Dreadful home form in derby matches continues for Cardiff – dodgy defending to the fore.

Based on a quick look at the messageboards after Cardiff City’s 2-1 first league defeat of the season today at home against Bristol City, I seem to be out of sync with City fans in my opinion as to the reason for our loss.

I think it’s fair to say the received wisdom regarding the current City side is that we rely an awful lot on height and set piece prowess for our goals, we’re hard working in midfield, but lack creativity and dynamism and I’m forever being told we’re strong at the back- we’re also horrible to play against apparently.

The messageboard I contribute to the most centred on our midfield, and Joe Ralls in particular for criticism today and anyone who has read this blog regularly over the previous two seasons will know that I’ve been a constant critic of the Pack, Ralls, Vaulks and Bacuna quartet, not particularly on an individual basis, more that I don’t believe any combination of them in a unit has worked that well in the past two seasons.

However, I don’t think the pairing of Pack and Ralls have done too badly at all in recent games. They have their limitations, so it’s certainly not perfect, but I don’t think the midfield was the problem today – I’d say we were worse at either end of the pitch than we were in the middle of the park.

For me, we weren’t quite sharp enough in front of goal on a day when we created more opportunities from open play than normal – in fact, with sixty two per cent possession, you would expect this to be the case and so it proved, even if there weren’t any “sitters” missed as far as I can remember.

Bristol we’re able to foil us on a few occasions with effective last ditch defending, but they also were good at coping with the set piece and aerial threat game which has proved so successful lately.

So much of this has been down to fine crossing of Ryan Giles, who Iwan Robert’s described as the best in that facet of the game in the Championship this week on the Elis James Feast of Football podcast this week (is it me, or has that become more Swanseacentric this season?).

I’ve been trying to think of a player from the past I’d compare Giles to and came up with someone from the nineties in former Leicester and England winger Steve Guppy.

Guppy did not see his function as “skinning” his full back, he was all about knocking in good quality crosses as soon as he had the slight amount of room he required to do so. As a typical fan, I much preferred jinking wingers when I was younger and can remember enjoying Peter Beagrie’s play as he turned full backs inside out continuously when he first arrived in the top flight, but I always recalled comments from his Everton team mates to the effect that their strikers were always making runs for when they thought a cross was coming from Beagrie but it barely ever did because he would be cutting back and trying to beat his marker again – Guppy was the complete opposite of that and I bet the Leicester strikers loved having him outside them.

Going back to Giles, having set such high standards for himself in his first four league appearances for us, he was always going to struggle to maintain them game in, game out. Today, Giles was still able to work that Guppy like sliver of space  for himself to get the crosses over in open play, but the accuracy wasn’t quite there most of the time – it wasn’t from set piece play either, hence Flint, Morrison and co were not as effective as they had been over the previous ten days.

Anyway, back to our problems at the top end of the pitch. Keiffer Moore isn’t quite at his last season best yet, but I thought this was his best game so far this season. For me, there was no sign from him that all of the speculation about Wolves’ £7 million bid, which the media are milking to death in the absence of anything much to talk about on the City transfer front despite the fact that the window closes on Tuesday, was affecting him.

Moore had two efforts cleared off the line today and visiting goalkeeper Dan Bentley was certainly a lot busier than Dillon Phillips was, but, not for the first time, I find myself wishing for just a bit more composure in City’s play. It’s always struck me that Neil Warnock actually discouraged composed football and I’m not sure Neil Harris and Mick McCarthy are great fans of it either!

I must say as well that City’s composure levels are hardly helped by our manager’s continued preference for Leandro Bacuna in a front three role.

Bacuna had his moments today, for example, he supplied a good cross which Joel Bagan met with his head to force maybe the best of Brntley’s saves and then he tested the keeper again with a well struck volley from twenty yards just before half time during what was probably our best attacking spell of the game.

