After this lunchtime’s goalless stalemate at Cardiff City Stadium in which a Blackpool side with the second worst defence and the second worst away record in League One kept City out pretty comfortably, I’m reading the words “we’ve been found out” quite a bit on message boards and social media.
I beg to differ, are we really saying that it’s taken about three quarters of the season for visiting teams to get around to trying sticking eleven men behind the ball, keep two rigid banks of four, or five and let us have the ball as long as it is in front of them?
There have been teams who’ve come to our ground and had a go at us, – Bradford did and, fair play to them, they were worth their win, but the other teams who’ve come to played more positively were beaten. Trying to think of the top of my head, I’d say Leyton Orient, Reading and Doncaster came with a positive attitude, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Luton all conceded a goal so early in the game that it was hard to get a handle on what their attitude was as the match kicked off.
As for the rest, I’d say that their attitude was little different from Lincoln, Wycombe and Blackpool, the three sides that have kept us goalless in our most recent trio of home matches with a return of a single point.
Most of our fourteen home wins have come against sides with a similar game plan to the last three visiting teams, we weren’t “found out” against them, but, in my opinion, there were two big differences that have not applied against Lincoln, Wycombe and Blackpool.
First, we’re not playing with a six foot five inch “old fashioned target man” currently and, second, any novelty value in our false number nine approach which saw opposing sides bemused as to how they should cope with what was definitely an unusual approach for the lower divisions has now gone.
We’ve had two big away wins in our stuttering run in recent weeks which have shown that, if we can get ahead while playing with a false number nine, it can be very effective against sides that have to come out and look for a way to get back into the game.
Unfortunately though, without Yousef Salech we’re finding ourselves in a position where we have to play in a more patient way which can lead to a situation, which certainly applied today, where what I believe has been a mainly successful attempt to play a front foot passing game becomes the sort of “tippy tappy” stuff that many supporters have an issue with.
With Salech in the line up, City had the ability to leave defences in two minds. For much of the time, they would be facing a team that played in what I’ll call the BBM way, but there was also the option, which City were not averse to using, of going direct towards the big man if needed.
Today, Omari Kellyman had a far post header turned around the post by Bailey Peacock-Farrell in the first half, but that was the only header at goal from open play that I can recall in our last three home games – lately, opposing centrebacks have known that they only need to be adequate with their aerial defending to keep us out from that facet of the game.
Put Salech in the team and central defenders have to stay on the back foot so to speak because they know that besides the movement of our wide attackers and sometimes there’d almost be two number tens all breaking into the penalty area to cash in on the uncertainty Salech would cause.
It should also be remembered that Isaak Davies has been missing for a month or more and, while his pace would not be as much of a weapon against sides prepared to sit as deep as Lincoln, Wycombe and Blackpool have done, his finishing ability would be welcome in a side that have been misfiring in front of goal lately.
Those who say we do not shoot enough should note that with their twenty six goal attempts today, City took our tally in our last three matches to a whopping seventy five, but only eighteen of them have been on target and ten of those came in last weekend’s romp at Exeter – again, I don’t think we should be criticised for a lack of goal attempts, it’s the lack of accuracy involved that is the problem.
So, for all, that City will be criticised for their “sideways and backwards” football, the truth is they’ve been getting shots away left, right and centre lately, but, in actuality, I think all that does is betray a lack of confidence in our players. Whereas before there was trust in the system, there’s a hit and hope element to our shooting now with too many of them being purely speculative with very little chance of succeeding.
Credit should go to Lincoln because they were the first to draw the sting from our false number nine system as they seemed to know exactly when their centrebacks should go with Kellyman and/or Rubin Colwill when they dropped into midfield and when they’d leave someone else to pick them up.
I’ve already mentioned Kellyman’s header that drew a save from Peacock-Farrell and the keeper did well to deny him from another effort early in the second half, but overall Omari’s not recaptured the form he was showing before he picked up the injury which forced him to miss a game.
As for Colwill, his performance today has been called terrible on social media. I disagree with that, he wasn’t terrible when he had the ball, I’d say the problem was he had so little of it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rubin have a more muted game than today and, if he’s going to live up to the billing of best player in League One which some have bestowed on him, he has to do a lot more as the season comes to its climax than he did today.
For all of City’s seventy eight per cent possession, twenty six shots and forty seven touches in the Blackpool penalty area, the visitors could claim, with some justification, that there were two occasions where they came closer to breaking the deadlock than we managed to.
