Club football returned this afternoon with what I thought was a very entertaining 2-2 draw at Stoke for Cardiff City – although, looking at the messageboards, it appears that is a minority view with many talking about how crap we are.
At the risk of contradicting myself, I would say that I understand those views to an extent. The term Curate’s Egg springs to mind because, for a brief spell in the second half our attacking play was irresistible – as good as we’ve seen this season I’d say. However, to counter that, there were too many careless individual errors that I feel a better team than Stoke would have punished.
We started the game in nineteenth position a point above the bottom three, whereas Stoke, with a point more than us, were in seventeenth place.
So, this was a game between two flawed teams and I believe this contributed to why this was such an entertaining affair. Of course, excitement is often generated by the game being played brilliantly, but I would argue that probably as much, if not more, of the stuff that gets crowds off their seats comes from errors on an individual and team basis.
Therefore, it was both team’s fallibilities that that mainly produced the excitement today, but there were also flashes of really good play, especially in that second half period I mentioned earlier from City which were worthy of a higher level than low end of the Championship stuff.
Not for the first time this season, City looked a better footballing side than their opponents, but Stoke had an edge in size, power and, occasionally, determination – they also played some decent stuff at times.
Mark Hudson’s selection had a defensive look to it to me. Indeed, with many believing that Callum Robinson is not really a centre forward, it might be argued that it did not contain a specialist striker. I dare say that Mark Hudson would have called our formation 4-3-3, but, with the defensively responsible Callum O’Dowda and Gavin Whyte on the flanks, it had more of a look of 4-5-1 to me.
The central midfield three were Ryan Wintle, Joe Ralls and Andy Rinomhota, so it had a solid look to it on paper at least, while the goalkeeper and back four was much as expected.
I had visions of an isolated Robinson toiling away in vain as the ball kept coming back at us, but, right from the kick off, City took the game to Stoke in an enterprising manner that saw a couple of instances where passes were almost slid through the home defence in the first couple of minutes to runners who would have been in on goal.
Possession casually surrendered by O’Dowda on four minutes resulting in a chance Ben Willmott couldn’t take offered the first glimpse of those errors that were always not too far away, but two minutes later, City were in front thanks to a goal that was a bizarre mix of excellence and luck.
Niels N’Kounkou, who was his usual mixture of the occasionally inspired going forwards and the hapless when going backwards before his withdrawal about ten minutes into the second half, showed the positive side of his character with a fine cross field ball which found Whyte in a threatening position well inside the Stoke penalty area.
Now, I think Whyte played as well as I’ve seen him do in a Cardiff shirt today, but I’m pretty sure that his rolled back pass was meant for the onrushing Mahlon Romeo. However, it went wide of him and instead found Wintle whose superb, precise side footer from nearly twenty five yards left home keeper Jack Bonham helpless.
For a very short while, City looked well in control, but it didn’t last. In fact, Stoke seized the initiative to the extent that they were in front before the game was twenty minutes old.
Ralls’ best contribution of the match, a superbly timed tackle inside the penalty area when an equaliser looked imminent, preserved City’s lead for a short while, but the home team were level on eleven minutes when Romeo was drawn infield and Whyte couldn’t get back far enough to cover for him, thereby allowing Josh Tymon the room to chip a good ball to Tyrese Campbell who was given too much time by N’Kounkou to knock his shot wide of Ryan Allsop from around eighteen yards.
The tide had turned now and Stoke were taking control as City were starting to live dangerously to the extent that it was no great surprise when they fell behind – although any luck they have enjoyed in the lead up to their goal was more than matched by the slice of good fortune the home side benefitted from.
Stoke again moved the ball left to right towards the increasingly influential Campbell who came infield to hit a shot which cannoned off Ralls into the path of the unmarked Liam Delap who was left with simple task of jabbing past Allsop from six yards. City contested the goal thinking it was offside, but video replays showed that this was clearly not the case.
Behind now, City were the next to have good fortune on their side when Cedric Kipre twice brought down the powerful Delap in the penalty area only for referee Andy Woolmer to rule no penalty both times. For me, the second one was probably not a foul, but I’ll admit to being very surprised when the ref didn’t point to the spot for the first one.