However, you cannot but think that we have better.than Bacuna for the role he is currently filling. Even if Lee Tomlin looks a long way away from the team at the moment, Rubin Colwill showed signs as to why he is rated so highly by his manager when he was eventually brought on for Bacuna and, although Josh Murphy is so frustrating, you’d like to think that seeing the much more limited, in this position at least, Bacuna starting in front of him would present him with a challenge he is capable of rising to if he was a bit more assertive.

If we weren’t quite up to scratch in attacking areas, I’d say that defensively we were worse. As I mentioned earlier, I keep on reading and hearing that were strong at the back, but I’m not seeing it this season.

If teams are daft enough to adopt an aerial attacking approach against us, then, Flint, Morrison and Nelson cope quite easily, but, anything else and my view is that we struggle.

When we were conceding soft goals in our pre season matches, you could take solace from the fact that our captain was out recovering from injury and things would be okay when he was back, but it seems to me that all of our back three are struggling against pace and movement from the players they’re supposed to be marking.

Now, of course, you could respond with “what’s new?” to that last comment of mine, but I’d say that, by and large, three at the back under Mick McCarthy worked pretty well last season with the more mobile Nelson doing a good covering job for his two colleagues. However, while there’s been so much comment on what Flint and Morrison have been doing in opposing penalty areas, I’m surprised no one has picked up on the fact that the pair of them are looking like the work “statuesque” was first thought up with them in mind lately and we’re looking as secure as we did when those two were teamed up in a back four by Neil Warnock two seasons ago.

Neither goal today was directly down to these shortcomings mind, but our defending for both of them left much to be desired. For the first, a pass into an inside right channel asked a question of our keeper and defence, but it should have been one they were able to answer. Instead, Flint and Phillips left the other one to get on with things (Phillips actually retreated back towards goal), with the result that Andreas Weimann was able to mis control the ball, yet still exploit the mutual hesitancy of the two City players and accept the gift he was offered.

Weimann’s winning goal was an excellently hit volley which left Phillips with no chance even though it beat him on his near post. It was a very well taken goal, but, again, he was given a helping hand by a series of challenges City were unable to win on the edge of their penalty area for what seemed about a minute or so before the goal and then Tom Sang ( a mixture of the very good and poor in the right wing back role today) didn’t help matters by getting caught underneath a cross so that it just cleared his head to give Weizmann his chance.

City’s equaliser was a bit of a mess, but there wasn’t much wrong with Pack’s neat pass slipped through to Moore or the striker’s shot which got a slight touch off a defender to beat Bentley and the ball  seemed to rolling over the line until Nathan Baker got back to clear it off the line, only for it then to hit the keeper and go into the net.

So, City have still not scored a first half goal in the league and I’m saying that the ball rebounded in off Bentley’s head, therefore we’ve still only scored headers. If, as I suspect I am, I’m wrong there about where the ball hit the keeper before going in, it surely shouldn’t mean an end to the line about only scoring headers this season – we need someone in a blue (or pink!) shirt to score with their feet for that to happen.

Whatever anyone may think of our goal, it remains the only one we’ve scored at home in our last five derby fixtures against the wurzels and the jacks. We’ve only taken one point from those five games (the fact that we’ve lost three consecutive home games now to a wurzels team as poor as they’ve been in the last two seasons should be a source of embarrassment to our players), that’s a truly abysmal sequence iwhich brings to mind our record in home Play Off Semi Finals which I wouldn’t mind betting is uniquely poor.

All of this puts me in mind of our days in the old Third and Fourth Divisions in the late eighties and early nineties where we’d always mess up in home games where there would be a larger than normal crowd.

This is looking increasingly like a period of transition for City and, although it’s too early to do so yet, it may be that a decision will be made at some point in the new season about whether to persevere with the “old guard”, many of whom are out of contract next summer or to look to the younger players now breaking into the squad – there have been times this season when the old guard looks up to the job, but some of them weren’t great today and it was a disappointment to see that Sam Bowen did not even make the bench, despite all of the positive things said by our manager about him after the Brighton match.

