There are those who maintain that a penalty was not missed if it was saved by the goalkeeper, the shot was on target, so it cannot be called a miss. Therefore, to partly acknowledge that, I’ll say that the four penalties Cardiff City have failed to score front this season have all been saved – having got that out of the way, I’ll never change my opinion that a penalty that does not result in a goal has been missed!
Surely a professional team playing in a good quality League (the Championship is stronger than many European country’s top divisions) should do better than score from just twenty per cent of the league penalties they are awarded in a season? City’s spot kick failures have come in two games we lost 1-0 in and now there’s today’s miss in a 1-1 draw – the other was in a match we won 1-0, so that one doesn’t matter so much.
Now, I accept that I’m over simplifying things a little here, but we score our penalty today and the two in the single goal losses and that’s four more points we’ve got – we’d now be on fifty points, the mark which traditionally means safety and todays results mean that it will do again this year.
Today’s miss was by Sory Kaba who, to be fair, did net the one spot kick we’ve scored from in last weekend’s 4-1 loss at Sheffield United and, as he got the goal which gave us a home point against Stoke City today with his eighth strike since joining us, I’m not going to be too critical of him. However, it is pretty typical of this squad that they have consistently been unable to take advantage of the gilt edged chance a penalty represents.
In truth, City, with Romaine Sawyers in for Andy Rinomhota in the only change from Wednesday’s win at Watford, did not deserve to win today, but, in the position they find themselves that’s even more immaterial than it normally is.
Still, when you look at the bigger picture and consider our pathetic home record since the end of the 19/20 season, along with the number of games at Cardiff City Stadium where we’ve slipped meekly to defeat after going a goal down inside twenty minutes, like we did today, then you have to be happy with a draw I suppose. Although we’ve been pretty good at winning after conceding the first goal in away games over the past three seasons, it has hardly ever happened at home.
Yet again, City made a slow start to a game – there was no pressing, no energy and very little possession. It wasn’t as bad as at Watford and in our previous two home games, but a Stoke side with just a point from their last four matches were given a nice, gentle introduction to a game in which a City win would have come in very handy.
Sabri Lamouchi would say there is a factor which goes a long way towards explaining why there was so little urgency early on today and I’ll come to that later, but the truth was that although City were presenting the ball back to Stoke almost as soon as they got it, the Potteries team’s tempo was so slow that we were in no great danger as long as we kept our shape and maintained our concentration.
For all Stoke’s possession, nothing of note had happened when Mahlon Romeo headed a cross which had been flashed across City’s goal behind for the visitors first corner on eighteen minutes. However, it was here that City’s concentration wavered as an unmarked Josh Laurent, who City, apparently, tried to sign in the summer, back headed into the net from about eight yards out.
Of course, any goal scored from an unmarked header from a set piece will have management and coaching staff for the defending team playing the blame game. As far as I can tell, City do not employ a zonal marking system (if they do it went drastically wrong today) and, given the space Laurent had, it’s hard to be certain who was supposed to be marking him. But I think that person was probably Kion Etete. whose overall performance came up some way short of some of his recent ones I’m afraid.
Throughout most of the game, City were having one of those days where they make ball retention look almost impossible, one of those days where they might occasionally string a couple of passes together, but don’t expect any more than that.
Joe Ralls did manage to slide Kaba in with a neat ball which the main source of our goals lately pulled across the face of goal (Kaba was adamant goalkeeper Jack Bonham had got a touch on his shot and he may have been right), but, that apart, there was no sign whatsoever that City had an equaliser in them.
However, ten minutes after falling behind, City were level with a goal straight out of the route one playbook as two Stoke defenders went for Ryan Allsop’s big boot down the middle and barely got a touch on it to leave Kaba with a clear run in on Bonham – City’s top scorer calmly knocked the ball through the advancing keeper’s legs to bring his team level against the run of play.
The main talking point of the rest of the half concerned Ralls, who must have come close to seeing a red card for a lunge at defender Connor Taylor right in front of the away fans, but referee Andy Davies decided that a yellow one was sufficient punishment.
Stoke’s Dwight Gayle had what looked like a decent chance to restore his side’s lead, but Kipre’s fine block snuffed out the danger (the goal apart, City defended well today) and half time arrived with Stoke perhaps feeling hard done by not to be in front in what remained a slow paced affair.
As it turned out, Laurent’s goal was Stoke’s only on target effort of the game, but, despite the lack of goalmouth action at either end, the second half proved to be a better watch and, with City finishing the stronger of the two teams, they were worth their draw, but no more than that, by the end.
City’s two former Crewe players were able to come up with two passes that rose far above the general level of City’s attempts to find a team mate this afternoon and these provided the best chances the team had to win the game.
First Perry Ng’s lovely cross found Kaba in acres of space on the far post, but he was unable to make a clean contact with the ball (as it was, the linesman had his flag up for offside, but I must say it looked okay to me on the replay I saw of the incident).
Then, just after Lamouchi had made a couple of attacking substitutions by bringing Mark Harris and Jaden Philogene on for Etete and Ralls, Ryan Wintle played the pass of the match to send the latter into space down City’s left and when he tried to cut back from the byeline, he was brought down by Taylor for an obvious penalty.