Stoke boss Alex Neal conceded that 2-2 was probably a fair score line, but was adamant that his side should have been given the chance to go 3-1 up from the spot and he figured there would have been way back from City from there – he clearly wasn’t aware of what happened when we played at Stoke last season!
The Stoke manager was right really though because by half time City could not have complained too much if they had been one or two more goals behind.
While they knocked the ball around nicely at times, I found myself thinking that if none of the three selected midfielders were going to make a run beyond our striker, you’d like to think they’d at least be able to provide better cover for the defence than they had been doing.
The opening minutes of the second half provided no indication that City could come back into the game in the manner they eventually did. The passages of controlled possession they’d enjoyed had disappeared as hopeful and hopeless long balls up to Robinson, O’Dowda and Whyte became the order of the day – thankfully, Stoke weren’t doing much with the possession they were being presented with, but, significantly, Kion Etete, Romaine Sawyers and Mark Harris were being prepared to come on within about three minutes of the restart.
Ironically, a minute before he left the field along with N’Kounkou and Rinomhota, Ralls drew a good save out of Bonham with a twenty yard effort, but this was just the prelude to a period of play where the Stoke keeper was the busiest player on the pitch.
All of this came after Bonham first had to pick the ball out of his net a second time. Seldom could a flurry of substitutions had a more immediate effect than when Harris and Etete both produced flicked round the corner passes which sent Romeo into a huge gap down Stoke’s left and the full back, whose crossing had not been the best in the first half, found Etete who, probably inadvertently, nudged the ball to Robinson and what looked to be a somewhat scuffed effort went past Bonham from ten yards.
Harris and Etete, along with Romeo, transformed City by turning the left side of Stoke’s defence into something of a disaster area. First, Harris got by Tymon to knock over a low cross which Bonham could only divert into the path of Etete, but the striker jabbed just wide as the ball fell to him a little awkwardly. Wintle then picked out Etete with a cross that the tall striker headed powerfully towards the top corner from twelve yards only for the keeper to do really well to turn it aside.
There were other saves by Bonham during this period and all the home side had to offer in reply was a close range shot Jacob Brown after another fortunate rebound that was deflected clear by City’s best defender on the day, Perry Ng.
However, apart from a header by Harris which drew another diving save out of Bonham, City rather ran out of steam in the last ten minutes as they returned to their bad old ways of giving the ball away cheaply in very dangerous areas.
Still, my feeling after this is one of encouragement because, if he can maintain his current form, Etete is maybe going to add a different dimension to our play and, although the postponement of today’s under 21 game at Wolves means that Isaak Davies’s return to first team action may be delayed a little longer, it isn’t far away now. Harris was excellent here as well and you never know City might remember they have Rubin Colwill on their books sometime soon.
I know I keep on about Colwill a lot, but it’s galling to hear pundits talking about the Welsh team saying that it’s essential that he starts for Cardiff every week because players like him are the country’s future.
Yet, as his appearance off the bench on eighty seven minutes to play a defensive part as we held on for a point indicates, Colwill’s club still seem very reluctant to give him that opportunity despite what we were told was a more sympathetic manager in charge now – as Colwill’s appearance off the bench in the World Cup proves, his country clearly rate him, it’s a shame his club don’t apparently.
The Highadmit South Wales Alliance League continued during the World Cup and a surprising number of games escaped the current freeze today. Out of the teams the blog follows, Ton Pentre have dropped into the lower half of the Premier Division, but it appears that this is more down to not playing games, rather than losing them. Unfortunately, AFC Porth show no sign of turning their season around, – a 3-0 defeat at Porthcawl this afternoon didn’t improve their prospects. Relegation looks inevitable for Porth, but maybe they’ll be replaced by Treherbert Boys and Girls Club who are up to second in the First Division.
Finally, a word on the book I’ve been working on for most of the year. Unfortunately, I’ve had far more problems with Amazon’s publishing software this time around than I did two years ago with Real Madrid and all that. I finished writing the book in late August, but the best part of four months has been spent by me trying to get it into a format that the software will accept.
Thankfully, there was something of a breakthrough this week and I now hope to be able to confirm in the first part of next week that Tony Evans Walks on Water, a review of City’s 1975/76 promotion season, should be available from Amazon well in time for Christmas.