Moving on from the game, there was a surprising development today with confirmation of a rumour that had begun on Friday – Ryan Wintle only signed from Crewe a couple of months ago, yet he has joined Blackpool on a season long loan deal.

Also, the Under 18s played out that most unusual of things st that level, a 0-0 draw, today at Coventry – this was a decent result, because Coventry are usually strong at age group levels and have tended to get the better of us down the years, yet it needed a penalty save by City keeper Dennis to ensure our point.

It’s the time of year again when I ask readers of Mauve and Yellow Army to make a contribution towards its running costs. Before I go into detail about this, I should, once again, offer my sincere thanks to all of you who have helped ensure the future of the blog over the past three years through a mixture of monthly payments via Patreon, monthly Standing Orders into my bank account and once a year payments via bank transfer, PayPal, cheque and cash.

The first time I made this request for assistance, it was prompted by a need for funds to pay for three yearly web hosting costs which, frankly, I was in no position to meet following my move of house a few months earlier. However, I’m pleased to say that, this time around, the web hosting bill was settled back in June with none of the problems there were back in 2018.

Therefore, any monies received this year will go towards other running costs and, although it’s too early yet to make any formal commitments despite so many of the pandemic restrictions in Wales being lifted recently, I am minded to do another review of a season from the past book to follow on from “Real Madrid and all that” which looked back on the 1970/71 campaign. At the moment 1975/76, the first promotion season I experienced, looks to be favourite for the book treatment, which would mean a lot more trips back and forth to Cardiff than my finances have become used to over the past year and a half – hopefully, the majority of them will not have to be made via Radyr Cheyne!

As always, the blog will still be free to read for anyone who chooses not to make a donation towards its running costs and, apart from the one in the top right hand corner which is to do with Google Ads, you will never have to bother about installing an ad blocker to read this site because there will never be any.

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4 Responses to Dreadful home form in derby matches continues for Cardiff – dodgy defending to the fore.

  1. BJA says:

    Good morning Paul – Thanks for your views, nothing to disagree with there.
    I have stated on many occasions that it is difficult to defend against pace, and with our two somewhat “statuesque” defenders in Flint and Morrison we are going to be vulnerable, and I fear that we will concede quite a few goals this season.
    Flint really should have taken the initiative when the chance came to clear the ball before Wiemann struck, and whilst Phillips indecision did not help, I always believe a safety first attitude is paramount and Row Z would have been a satisfactory resting place for the ball given the ultimate result of hesitancy.
    I always felt that we could get something out of the game even after Bristol’s second goal, and Colwill showed something today that he did not last week. But Bristol’s defending was better than ours so the prospect of the City topping the table had we won now sees us occupying a mid-table position.
    Your views on our mid-field I share, but what on earth are we doing letting Wintle, a most recent arrival, go to Blackpool. He came with a good reputation, cost nothing, but clearly has upset MM. And I wonder now is this departure, or reasons for it, caused some concern for Ng for it was stated that Wintle is Ng’s best mate, and I firmly believe that our ex Crewe full back is better than Sang in that position.
    Your views last time out on our structure were also in tune with mine, and I fail to see just how we are to progress in the coming months if we continue with our current style of play as adopted by MM and his crew. As the song goes “There may be trouble ahead”.

  2. Colin Phillips says:

    Good morning, Paul, thanks for the report.

    I watched most of the game on Sky, behind the ‘red button’,better than not seeing the game but far from great coverage.

    Typically I missed their first goal but, of course, you don’t get replays on the red button. With the lack of close-ups of players I would find it impossible to recognise half of the City players if I passed them in the car-park.

    As far as the game goes, I think you have the exact same thoughts as I. Pearson worked us out (not difficult is it) they coped very well with our “giants” and once that happens we seem to be totally buggered.

    Agree about the lack of composure, even Pack seems to have caught the disease playing alongside Ralls and Vaulks. Bacuna is not totally useless but we need someone more suited to the role McCarthy is playing him in.