The first instance came when forwards Tom Bloxham and Ashley Fletcher combined to good effect and the former should have done better than stab his shot inches wide. Josh Bowler was largely quiet on his return to Cardiff City Stadium, but he brought the save of the game out of Nathan Trott after a short corner routine.
Ryan Wintle perhaps came as close as anyone to scoring for City with a shot from twenty five yards which missed narrowly and then Peacock-Farrell made his best save to keep out the midfielder’s header from Bagan’s corner in added time.
Apart from that it was all a bit of a concerning mess played in a flat atmosphere with the lunchtime kick off not helping in that respect.
I find it hard to blame BBM for the downturn in our fortunes. However, I would say that the fact we cannot field a genuine forward on the bench apart from Callum Robinson ,who has a tendency to come deep for the ball like Kellyman and Colwill do, and I’m afraid he looks increasingly like a player that has age catching up with him (he made no impact when introduced after an hour today) is an indictment of our squad depth in some positions.
If we wanted to have a target man type striker on the bench, then you’d have to look to Dan Ola I suppose who has had only had mixed success this season in handling the jump from the under 18 team to the under 21 one.
We do still have a striker on our books who has done a decent job for us in the Championship at times, but Kion Etete’s form and scoring record since he injured a hamstring fairly early on in 23/24 seem to have fallen off a cliff. He’s failed to score in unsuccessful loan spells with Bolton and Rotherham and is hardly setting the world on fire in his latest loan move with St Mirren.
When you also throw in the fact that, according to Wikipedia, Etete moved to St. Mirren on 22 January, that is two days before Salech suffered his neck injury in the game with Stockport, then I think it would be harsh to say City had blundered in not keeping Etete around “just in case”.
It’s different with Luke Pearce though who gained some first team experience with City last season. The young Irish striker has often had me thinking “he has something about him” when I’ve watched him play for the under 21s this season. Granted his figures for the under 21s do not cry out that he’s ready for senior football, but he could have been a useful option to have on the bench at this time when we don’t have another realistic contender for the first team of his type available.
Instead, Pearce was loaned out to Finnish team IFK Mariehamn in February at a time when it had become clear that Salech would be out for some time – that looks like a bit of a mistake at the moment.
One of the regular contributors to the Feedback section has said on a few occasions that we should have signed a back up target man in January. To be honest, I’ve tended to think that, with only a week between Salech’s injury and the closing of the January window, we would have struggled to bring in anyone good enough to fill in for the Dane, but, despite an initially successful attempt to cover up for our lack of striking options, we’ve reached a position where we look seriously short in the final third of the pitch when faced with a team which sets out to frustrate us.
I mentioned the words concerning mess a little early about today’s game, yet the truth is City are closer to promotion tonight than they’ve ever been after this afternoon’s games. I think we should forget about catching Lincoln now after they beat Rotherham 3-0 today, but Bolton’s long unbeaten run came to an end with a 1-0 loss at, of all places, bottom of the table Port Vale. The news got even better as well as Bradford were beaten 2-1 at Burton. Stockport drew 1-1 at Luton and Stevenage are now sixth after beating Reading 1-0.
The under 18’s hopes of making it into the end of season Play Offs suffered a blow with a 1-0 loss to Peterborough at Leckwith this lunchtime.
Treherbert Boys and Girls Club were heavily beaten again in the Ardal League South West I’m afraid, this time by 4-1 at home to Cardiff Airport. Ton Pentre were beaten 1-0 at home by Dinas Powys in the Highadmit Championship, but Treorchy Boys and Girls Club stopped the weekend being a bit of a disaster by winning 2-1 at Aberdare in Division One (East).
Paul, compadre,
I write this with the Tyne-Wear derby about to kick off. So apols if any lack of logic on my part suggests ‘one eye on the football’.
Many thanks as ever. You make your usual eloquent case in defence of BBM: I will now make my usual (predictable?) case for the prosecution… for I sometimes think we look at different games.
But first, as I reckon we should all do, let us look at areas of broad agreement. From the minutiae of yesterday’s game, I concur with your opinion that we may have to pressgang someone to switch position to target man… but like you, cannot see an obvious candidate.
Callum Robinson has been running on empty for quite some time now: to me, his clearly warm personal relationship with his manager is what seems to have kept him in the mix. A more ruthless Vincent should have leant on BBM to transfer him out, for he does not possess the skills necessary to solely lead a BBM attack*… and even as front part of my beloved 4-4-2 formation, is caught offside too often to justify selection. (It is not so much that he is too lazy as to look where the last defender is, as he genuinely seems to think such a technicality is beneath him.)