I’m still in international mode so might be taking a leap here…
John Toshack to some is a man with massive ego, unable to use modern methods and the reason why Wales went so many years without getting close to qualification but to others he brought in style of play and profile of player which eventually led to success, while having the stomach to see off media criticism in waiting for more successful period.
I’m wondering how much Steve Morison will be seen as similar in a few years for us? I would swap “unable to use modern methods” and “having the stomach to see off media criticism” but, and the reason for this thought today, his style of play needs a Zimba at youth level/Etete of last two games to work and he didn’t have that at the start of the season.
Tall, scoring, mobile strikers are the golden goose and almost impossible to find when having such a little budget to work with and so many new players needed – the real reason why so many of our current lot are imperfect purchases – but we look a team capable of causing problems when we combine dominating the ball and having an Etete-like figure to play off.
It is a bit mad that we played with 4 defenders, protected by 3 more defensive midfielders and 2 wingers willing to do the dirty work but still conceded multiple goals.
I know there is a desperation for Colwill to play more but the dream would be for him to play more like Griezemann did last night for France rather than the Ozil figure which he has been so far. If that’s the development they want behind the scenes, and if it’s about protecting his growing body from long term issues with injuries, then we should trust the process.
Of course, everything positive falls away if we’re relegated or put in such a limp season fan’s give up before start of next year. I’ll keep looking at Birmingham because still think it’s incredible they’re 4 points ahead when we looked so much better in our fixture towards start of the season – we really should be a lot closer to 29 points right now and that we’re not is a sign that it’s going to be tough year with lots of things not yet working for us.
It strikes me that if every word Paul writes were put together we would have a book of biblical proportions (and not just for one reason). It is a testimony to the quality of his work that, by and large, the responses to his Blog are also a good quality. Another excellent quality of the Blog is the fact that differing points of view can take place in a civilised manner without any acrimony. Last week there was a perfect example of what I mean
Our Blagmeister put forward the case for the qualities of Gareth Bale at his best. whereas Dai Woosnam favoured the late John Charles. It may be that some of the Blog’s followers do not know that Dai Woosnam was once a regular contributor to the Blog. He had (and still has) a wide-ranging knowledge of football, especially Cardiff City, of course, and he always expressed his viewpoint with clarity and insight. I know he has numerous writing commitments for a worldwide audience, but it would be good to see him return to Paul’s MAYE Blog and join the contributors who make it so important.
As for yesterday’s game, overall I enjoyed it. It was exciting to Etete in action at last, and it adds to my question of why he hadn’t been used previously instead of continually polishing the bench with his rear end.
I absolutely loved Dai Woosnam’s contributions whether I agreed with him or not. Please come back Dai.
Thanks Mike, and dear AMO (Anthony Mor O’Brien) before you.
But I will come back only when I see Paul produce the death certificate of that miserable little coward living somewhere between Tonypandy and Treherbert, who hides behind the proud name of ‘Harry Kirtley’, and besmirches it by sending out his peculiar brand of poison.
He has been playing possum for the last few years, but were I to reappear on a regular basis, I have no doubt that he will pop up again.
Do I want him censored? No, of course not. And anyway, a glorious aspect of the MAYA success story is Paul’s proud determination not to edit our contributions.
But I do insist on us knowing his real identity… since if I use my proper name, why can’t he? For those of you who have forgotten, he questioned my (admittedly undistinguished) playing history… I should have the right to check him out, since he told us his old school details, and two people I know – still alive – would be able to tell me of his prowess with the football team (in a school where my dear late brother Graham, was deputy head for many years, and had the curious distinction of not immediately realising the potential of Alan Curtis, and making him 12th man in his first selection*)… but God Bless Graham, he happily joked about it for many years afterwards.
But methinks I will comfortably predecease our pusillanimous Rhondda Fawr contributor… judging by the state I am in tonight, having just returned from a weekend in London… which culminated in Saturday evening with me watching the game in the Talksport Fanzone, in the arches at Waterloo Station.
Extraordinary decibel levels in those jam packed arches, as the mighty sound system blasted out the football songs and anthems pre kick off. My ears are still ringing 48 hours later.
I was the oldest there by at least 40 years… and at 75, old enough to be grandfather to most… seeing as the median age was about 25. I found it, whilst a total assault on the senses, just …. (wait for it)…
…
…
…absolutely THRILLING. And brilliantly organised.
