, there was still probably a sizeable number in the fan base for felt our manager was only just managing to keep his head above water despite the good results, particularly post lockdown.
It would be going over the top to say there’s been an air of crisis over the club, but I’d say the club’s supporters are more restless now than at any time under Neil Harris’ management – perhaps the vultures were just beginning to circle?
Therefore, what effect will a 0-0 draw today in a game in which we had to play with ten men from the sixty fifth minute have on the mood around the club?
I’d like to think it would be a positive one, because, for me, this was definitely a good outcome against a team that had the momentum of 5-0 and 4-0 wins behind them going into the game. As someone who would not even be close to contemplating suggesting we might need a change of manager, this was a reminder of what we do have going in our favour in terms of durability and work ethic.
I say all of this mind while being frustrated that I’ve still only been able to watch one of matches so far – for the other four, I’ve had to make judgements based on what I’ve heard from Radio Wales’ commentators and summarisers. More often than not, when that has been the case in the past, I’ve tended to just make observations as opposed to anything in depth and that’s what I intend doing here.
The first thing I’ll say is that both Rob Phillips and Kevin Ratcliffe sounded very impressed by Keiffer Moore today. Ratcliffe talked of us having got him at a bargain price and believed that he has become a different, much more confident, player in the past year on the back of his goals and performances in a Wales shirt.
It does seem that we have a striker at the top of his game who has goals in him if he gets the right service. I happen to think that Moore’s presence in a team does not mean that service needs to be solely high balls into the box, he is good enough with the ball at his feet to fit in with a more ground based offensive approach – witness the lovely little pass he slipped through to Joe Ralls I think it was at Forest.
Of course, at six feet five, it would be daft not to make use of the height advantage he has over most opponents he faces and, to that end, despite what was described as a good display by Junior Hoilett and what some on the messageboards are saying was Seyi Ojo’s best performance so far, it did sound to me as if, once again, there were very few crosses into the box from open play for Moore to feed on. Indeed, from what I’ve heard and seen it would seem to me that Ojo’s default action so to speak when he is fed the ball out wide with the chance to run at a defence is to cut inside looking to shoot.
Our two wingers and one big striker approach seems a flawed one when you consider that for a few seasons now we have not given anywhere near enough opportunities for our big man to show his prowess in the air from open play and when you consider that we hardly have a multitude of incisive and imaginative attacking passers to play the number ten type role to offer an alternative to our non crossing wingers, it’s little wonder our strikers barely ever end up with ten goals in a season.
For me, City are fortunate to have two tall strikers this season who are better than you might expect with the ball at their feet for someone of their size. The latter stages of last season offered evidence of a better understanding between Lee Tomlin and Robert Glatzel and I’d like to think that the same sort of thing could be seen when Tomlin and Moore get a chance to play together for a while.
Unfortunately, you have to wonder if that is a partnership we’re going to see much of this season. A year ago Tomlin was, by his own admission, fitter than he had been for sone time, but, for some reason, was not being picked in the starting eleven by Neil Warnock. When he did get his chance following the change of manager of, he proved himself to be our most effective all round attacking player by a distance, but, even with his better levels of fitness, there were always accommodations made for him because it was considered he was not up to the challenges posed by, say, a fortnight of fixtures that included a couple of midweek games.
Tomlin’s season would have ended in February through injury if it had not been extended and a hamstring injury in the closing minutes of the Play Off game at Fulham meant that he was only ready for his first start of the campaign today after having no sort of pre season regime – I know it was hardly a normal pre season, but players who missed out on that training programme traditionally encounter problems in getting up to scratch over the following months after getting over injury and that still has to apply to some extent, especially to someone with a fitness record like Tomlin’s.
Now, having finally got the man who is by far our most inventive player into the starting eleven, we are going to have to do without Tomlin for the game at Preston in a fortnight when fixtures resume after the international break.
The second yellow card Tomlin picked up today for what was described as a petty foul committed on the edge of the Blackburn penalty area sounds absolutely pointless and his manager talked about it being something that someone with Tomlin’s experience should not be doing.