Yes, I know his modest totals (boosted by the occasionally unconvincingly taken penalty) topped our individual goal scoring tally records before Salech arrived: but what does that say about the others?
[Oh my gawd… let me break-off. Dr Charles Hughes is turning in his grave: YCNMIU** Pepitis has so poisoned British football. Of all the daft things to do, in a bear-pit like St James Park on derby day, what is the one thing the Makems needed to ensure they did not do? Yes, you got it in one. Stupidly invite extra pressure in what is already a pressure cooker that has blown its lid. Yet, in the opening 8 minutes, Sunderland have given away a nightmare kamikaze ‘playing out from the back’ goal… when will football teams ever learn?]
Now to our areas of possible differing views…
Did you see that ridiculous attempt from Robertson to make that easy shooting opportunity presented him by Ashford into a return pass one-two, by bizarrely passing it back from whence it came?
Not a good game for Robertson, his corners were even worse than those of the desperately below-par Tanner.
In fact, no outfield player in blue had a good game… except perhaps Joel Bagan. NG should be fined for his insane ‘reaction foul’ after not getting a free kick decision in his favour just 20 seconds before. That boy has a permanent hernia in his brain.
Then, just before half time Wintle is running forward with the ball fairly centrally and with more space to run into, is about 28 yards from goal, when inexplicably he passes the ball forward instead of ‘unleashing’… and the pass comes to nothing. In the second half, he at least let one fly… alas wide of the mark… and Will Fish poor boy was all over the place with his long range shooting… but at least they were proper attempts at long range shooting. Like you say, The Seasiders’ keeper even had to make 3 fairly routine saves… the last being the best, though Wintle’s header had no real force. But also like you say Paul, there were none to match the spectacular save from Trott that denied Josh Bowler, who was otherwise quiet, because he was well contained by our best player Bagan.
One hopes that Scanlon is not regretting his decision to ‘do the Ayatollah’ with us, and not get a loan to a club where he could be used more. When the loan was announced, I immediately thought… hardly a pressing need… Bagan has been our best player this season, even more so than pre-injury Salech. What was desideratum was a Salech 65 minute replacement… or compadre in a 4-4-2… which I know has no chance of happening under the BBM/Riley regime: to them that triple number arrangement screams out ‘devil worship’ more than 666 even…!!)
But of course I get it, big strikers are as scarce as hens’ teeth… whereas good attacking wing backs available on loan are almost commonplace… the best two we have had in recent times I reckon were Alfie Doughty and Cody Drameh.
All the more reason if we cannot get effective strikers on loan, that we consider ‘thinking outside the square’ and try to shoehorn in one of our defenders as a target man.
Oh for 7 or 8 years ago when we were blessed with some decent proper centre backs… and those were the days when I joined our esteemed fellow MAYA scribe AMO (Anthony Mor O’Brien) in his clarion call for Sean Morrison to lead our attack. We have alas nobody now that obviously fits the bill.
But I note our new second string goalie is a bit of a giant who apparently kicks very well, and since he is not being deemed necessary for the subs’ bench, could he not have been tried out in training down at The Vale? (Eh… am I on to something there? I mean lots of people have started out as goalkeepers and gone on to greater things… Charles Puyol is one that springs to mind, and in a more modest way Josh Magennis, our substitute goalie on the bench against Liverpool at Anfield in October 2007, went on via Neil Ardley’s persuasion to become a prolific striker in the lower divisions.)
But back to our current ‘custodian’…Trott should be congratulated by the way he dashed out to put off Bloxham sufficiently for him to thus miss the goal by a whisker in the move of the game: and oh, that sublime pass from Fletcher showed an attacking wit that no boy in blue had a hope in hell of emulating.
78% possession… God help us. It was all I could do to stay awake. If, as the saying goes ‘possession is nine tenths of the law’, well all I can do is respond with another old saw, viz… then ‘the law is an ass’. Oh for those days when we had much less possession than our opponents… I never thought I would ever hanker for Warnockball, but I do. Play this absurd way next season in the Championship, and before they know it, we’ll be struggling at the bottom.
Fish square to Lawlor… then Lawlor returns it square to Fish… then back square to Lawlor. Yawn, yawn. And in the meantime, we have progressed not one single yard.
I am reminded of that inspired Gary Neville commentary: ‘Where do you want your statue, Vincent Kompany?’
