A shorter piece than normal this time because there’s not a great deal to say about Cardiff City’s Fifth Round FA Cup tie against Aston Villa at Villa Park tonight – Villa won in a manner which always suggested they were going through without too many alarms, but a score of 2-0 meant that it was a defeat with some honour for City with two or three very good individual performances along the way for good measure.
With both managers hinting before the game that this was one that they didn’t really need in terms of saving their strongest line ups for other competitions, it was a surprise to see Villa going with not too far short of the strongest team they had available. Although City gave a debut to Dylan Lawlor as one of three centrebacks and included Luey Giles again at left back, they had more experience than I expected with Dimi Goutas back, Aaron Ramsey captaining the side, Chris Willock and Anwar El-Ghazi on the wing and Callum Robinson up front.
Despite the three centrebacks. Giles, like Perry Ng on the right, was very much a full back in what was a rigid 5-4-1 system with Will Fish the other centreback and Rubin Colwill partnering Ramsey in central midfield.
Having spent much of Tuesday night defending, it was more of the same and then some for City as they fought resolutely to keep Villa out for around three quarters of the game, but the lack of attacking threat from them meant that it had looked throughout like the only way they could progress into the Quarter Finals was on penalties after a 0-0 draw.
There were only two occasions when the 6,500 City fans, who gave the team great support throughout, could have been cheering a goal. The first was not too long before half time when Ng went down in the penalty area under a challenge by Lamare Bogarde, but no penalty was forthcoming despite Roy Keene and Ian Wright during the half time break being in agreement that it was the sort of incident where VAR would have upheld a referee’s decision to point to the spot. However, referee Peter Bankes is a regular in the Premier League these days and so the bigger club is always going to be favoured when he does a cup game involving one team from the top flight and another from the EFL – I’m not saying Mr Bankes was outrageously biased or anything, but most of the contentious decisions went Villa’s way.
The only other chance we had really was just before Villa broke the deadlock as superb passes by Fish and Ng gave sub Yousef Salech the chance to slide to get the first touch on the full back’s cross and force Emi Martinez into a diving save.
I mentioned two or three outstanding individual performances by City players and Lee Dixon gave the man of the match award to Ethan Horvarth who, while still making you nervous when the ball’s at his feet, made four or five great saves. Horvarth foiled Ollie Watkins twice and Leon Bailey before half time, but, for me, his two best saves came within a few minutes of each other just after the break as he turned aside shots by John McGinn and Marcus Rashford.
Only one player managed to beat Horvarth, Marco Asensio scoring with similar finishes from around twelve yards in the sixty eighth and eightieth minutes. The first came from a pass from Rashford who looked very close to being offside, but you know these days that VAR gets offside decisions right even if it seems to take something like half an hour to confirm it. The second goal was more straightforward as Asensio fired in from a Bailey cross from the other side of the pitch.
The other outstanding City performance came from Colwill. Craig Bellamy’s lukewarm assessment of Rubin included a suggestion that he could be used in a deeper role than the attacking midfielder position he’s spent most of his career occupying, well he gave the Welsh manager food for thought tonight with a performance which suggested that he may be right about Colwill operating as a number six or eight.
I mentioned earlier that City played a strict 5-4-1 and it’s true to say that El-Ghazi and Willock were more like wing backs than wingers and the same applied to Ramsey and Colwill who rarely moved from the pivot positions.
Therefore much of Colwill’s game was spent without the ball just in front of the back five, but when he could get some possession he provided moments of quality which suggested he could have caused Villa more problems if we could have got a bit more of the ball. The thing that was maybe most impressive about Rubin tonight though was his forty yard run down the right in the ninetieth minute past a couple of opponents before delivering a deep cross which initially drew howls of derision from the home fans until it found its way perfectly to another sub Isaak Davies.
You look at the Welsh team currently and think that it looks much easier for Rubin to get in there as a central midfielder rather than as a number ten – on tonight’s evidence, it might not be as outlandish as it once seemed to City fans like me who saw him only as a number ten type.
Other players to do well were Fish, who was assured in his passing and defending and Ramsey who provided moments of class in the hour or so he played, while Giles did better than he did at Stoke in the last round and generally came through his contest with Bailey well – Lawlor defended manfully on his first senior appearance, while also playing one or two balls which suggested that he can transfer the passing ability he shows at age group levels into the first team if given more chances.
Just as on Tuesday , the under 21 team were in action on the same day as the first team and the match with Coventry at Leckwith this afternoon was almost a carbon copy of the game at Bristol City three days ago. City again went a goal down from a corner inside the first ten minutes, then Rocco Simic equalised to secure a 1-1 draw. On Tuesday Simic finished in assured fashion with his feet, today it was a header following a good run and cross by Morgan Wigley. Simic has now scored three times in three games for the under 21s and, from what I saw of the match today, there were signs that his all round game is developing as he becomes more used to playing in this country
I watched the game on ITV… although in truth it was hard for me to concentrate as I was so upset by the earlier events in The White House.