Kaba’s penalty against Sheffield United went straight down the middle as the keeper dived out of the way. This time, he opted to go low to Bonham’s left, but the keeper guessed correctly and was able to save . It was a good save, not brilliant as I’ve seen it described by some, but, if you’re going to hit a penalty low to either side of a keeper, I’d say you need to make sure it’s hitting the side netting as a Championship standard goalkeeper will have a very good chance of saving it if he goes the right way – while Kaba’s penalty was heading for the corner of the net, it didn’t look as if it was hitting the side netting to me.
Apart from that, Callum O’Dowda, heads and shoulders above all others when it came to City’s man of the match in my opinion, drew a decent save out of Bonham from twenty yards and Wintle got back to foil Gayle when the veteran forward was well placed. However, despite a succession of corners towards the end, City don’t carry the same threat as they once did from set pieces and Stoke survived with few alarms for their point.
Generally, the results elsewhere only intensified the feeling of a missed opportunity. Blackpool and Wigan refuse to go quietly after beating Birmingham and Millwall respectively, but the real kick in the teeth was QPR’s 2-1 win at Burnley which I reckon means they’ll survive now – Burnley have been winless against three of the bottom six in the last week and I suppose the only positive emerging from that is that our game there on the last day of the season is no longer looking like Mission Impossible.
The good news came at Bristol City where the home team scored in added time to secure a 2-1 win over Rotherham and, better still, it was the same score at Coventry where Reading slipped closer to the drop. With only six points left to play for, the side that were docked six points are three behind us with a worse goal difference and with their remaining matches against Wigan and Huddersfield, they’ll be damaging relegation rivals if they were to get the two wins they should now need to stand a chance of finishing above us.
As for the matter I said I’d return to, it’s the congested April fixture list which our manager is not a fan of. I’ve mentioned the passive start City made and the generally slow pace of the game, well tiredness had to be a factor in that surely? Our manager also makes the point that we play at Rotherham on Thursday night before facing Huddersfield next Sunday lunchtime whereas Neil Warnock’s team will not have played for twelve days when they come here.
This is all a fair argument to make from City’s perspective, they’re effectively being penalised through no fault of their own by having to play Rotherham again with no consideration of what the score was when the original game was abandoned.
However, if City are feeling the effects of this gruelling last five weeks of the season, I do wonder why our manager only chose to use three substitutes today (one of those was in goal where Jac Alnwick came on to replace Allsop who it’s been reported is out for the rest of the season with an abductor injury)?
City’s under 18s are ending their season well, they followed up their win over Reading in midweek with a 2-0 victory at Wigan this lunchtime with Louis Philips and Troy Perrett scoring.
In the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division, Ton Pentre we’re 4-1 winners at Garw and AFC Porth were beaten 3-1 at Bridgend Street – no game today for Treherbert Boys and Girls Club in Division 1, but they did win 3-1 at Penrhiwceiber in midweek.
Finally, there are still a few signed copies of my latest book “Tony Evans Walks on Water” available from the Trust Office (near Gate 5) on matchdays at the reduced price of £9 for Trust members.
Stoke City have the best away record in the division over each side’s past 6 away games but are on a wobble recently, and when chances present themselves you have to take them.
Most other results went our way with the exception of Burnley dropping the ball for third time in a row – there’s no way they stay this generous to opposition so we need to get into a good position before final day.
Hints of tiredness within the camp and hectic schedule are understandable but not what one wants to hear. Especially as we’re now missing our starting striker and starting keeper from the run-in.
Have we got any fingernails left?
Hi Paul and thanks for excellent summary again.
Yep, so frustrating again and although we didn’t deserve a win we desperately needed it. The penalty would have papered over the usual cracks, but it was better than the recent Sunderland experience. Again though I just don’t get the passive starts and lack of urgency and press until the desperate last 10-15 minutes when we seem to realise the urgency of it all. I can only assume we are just so scared of making errors and following managers instructions.
At least some of the other results went our way – just disappointing that Burnley have now handed favours to our rivals and don’t think that will extend to our last match!
Stress of it all too much and be glad when it’s all over for the season. Just hope we get something out of Thursday and Mr Warnock doesn’t jinx us next week or really will be on pins going into that last match.
On another note, well done to Wrexham. Now there’s a team that really have grasped their opportunity and enjoyable to watch – even with a tendency for long throw ins!
Thanks both for the replies, I’d say that the odds against us being relegated have lengthened following our last two games and, although it would be great to have seen that penalty go in, I suppose you cannot be too disappointed when that’s happening. I’d say that we’re now in a position where two things are conceivable, first, we could lose our last three games and, second, that we could still stay up if we did so. I certainly wouldn’t want that theory to be tested mind, but I must say that it seems to me that a lot of City fans are sounding over optimistic about Thursday’s game. Granted, we were more than a goal better than Rotherham down here and we were comfortably on top for forty five minutes in the abandoned game, but I’d say that makes it more likely by the law of averages that we’ll see the “real” Rotherham on Thursday (they’re certainly a better team than they’ve looked against us so far – I’d be very happy to get out of there with a draw because, as you may have guessed by now, I’ve become a confirmed pessimist when it cones to us playing at home!