Referee Darren Bond was described as “abysmal at best” by Neil Harris and I think it’s fair to say that the radio commentary team were not impressed by him today, but, to illustrate Tomlin’s mistake, nobody was criticising Bond’s decision when it came to the second yellow card – the same could not be said of his decision with the first one mind.
Anyway, the point is that, for all sorts of reasons, you cannot bank on Tomlin being available to start in the majority of our matches this season and this in a team that have scored just three times in five games, with two of those coming from corners and the other one from a recycled long throw.
Moore may be a very confident striker at the moment and he has got off to a fast start with those goals in the win at Forest, but if the lack of quality service he is getting from open play continues, how long will he be able to maintain those high confidence levels?
It’s been claimed in the media that the word coming from the club is that our first priority is a winger and with Albert Adomah having been released from his Forest contract on Friday, you have to wonder whether he is on his way back to us on a permanent level. Given what I said about the lack of crosses from out wide, you can understand why we might be thinking in terms of another winger, but, surely, it’s more important that we get someone who can play an attacking midfield role in more central areas to provide a better alternative to Tomlin than Joe Ralls or Leandro Bacuna?
Just a couple more points, I was distracted at times during the game as I tried to figure out who Kevin Ratcliffe was getting Greg Cunningham confused with. Cunningham came on when the gamble of playing Joe Bennett when he had only returned to training on Thursday after the injury he sustained at Forest failed after only thirteen minutes – Ratcliffe first nominated Ralls as a replacement for the injured left back and then said he’d only ever seen Cunningham play in the middle of the park. Later the former Wales captain talked about Cunningham being a defensive risk and that his strength lie in what he could do in the ball which, on the evidence of what I’ve seen when Cunningham has played for us is wrong on both counts – try as I might, I could not think who Ratcliffe had in mind when he was talking about Cunningham!
Cunningham promptly passed simple balls straight to an opponent on a couple of occasions within minutes of coming on, and when a couple of his team mates did the same thing soon after, I think Ratcliffe may have had a point when he said that our players may have been confused due to the similarity between our new off white change strip and the blue and white halved Blackburn shirts – if ever there was a game where a third kit was required, surely this was it?
Can I also give a mention to my new book Real Madrid and all that which has been bought out to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary on 10 March next year of our win over the team which can be judged as the best team in Europe based on their record in continent wide club tournaments since they were introduced in the 1950s. The book is more than that though, it’s a review of the whole of the momentous 1970/71 season which saw us fighting for promotion to old First division, reaching two Cup Finals and scoring the best goal I’ve seen us scoring in nearly sixty years of supporting the club – it also contained the most controversial transfer of my Cardiff City supporting life.
Real Madrid and all that is available in e book and paperback formats and can only be purchased from Amazon.
Once again, can I finish by making a request for support from readers by them becoming my Patrons through Patreon. Full details of this scheme and the reasons why I decided to introduce it can be found here, but I should say that the feedback I have got in the past couple of years has indicated a reluctance from some to use Patreon as they prefer to opt for a direct payment to me. If you are interested in becoming a patron and would prefer to make a direct contribution, please contact me at paul.evans8153@hotmail.com or in the Feedback section of the blog and I will send you my bank/PayPal details.
Incisive report as usual, and I look forward to buying your new book.
In those halcyon days when The Beatles first came to fame, it was often the case that would-be “gentlemen of fashion” (to use a phrase from a later pop group) made every effort to emulate The Beatles, even to the point of wearing the same sort of jacket as that of the Liverpool group. Like many of my friends I scraped together some money to buy a Beatles-style jacket made by Sid Hoffman, bespoke tailor on The Tumble, Pontypridd.
We all wore our jackets with pride but before long an uneasy feeling developed. The bulk of the material was there but something was missing. Eventually I went back to Mr Hoffman and asked him to alter the jacket — which he did even though I didn’t have quite enough to pay for his sartorial wizardry. The reformed jacket now had LAPELS.
All this self-indulgent anecdotal recollection could perhaps be seen as a metaphor for the current Cardiff City team and tactics. There are few of what could be called “lapels”.