No statues coming our way methinks whilst BBM is our tactical genius… with his plans that run the full gamut of Plan A to… Plan A. But maybe, future stonemasons could INDEED have a part to play…
So let me explain what I mean… by relating this anecdote …
I am reminded of once selling wine in Gedling… about 7 miles from Trent Bridge. Gedling is where two great early Test cricketers are buried in All Hallows churchyard: close friends one (Alfred Shaw) a famous bowler, the other (Arthur Shrewsbury) a batsman who WG Grace once said was the perfect choice to join him to open an innings.
And most touchingly, they are deliberately buried – bowler and batsman – exactly the length of a cricket wicket apart: 22 yards… so one can bowl to the other in spirit.
Well, when their time comes, can I beg Messrs Fish and Lawlor NOT to slavishly follow Dr William Price and get themselves burned, but instead choose to lie in St Augustine’s churchyard in Penarth with its imperious nonpareil position high up on the headland, and its ‘to die for’*** grand vista of Cardiff Bay… There they will join a hero of mine: the great Joseph Parry.
But here is the rub: lay them to rest a similar 22 yards apart, but unlike the Notts duo, our two Bluebirds must be EXACTLY square to each other. Put one forward of the other, and the gravediggers will be taking liberties with footballing history.
*nor does Isaak Davies. And incidentally, do you reckon he has a bit of an injury jinx about him, like Kion Etete? (Neither players’ fault… just an unfortunate freakish fact of life?)
**= You Could Not Make It Up… (even if you tried’…!!)
***pun totally intentional.
TTFN,
Dai.
Thanks for the analysis Paul and the entertainment Dai! It may well have been me who made the comment that if having a big central striker was to be a key element in our strategy this season then we should definitely have had a back up option even if we could not have found one quite as big. There are lots of areas in a team where you can more easily transfer skills but not there. Something for the future in the Championship I hope. I am also looking forward to the Championship because there is much more of a belief there by virtually all of the teams that they can beat their opponents without resorting to quite as much ten man defending.
You will gather I am not a superstitious person by mentioning the championship here. I am confident BBM and the boys will get it done.
Mike Herbert
PS Come on Wales!
Thanks Paul.
Very much in agreement with your points after another frustrating day at the office! Feel like I have been watching the same game now on a loop for about 5 hours. I know that’s because of the rush of recent home fixtures and growing anxiety after the Lincoln match.
Think my initial reaction to the loss was exactly what others online and around me at the match were all saying – namely, we have been found out and everyone knows how to beat us now.
However, you make some very good points and I need to agree with your more measured analysis. Bradford “ found us out” many months ago in an excellent performance by them. But, until the last couple of weeks not many have come to us and been able to replicate and nullify our threat. Usually, our passing and movement wins out in the end – against less well organised teams that is certainly the case.
Pre-Salech injury it felt like if our plan A wasn’t working then we had a number of options from the bench to change things around due to our overall squad quality . However, post- injury I don’t feel the same confidence when the subs come on. Yes, some contribute well- thought Willock was lively yesterday- but others have not been able to influence proceedings.
Have to also agree with Dai re deliveries from corners too. We seem to be getting worse as the season continues and I now never expect us to score from any – particularly when up against some of the giant defenders in opposition teams in recent weeks. However, from a footballing perspective, give me Lawlor over any big bruisers!
Also Dai is spot on with Ng and his rush of blood -again! Totally unnecessary to follow up with a stupid challenge. BBM does need to sort out the petulance and poor decision making from some of our more experienced players. Teams are coming here to hit us on the break and nick something from free kicks and corners, so don’t give them opportunities to do so with stupid challenges.
Hopefully, the break now will bring some fresh legs back and a mental re-set for the final push. Gap still healthy and all in our control so keep positive?
Ta, Paul, for your considered response to the Blackpool (h) game. Like you, I think the statement that we, “have been found out,” is somewhat disengenuous. Rather, I think City have, certainly at home, morphed into a side that seeks to play in second gear at their version of walking-football, thereby allowing the opposition time to get their two banks of four in place, or in Blackpool’s case a bank of 4 in front of a bank of 5. To me there seems little doubt why we have not scored in our last 3 home games. Away from home we are a different team. In our last 3 away games we have scored 9. Pace seems to be the issue. Away, we attack with pace; at home we don’t. Away from home, even without Salech, our pace has overcome the deficit but at home we miss him.