I was at Wembley in the capacity crowd in 1996 to see Southgate miss that penalty, and the drive back to Wales was a sad one,
This time, the journey home was so much happier. If England had not been playing against 12 men, they’d have won. It was the worst refereeing of an international match in my lifetime. Worse even than that East German who caused a riot at Ninian in the 1976 Yugoslavia game.
Will sign off now. Oh and one thing Mike: join the club, for I too don’t always agree with me…!!
*he was not the usual selector… it might have been Gwilym Hicks, the PE master was the usual guy… I did not attend the school, so am unsure. Graham was standing in for him with that start of the schoolyear selection. Graham was a lifelong City fan, incidentally… and passed away aged 90 just 15 months ago. Covid administered the coup de grace…
TTFN,
Dai.
Thanks all of you for your replies and can only join in with those wishing to see Dai back on a regular basis, but I don’t think it’s going to happen I’m afraid. While Dai is here, I thought I’d contrast my attitude with Dai’s with regard to the England team. Back in 1970 at the age of fourteen, I wanted England to retain the World Cup and was shocked and disappointed by their defeat by West Germany in the Quarter Finals, but, come 1973 and that night when Poland denied them a place in the 1974 tournament, I loved it. I’m still not sure what changed for me during those three years, but arrogant media pundits and talk of clownish Polish goalkeepers played a small part in it I’d say.
However, after half a century or so of celebrating English failure in major tournaments, I must admit to a smidgeon of sympathy with them this time – Dai’s right about the ref and I thought they were definitely the better side on Saturday, there’s also the fact that, in recent tournaments, they’ve actually started to live up to the media hype.
As for City, I was encouraged to see Etete add a good league performance to the one he produced in what was a glorified friendly against Villa. I’m guilty, like many others, of thinking that using a tall target man automatically means long ball football, but there are enough examples about these days to dismiss that sort of thinking as old fashioned and blinkered. Etete, and Mark Harris, transformed City’s performance on Saturday – before that, there had been quite a lot of neat, possession stuff, but it took place at a pace which Stoke could deal with. The two subs helped introduce pace into our play and, straight away, Stoke were struggling. I don’t think Etete is particularly quick, but he and Harris enabled Romeo to join in with the dominance City enjoyed down the right flank in the last thirty five minutes or so – I also thought Robinson (who was disappointing in his, admittedly, thankless task as lone striker, became more of a factor as he was given more of a roving role.
So, I’m in agreement with DJ about Etete, but not so much with Colwill. When you think of the modern day number ten role, a creative, skilful player with a touch of flair springs to mind. However, there is one exception to that rule – at Cardiff City, a number ten is selected for work rate, energy, power and defensive play. How else can you explain why we’ve seemed happy to see the likes of Callum Paterson and Joe Ralls used in the role? At least, Paterson and, to a lesser degree, Ralls would provide goals now and again, but we now seem to think that Andy Rinomhota, with his three goals in nearly one hundred and fifty league appearances for Reading and Cardiff is a number ten! Now, I’m not knocking Rinomhota there, I just think he could contribute more playing deeper rather than as the most advanced of our central midfielders. Other more attacking players we’ve tried centrally, like Ojo and Philogene do not strike me as having the appreciation of what’s going on around them to be decent number tens – Sawyers would be a possibility for the role if he could find the sort of form he showed at Brentford and West Brom and Robinson could be good in the role, but I think it’s best to keep him as one of a front two or three.
To me, Colwill is the natural to try in the role and give him enough games to sink or swim in the position. DJ talks about protecting him, but I have no sympathy with that view – in saying that, we may as well have protected him on Saturday and kept him on the bench all game because waiting until the 87th minute to bring him on was ridiculous. As a more general point, I’m probably just being a whingeing old fogey here, but the references to getting injured players “on the grass” and “ticking boxes off” on their comebacks we hear at City press conferences these days all sounds a bit medical management by numbers and whiteboardish to me.
A signing-off comment from me here, prompted by your excellent summing-up.
Big thanks to you Paul, for being so welcoming down the years… especially seeing as my views on football often run counter to your own.