As I forecast, Emery fielded a very strong team, because he clearly senses that he will not make the top 4 in the EPL at the end of the season, and won’t take Europe’s highest honour this season over the likes of Real Madrid and Liverpool… and so to keep his job with his very demanding owners, what better than to win the trophy they last won 68 years ago? I watched on the day as the Busby Babes lost to a Villa team aided by Peter McParland scoring both their second half goals, but more importantly, incredibly staying on the pitch after committing GBH on United’s keeper Ray Wood and breaking Ray’s cheekbone.
The Busby’s Babes got a consolation goal from 25 year old ex coal-miner* Tommy Taylor: he was to die along with 5 of his Cup Final teammates at Munich. Ray Wood ironically survived.
And of course United lost again the following year in the FA Cup Final… again to an act of GBH. This time Nat Lofthouse on Harry Gregg.
Anyway, back to yesterday at Villa Park. A good performance by City… though of course we parked the bus from minute 1 to the last minute.
Roy Keane suggested we did very well, then we got cocky. That mystified me a bit, then I thought about it… and maybe he is alluding to the fact that our playing out from the back was so professional that no team currently something like 38th in the pyramid should be doing it to a team with dreams of ending up in the top 4.
And I sort of get what he means.
Unfortunately Riza is indoctrinated in the ‘Arsenal way’… and wants to show he can cut it with the big boys like your Peps and Enzos. So last night saw some ‘hairy stuff’ playing out… which worked up to a point… but we invariably lost possession on the halfway line… as we will, if we try this against Burnley and Sunderland… and more importantly, might not get away with getting the ball even that far, as our keeper’s control with his feet is straight out of the David de Gea playbook.
Mentioning our keeper… yes, he did very well. Two outstanding saves, and four other good ones (though essentially for the camera). But I have news for him and his manager: we can lose the ball not just halfway, but lose it in the opposition’s third, if the keeper takes a proper goal kick…
And if we had Salech and Davies on from the start, as we should have, instead of the two Villa fans who were City’s weakest performers on the night, it could have been a different story, had we kicked long. We would at least have tested their keeper much sooner than we did with our first effort resulting from that fine move midway through the second half.
That effort incidentally stemmed from one of Will Fish’s fabulous diagonal long passes, and a great cross from NG… who incidentally was unlucky not to get a penalty… (and might have methinks from VAR had several City players immediately joined him in his appeal… but the fact they did not is down to the ‘boy who called wolf’ syndrome, as his teammates are familiar with Perry diving and looking for decisions… and they probably thought this was one such).
Fish however blots his copybook for me by instead of passing these superb long diagonals, he instead often turns to his keeper and passes back so unnecessarily… giving us all the heebie-jeebies.
The boy Giles impressed me… he kept the dangerous Bailey relatively quiet. Lawlor too looked a good prospect… but please boyo, try passing forward.
Disturbed at the end of the game to see El Ghazi with tears in his eyes saluting the Holte End. Look, I am all in favour of sentiment, but ‘chwarae teg’ boyo… remember who pays your wages. You should have been saluting our fantastic 6,000 away fans. Currently you are not worthy of a place in the team anyway.
Colwill raised his game last night… I hope it was not because the game was the only one live on national television. A note for prospective buyers: the boy cannot jump and rarely ever shoots… but I agree he is ‘poetry in motion’ when he does his little turns and flicks.
Finally, a word on Ramsey (our one, I mean)… a solid performance. Well done.
*I am reminded of our player John McSeveney who was one of my first City heroes. We signed him from ‘Bank of England’ club Sunderland, and I promise you I am not googling this, but in the back of my mind I seem to recall that the board of directors at Roker Park managed to get him some sort of partial exemption of his national service, and although he was well into his twenties when he came to Ninian Park, without the low cunning of the Sunderland board to save him (a board of directors that we all know how dimly Len Shackleton had considered them with his famous blank page in his autobiography, ‘Clown Prince of Soccer’)… well his national service deferment caught up with him and astonishingly he was made to do it as a miner in Nantgarw Colliery (whilst still playing for City).
I think the old colliery (at the bottom of Nantgarw Hill) has now got a multiplex and shops on the site.
So it was weirdly, in the mid 1950s City had a throwback to the Bevin Boys doing national service down the pit, a good 7 years after War ended.
Now, did I dream all that McSeveney stuffup? Maybe I did… if so, my apologies. But if I did not… what a banger of a Trivial Pursuit question could result from such an anecdote…!!
Signing off… lunch beckons.
TTFN,
Dai.
Correction 1… watched by recording again of the penalty that was not granted… I now note three of our players with arms raised appealing. But alas it needs a Man U hounding of the referee to get through to him and VAR the depth of their sincerity.
Correction 2… not a ‘good 7 years after War ended’ but a ‘good 7 years after the Bevin Boys were wound up’…
Also while I am here again… I forgot to say that facially Will Fish reminds me of someone. Could not think but who…
Now I have it. He is a dead ringer for the young Ian Paisley Jr… when he was a similar age…
DW