For the first time in a long time BB-M changed from our 4231 formation to 4141. Wintle operated as our sole defensive midfielder. In front of him were both Colwill (R) and Robertson, nominal #10’s, who were given free reign to go forward and join Kellyman. Either side of them were wingers Tanner and Ashford whilst Kellyman, the nominal #9, frequently dropped into the space vacated by Colwill or Robertson. As a formation it did allow us to get more players forward but the quality of the final ball hamstrung many attacks. However, let us not underestimate the loss both Salech and Davies have been in recent weeks but we needed a back-up for the former last summer.
Warning … Gripe of the Week #1 coming!
After barely 12 mins play we had the first teddy-bear picnic of the afternoon. The keeper, clearly not injured, went to ground and the ridiculous sight of one and all of the visiting team, and a few of ours, ambling to the dugouts for further instructions unfolded. Heaven help the problems this sample of players had when, at 10 yrs of age, they went down the shops for their mothers. They’d have forgotten the order for coke and fags by the time they got to their garden gate. This nonsense must be stopped.
Gripe of the Week #2
After 18 mins the visiting keeper was taking 30 secs for his goal-kicks. Infuriatingly he was not booked by the referee for timewasting until the 85th min. Plain bonkers!
Gripe of the Week #3
Blackpool’s #23, on three occasions, fouled Ng. The last one, on 35 mins, was quite a cynical body check which resulted in the City fullback taking matters into his own hands, or rather feet, for which he was cautioned. One is clearly worse than three, even when the three come close together.
For Colwill (R) it was one of those matches. He was largely anonymous. Turnbull did some nice things from his 60th min substitution whilst Lawlor and Fish restricted the Blackpool attack to a single shot on target. City had four times more touches in the opposition’s box than the visitors but it stayed 0-0.
One final thought, Dai. ‘Pepitis,’ and Dai are now forever etched into my memory like Castor & Pollux, Bill & Ben, Ena Sharples & Minnie Caldwell as is Dixon & Dock Green. One plea, sir. Could the three syllables in Pep-i-tis be changed to the three syllables of Peptitis (Pep-ti-tis) which, to me, seems a far more medical term for the disease and also rolls off my tongue somewhat easier. Sage that you are, I will clearly defer to your final decision on the issue.
Oh, by the way, Blackpool’s #23 played the entire game and was not booked.
Thanks for the replies everyone, just a few quick points in relation to some of the issues raised.
Dai, may I suggest, not entirely seriously, that no boy in blue had a hope of playing the sort of pass that Fletcher did because Blackpool’s defensive third was never as deserted as ours was when our opponents attacked. Boring, boring Arsenal were playing almost with eleven men in their own penalty area in the early stages of the second half on Sunday and it needed a bad goalkeeping blunder to break them down – Arsenal are good at defending and Blackpool’s record this season suggests they aren’t, but on Saturday the sheer number of tangerine shirts in front of City whenever they looked to attack offered some proof of an opinion that I’ve heard in international football at times in that even very limited teams can be pretty effective if their primary motivation is just to keep their goal intact.
You, Steve and Huw mention Perry Ng, I must admit I laughed at his booking which it seems to me was entirely down to an opponent not obliging him in his once a game attempt to try a nutmeg. He has about a 95% success rate in the manoeuvre this season and so he lost it when an opponent failed to buy it!
Although I have defended City, I must admit to total bemusement as to why Cian Ashford (who I thought was our best player on Saturday) decided to cut back and wait for support after he worked himself a rare few yards of space deep in Blackpool’s half with a lovely bit of skill. By not being direct when he had a rare opportunity to get to the byeline or drag defenders out by cutting in towards goal, that betrayed a lack of confidence which shouldn’t really be there even if things haven’t quite been working out lately – surely, no manager would instruct his players to, in effect, wait for their marker to catch up with them after they’d beaten them?
Dai asks about Isaak Davies, I never had a problem with my hamstrings, probably because, even at my fittest, I’d have been lapped by someone like Isaak in an 800 metre race, but I can imagine how there must be doubts for anyone whose game is greatly reliant on pace if their hamstrings become unreliable (or the player starts to believe they are). A personal view is that Dai chose a very good example in Kion Etete, who is definitely no speed merchant in the Isaak mould, but, trying to read between the lines as to what’s happened to cause him to become a player who flops at a team as poor as Rotherham are this season, I get the feeling he no longer trusts his hamstrings.