There is little money available; the team lacks creativity; there are few balls into the opposing box; our new centre-forward is usually as isolated as Eleanor Rigby; he lacks the support of another genuine front-man to play off him; and so on. Just as Mr Hoffman’s could fit a missing piece into a jacket our management team could possibly change our pattern of play. Robert Glatzel in tandem with Keiffer Moore could be the “lapel” we need. Surely it would be worth trying?
In addition the long-throws from the touchline, now thankfully less common, would be more effective if given a lower trajectory than the high-flying loops which still appear, and if they could sometimes be aimed for the near post to be headed on closer to goal might be worthwhile Ironically the corner-kicks are too often over-hit, and again it would be worth placing one of the taller men beyond the far post for a run at the high ball to be headed back across goal or even into the goal itself. Even The Beatles changed their act.
Good morning Paul – I managed to watch the game having paid £10 for the streaming pass. That was not my original intention, for I was going to listen to it as you did on Radio Wales, but in the end I felt that I just had to pay up to witness the encounter, to see for myself so to speak, if there was any improvement in our play. Well, we were better, but never really likely to win the game unless there were defensive slip ups in the Blackburn defense, rather similar to the two careless passes given by substitute Cunningham.
There was one excellent effort by Hoilett early on that brought a smart save from the Blackburn keeper, but not a lot else to cause problems. The tendency of our two wide men to cut in and try for goal must cause Moore nightmares, because he needs a reasonable number of crosses from open play to attack. Nevertheless, he is a very willing performer and toiled away all afternoon in the City’s cause. A good acquisition based upon what I have now seen in the four matches.
But just what do we do with Tomlin. In the past I have alluded to his niggly attitude to the opposition giving needless fouls away, but at the same time appreciate the talents that he possesses. Yesterday he gave his first foul away after 21 seconds – yes 21 seconds. No need, just madness. His first yellow card was not justified, but his second for which he earned his dismissal was for he was never going to get away with a raised forearm into his opposition. And so, for the remaining 20 minutes the team were on the backfoot, defending stoutly, and managed to secure the one point that their defensive efforts deserved. Sadly, there is no creative alternative at the moment to Tomlin, I just wish that there were. And if there were, I would be inclined to leave him on the bench. Mr.Harris needs to think this through.
To this observer, I saw no clashes in kit, and thought that this strip has a touch more class than some they have worn in the past.
I see that we are being linked again with Adomah. I believe him to be 32 years of age, but if he cannot be selected for a Forest team that has lost all their league games to date, is he really what we want. There must surely be a fringe Premiership player who could do a good job for us and himself out there somewhere. Fingers crossed.
By the way, the book is on order – looking forward to it.
I did not hear the commentary but as Ratcliffe is knowledgable about Everton and Everton reserves rather than any of the Welsh clubs I suspect that he was thinking of a man who is,tragically, no longer with us and Rob Phillips was too polite to correct him.
Thanks to those of you who have replied, I really enjoyed your post Anthony with it’s clever analogy. The two striker approach is making something of a comeback, but I think our current central midfielders would really struggle if we were to switch to 4-4-2 and persist with two specialist wingers – maybe a diamond system or one where we only have one specialist winger might work?
As for long throw ins, it was noticeable last season that we only started scoring from the occasional one when Will Vaulks started taking them – his deliveries tended to be flatter and faster than anyone else’s.
BJA, thanks for the book order. As for what you say, I’ve now seen the extended highlights of Saturday’s game and must say that I thought Tomlin’s first booking was ridiculous and his second one soft (although that’s not to say it was unjustified). Essentially, my attitude with Tomlin is that while his performances match those of last season, he’s worth his place in the team, but as soon as they fall below that level, he is someone who should be left out (especially when you consider his age) and he has not been the influence he was in 19/20 yet this time around.
I like the kit we wore on Saturday as well, but I still feel it was too similar to Blackburn’s if there is one game we have this season which justifies us wearing a third kit, then Blackburn away is it. I see Adomah signed for QPR yesterday, I reckon we’ve always been looking at things in terms of the 16 October deadline as opposed to yesterday.
Mike, I think you’re right about Rob Phillips.