Cardiff defiant and organised, but never threatening an upset, bow out of the FA Cup.

1 Response to Cardiff defiant and organised, but never threatening an upset, bow out of the FA Cup.

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   March 1, 2025 at 1:05 pm

   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.