I would also say to Steve that his view that we should have got a forward in during January, which I disagreed with at the time, is looking more perceptive by the day!
A thank you too to Huw for reminding me that I had meant to mention Chris Willock in my match piece because I thought one of the few positives from Saturday was that he did better than he had been doing in some lethargic recent displays.
Finally, I’ll give my agreement to Mike’s view about how our season will end – he is also right when he says Championship teams will not be as preoccupied with defending when they come to Cardiff City Stadium unless, of course, we’re in a similar position to where we are this season! I must say mind that my confidence is due more to Bolton and Bradford’s inability to take advantage of all of the points we’ve dropped recently – it’s pretty incredible to think that our chances of going up are far better now than they were just before we kicked off at Plymouth because our lead over third place hasn’t changed and there are so much fewer games left to play. One other thing worth mentioning is Bolton’s run in, their last seven fixtures are;-
Plymouth A
Stockport H
Cardiff A
Stevenage H
Huddersfield H
Bradford A
Luton H
It’s hard to see any of that lot being “on the beach” when they play Bolton!
Paul,
Thanks for detailing Bolton’s run-in. I note the first of their opponents have come from nowhere and is the team with serious momentum: were I a betting man (which I am not), then I’d wager a cautious tenner on them getting the third promotion spot.
Oh, and a note to my esteemed colleague Steve re diseases…
I have to admit that many an infant has been pulled from the breast knowing more about medicine than me… but I based my ‘Pepitis’ on Pep + the suffix ‘itis’. As far as I know, there is no suffix ‘titis’… and although ‘peptic ulcers’ spring to mind, forgive me for sticking to the boringly logical Steve, and come to think of it, that was pretty much the order of the day on Sunday for Pep’s men. No flash of genius won that game: as you rightly say Paul, that error from Kepa proved crucial.
Oh and Steve was indeed right in calling for a second striker back in the January window. I too was desirous of an addition in that position… knowing for a long time that Robinson cannot cut the mustard… and also fearful that a team could make a sudden offer for Salech… and the fee would be too much for Vincent to turn down.
DW
Oops, I should have put ‘the boringly logical’ there, in quotes followed by a comma… as it is now, it looks like I was saying ‘the boringly logical Steve’… which of course I was emphatically not saying…!!
Mind you there are worse things to be called, and Steve is certainly the ‘logical’ bit… but in his case I should more accurately say the ADMIRABLY logical, Steve.
Dai.
What me the, “admirably logical,” bloke and not, “the boringly logical Steve,” Dai? I’m sure there are those who would not err on the side of your generosity of spirit and hoist their flag to the latter. However, there was no need to feel an explanation was in order.
Even crisps have a shelf life and perhaps Pep’s way of things is coming to its, “do not sell after,” date.
Admittedly, I’ve had enough of seeing City hump it forward, but in defence of Warnock, we did have the speed-merchant Mendez-Laing (85 apps; 14 goals) and the tricky Hoilett (173 apps; 23 goals) who broke up a one-dimensional approach. On the other hand Lincoln, 40% of their game-time this season has seen the ball out of play. Against City this season at the CCS, they got by with approximately 22 mins of the ball. Their approach I can now also do without. They are nowhere near having a Mendez-Laing or Hoilett, let alone both, to add spice to their bland offering.
This morning I came across one medical webpage that said, that, ” ‘itis,’ comes from the Greek suffix ‘-????,’ meaning inflammation … While inflammation is a natural immune response designed to heal and protect, when it becomes excessive or chronic, it can lead to significant health issues.” What of the football equivalent? Excessive or chronic Pepitis, again, I can certainly do without. It obviously leads to issues. Inflaming the ball with a myriad of passes either side of the 18 yd line or the footsie played out with keeper and centre-backs on the 6 yd line is also something I have an aversion to. Perhaps that’s what has resulted in the multi-ball system adopted in recent seasons.
My grandmother used to say that there was more than one way to skin a cat so on the Football Swingometer I guess I’d be nearer to Pep and his, “itis,” than the Lincoln City Academy of Football approach. However, I’d not be too disdainful if a goal came from that latter route occasionally but neither too snobbish when we scored a goal from more than 10 passes.
A literary precedence has been set in naming this disease Pep-ti-tis. It is seen on the M4 corridor every day of the week where the, “Welcome to Wales,” signs are translated into, “Croeso i Gymru,” rather than, “Croeso i Cymru,” that Welsh speakers have difficulty in saying. That said, the itis is truly Pep’s.