    I think there is a glimmer of hope in that in Giles and Colwill we have two players capable of beating a man, an invaluable asset in a footballer I feel.

    I have to make a confession, I have never been a great fan of our 20-goal striker. His goals can’t be argued with but to me he isn’t a natural footballer. He hasn’t got the pace or control necessary and at 29 he is not going to get any faster. Mind you, he takes a bloody good penalty.

    On a different day and with the rub of the green we could well have won and gone ‘top of the league’ for a couple of hours. Not a complete disaster after all there’s about 40 games to go.

  3. huw perry says:

    Thanks Paul.
    Agree totally on all fronts. My fears about an early kick off, Sky coverage and derby clash all came to fruition.
    Good, confident start and maybe Giles miss a bit of a turning point. Soon after that Bristol seemed to settle , absorb and pass confidently leading to the opening goal.
    Agree with yours and others comments re Giles, Bacuna and Colwell who showed some nice touches in his brief time. Surely he would be better option to try and create something when the big lads aren’t firing in the headers.
    Our passing, generally, seems improved from some of last season’s showings, but still sometimes too slow and need some pace.
    Like you I am more concerned with our frequent defensive errors when the opposition play short sharp passes in and around the box. Coupled with this I also noticed on numerous occasions that we were capable of getting a foot in or blocking but the reaction to get to the rebound or second ball always went against us. Witness the second goal which was initiated by some ping pong around the edge of the box.
    Also not sure why we have loaned out Wintle. Not seen him in the flesh, but my mate is a Crewe fan and he rates him highly. Combined with Ng falling out of favour am struggling to understand. Hoping that at least it gives some of the Academy lads a chance to get into the first team squad and push on as you suggest.

  4. The other Bob Wilson says:

    Thanks everyone for your replies. BJA, regarding Wintle and Ng. On the face of it, the decision to loan him out is a baffling one, but could it be that he and/or his family are struggling to settle in south Wales and were after a return to the north west? With Ng, he was at fault with Peterborough’s second goal, but I don’t think he’s done too much wrong really. My feeling is that Mick McCarthy just prefers Sang to him because he he offers more in an attacking sense – as I hinted in my piece, Sang’s performance was something of a Curate’s egg – he should have done better for the second goal and you get the feeling that Ng would have got something on that header to make Weimann’s volley impossible, but Sang also did a few things in possession that I don’t think Mg can. This takes me on to your point about our style of play and here I must say that they are very modest ones, I’m see some signs of us wanting to play a bit more football – I don’t think we hoofed it as much on Saturday. However, there was that lack of composure I mentioned and the plain truth is that with Morrison, Flint and Nelson as a back three, you’re never going to get a quality of passing out from the back that will ever define us as a “passing side” (not that I think that’s the object of the exercise under McCarthy).
    Colin, I feel a little sorry for Bacuna who has spent much of the last year playing in positions that very few supporters believe he is suited to. Playing him where he currently is operating only makes a slight bit of sense to me if Mick McCarthy is, in true managerial fashion, thinking of defence first and sees the likes of Tomlin and Colwill as liabilities in that situation. On the other hand, I keep on hearing and reading a view that Bacuna lacks the defensive discipline to be used in central midfield, hence our manager’s apparent reluctance to play him there – for me, Bacuna has to play central midfield if he plays at all, but, truthfully, I think I’d play Ralls, Pack and Vaulks in front of him (actually, you can add Bowen to that list as well).
    Huw, Colwill looked off the pace against Millwall, but, apparently, did better when he came on against Brighton and I thought he looked the part on Saturday and, as mentioned above, I think it can only be reservations about what he does when not in possession that is holding him back now. It’ll be interesting to see how he goes for Wales (I presume he’ll get a chance against Finland), but, unless our manager is reluctant to start him in an away match, I think he’ll start against Forest.
    Regarding the second goal on Saturday, having no seen the extended highlights on the club website, Bristol must have won about six loose balls in and around our penalty area in the minute or two before they scored – that’s not good enough.

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