You know my footballing hero is Charles Hughes… who I think is still with us approaching his tenth decade. I dearly love the long ball game, as played by such experts as Hoddle, Edison, Charlie Adam, etc… and I cannot help recalling the fact that in my boyhood, football was a LONGITUDINAL game played end-to-end at a thrilling pace (best watched high up on the halfway line) … but it has now become a LATITUDINAL game, best watched high up behind the goals… (and sometimes best not watched at all… as ‘passing back’ and senseless ‘passing across the line of the back four’ sends us all to sleep !!)
Did you see the egregious Gary on MotD about 7 weeks ago, say to his awestruck panel acolytes, ‘POMO…? Any idea what that means?’
And his panel members looked on admiringly as he added ‘that was a term coined by Howard Wilkinson in about 1992’…
God give me strength to carry on living…!! I nearly kicked the television in frustration.
To think Mr Lineker trousers so much of our Licence Fee. How a great man like Hughes has been forgotten is a national scandal.
I could carry on writing for another two hours… but alas I have promised to go to the three miles to Cleethorpes to see my friend Dave the Cobbler by 11am. Gosh, when I think back to the number of times I made myself late for things typing away on your wonderful MAYA blog…!! Incurring the (gentle) wrath of my dear wife Larissa as I let my lunch go cold, etc… the one bonus is that I can relive those experiences of 2013 to 2018, as you have kindly archived every word of my quarter million…
The saddest moment of this World Cup? No, not Wales omitting to pick Chedwyn in a 442 with Kieffer… (though every time I see that Santander Bank ‘Blades fan’ woman on the TV, I can’t help recall how she kicked Chedwyn when he was down… and I remember thus why it was I cut up their credit card and sent it back in the post to them.
No… the saddest moment unquestionably was in the Netherlands v Argentina game. Louis van Gaal made two inspired late substitutions… and started playing long ball. And the tactics worked: the Argies got rattled. From 0-2 down, it became 2-2 at the death, with that clever free-kick.
And what happens in extra time? Van Gaal abandons long ball, and reverts to ‘Total Football’. And it fails… and sends me to sleep and his nation on the plane home.
‘Total football’? ‘Total BOLLOXIO’, I call it.
Adios Paul. Take care. Let me know when you have that death certificate.
TTFN,
Dai.
Mr.Woosnam, fifty lines from you my friend.
Cyril Hicks
Cyril Hicks
Cyril Hicks
by the morning if you will.
Dai, you say your brother Graham taught at county? my memory isn’t great, what subjects did he teach?
Good to hear your explanation of what you think the long ball game is Dai – I’d call that a long pass game though. Those players you list (Hoddle was my favourite player in the late 70s, early 80s) were artists not hoofers. What I call a long ball approach relates more to what Wimbledon and, to a lesser degree, Watford used to serve up in the eighties and what Cardiff have played far too much of in the last decade – whacking the ball upfield in the general direction of some isolated target man and deliberately playing for attacking set pieces. I don’t think what City fans have had to suffer under Slade, Warnock, Harris and McCarthy was what Charles Hughes preached.
Best wishes Dai, you’re welcome back at any time.
P.S. I didn’t know what POMO meant before you started posting on here, but it’s seared into my brain now!
Thanks, Paul. Nice to know I would be welcome back… but like I say, I don’t want to be a sitting target for our Mid-Rhondda sniper.
As for Cyril Hicks… yes of course I got his first name wrong… but in my defence, I get most things wrong these days. I was not in his school, so I am excused, I guess. (I knew it was two syllables and a name that was somewhat less popular these days that 60 years ago.) Though that said, I recall him as a rather good left winger at Ynys Park… which I used to attend every time I visited my Uncle Jimmy Davies at 5 Clara Street, Ton Pentre. He was the local school caretaker…
I would see maybe three home games a season. But even though I did not know the bloke, I should have got his first name right… so accept my apols.
And I blame heading a football for my ‘lapses of memory’ condition.
As a kid, I would spend hours repeatedly heading a heavy leather ball against a high wall near my house, maybe an hour a week… but never could improve on my PB of 37…
This went on for a few years… and only now am I realising the toll it took on me. Like Kammy, I suffer from a mild form of the same speech problem, and my short term memory is also shot.
As for long ball v hoof ball debate, yes of course, one prefers the former. But it seems to me that the latter can get an unfair press. Yes of course, Charles Hughes wanted the ball passed rather than hoofed down the field, but I tell you this… he was not a fan of circus football with eejits passing the ball square and backwards, and goalies doing Cruyff turns…!! And don’t get him started on goalies ‘rolling the ball out’.
The goal kick is not called a ‘kick’ for nothing. You cannot be offside from a goal kick, so this gives you a great chance to instantly get into a POMO… assuming you have a goalie with a colossal boot on him. So if he gets the ball down into the opponent’s D, and their central defenders get their heads to it first, the chances are that they will head it into touch, or head it forward where the ball could well be intercepted by the midfield of the attacking side… and immediately from that goal kick, you are 60 yards up the pitch, with regained possession.
Shameful to see Robert Page letting Kieffer Moore wander out on to the wings, just like Southgate inexplicably allowing the great Harry Kane* to be a ‘deep lying centre forward’… the mention of which takes me back to when I was seven.
My full-of-coal-dust lovely dad, (who was to die 2 years later) walked me to the house of our great family friend Harry Parr, who had a TV… a rare thing in 1955.
We wanted to watch my first FA Cup final. Whether it was my short legs, or my dad’s pneumoconiosis, we alas found the mile long walk to 23 Lewis Tce, Llwyncelyn, a bit too testing… and arriving two minutes after the game kicked off, we found Newcastle already a goal up…!!
I was never late for a game again.
Incidentally, if someone had told me that 67 years later I would still be waiting for Newcastle to repeat their immediate postwar FA Cup successes… well I wouldn’t have believed them.
Why do I mention it? Well, the big newspaper story of the time revolved around their opponent’s unusual (for the time) tactics of playing a deep lying centre forward.
And his name?
A soon to be a household name…
… still don’t know…?
… here is a clue…
… a lover of bingo…
… okay… give up?
Yeah?
A man who I never warmed to… though gosh, he became an outstandingly effective manager.
‘The Don’.
Don Revie.
I am signing off now… and won’t be looking in at this outstanding blog. The reason of course is that if I dip in, I will tempted to write and write and write… and incur the wrath of that nutter ‘HK’.
Should anybody have questions like Mr Phillips, please write to me at
daigress@hotmail.com
My bro taught in Porth County for over a quarter of a century. He was Vernon Jones’s deputy, and would have succeeded him as headmaster were it not for the fact that the Welsh Joint Education Committee headhunted him to become their Chief Examiner in Geography… where, even when he reached retirement age, they asked him to work on until he was in his late seventies.
*beautiful distributor that he admittedly is… but he is really needed in the opponent’s penalty box…
England are already blessed with a handful of fine ‘assist’ merchants… but not blessed with scorers like Harry.
TTFN,
Dai.
Oops… one or two silly typos I have spotted… like a ‘that’ for ‘than’. Apols.
Oh and one favour Paul… allow me to paste this link to my latest in my DAISSECTING THE SONG series written for Germany’s leading Folk Music magazine.
It was published today, and the opening and (especially) the footnote will be of interest because of the Cardiff reference.
Incidentally, I made two Cardiff visits that week… the other was to see City beat the Boro in that amazing relegation match… known forever as the ‘Greg Farrell game’.
http://www.folkworld.eu/79/e/dai.html
If you like what you read, go to the top right of the web page and click on the links to the previous 13 in the series…
Good morning Paul – What a fantastic week for the blog and to have Dai returning with his contributions added to the lustre of your own and others.
As Mike mentioned earlier, it will be a great shame if he goes AWOL again for his thoughts always, always provide an interesting view on football and life’s wider scene.
As a Canton High School old boy from the early fifties, I wonder if any of your readers can help me in recalling, if I my memory serves me correctly, what may well be a unique, once in a lifetime footballing fact. A teacher at my school, I think the name was Griffith, was centre forward (remember them) in the Wales Amateur team and was dropped in favour of a pupil from the school whose name I cannot recall. I am fairly certain this was what had occurred, but it was such a long time ago. Thoughts anyone?
And two final comments, one from that era and one from last night. Oh for a City winger who could cross the ball and allow Ken Chisolm launch himself like a landing seaplane to head home, and a huge thank you to Morocco for their superlative efforts. They would have given that South American lot something to think about.