As February began, Cardiff City had an encouraging win and performance against Nottingham Forest to send them into successive league games at Barnsley and then home to Peterborough which would greatly shape their season because those two were part of very small group that found themselves below us in the table.
There was another game that looked all important as well coming up quite soon after – a St David’s day visit from Derby County, the team that had been thought of as all but relegated before a ball was kicked because of the massive twenty one points deduction for various financial irregularities committed over a long period.
The problem for City and the other sides down near the bottom was that Derby were refusing to stick to the script and we’re doing well enough to make the other strugglers think that it was no longer a case of Derby and two others going down – the prospect that the relegated three would not include Derby was a very real one and, despite things looking pretty bad for the Rams tonight, remains the case.
The two early February matches were won – City turned in a complete performance against Peterborough and were not flattered at all by the 4-0 winning margin. This followed on from a victory at Barnsley that was a different animal entirely from the Peterborough one, it was an awful game, a real battle that was decided by a single goal as substitute Uche Ikpeazu overpowered a couple of defenders and steered the ball home to give us a win that we didn’t really deserve on the balance of play.
When City we’re able to add a good win over Coventry to their February points haul, it became clear that their relegation worries were all but over, especially if they could add another victory over Derby which would leave them a point short of the forty point figure manager Steve Morrison had mentioned as a target which would enable everyone at the club to start breathing a bit more easily.
Well, City duly added that win tonight and it was far more of a repeat of the Barnsley game than the Peterborough one, right down to the 1-0 score line courtesy of another goal by sub Ikpeazu which owed much to his strength and determination – a slight difference this time though being that I thought we just about deserved the three points.
Just as up in Yorkshire, it was a pretty horrible game of football. It was one of those matches where for much of the time you found yourself wondering about the City side’s basic level of skill as the ball barely ever seemed to be under a blue shirted player’s control and, if it was, it would soon be returned to Derby because of a misplacement of a simple pass.
Oddly though, in amongst all of the examples of poor technique, City came up with a couple of moments of Premier League quality that left Derby fortunate to still be on terms.
The first came early on when a Joe Ralls corner was half cleared to Tommy Doyle who controlled the ball instantly and tried an audacious volleyed shot from twenty five yards which beat Ryan Allsop in the Derby goal and rebounded down off the crossbar to safety.
That was City’s only worthwhile goal attempt of a first half that Derby shaded without really threatening too much. The second half was an improvement on what had gone before, but not much of one.
Derby had shown why they’ve been the lowest scorers in the division for most of the season until a miskick by the otherwise impressive Perry Ng presented the visitors with a scoring opportunity they really should have taken as ex City loanee Ravel Morrison headed Festy Ebesole’s cross towards what seemed a gaping goal only for the falling Alex Smithies to stick out a hand and divert the ball on to an upright from where it rebounded to half time sub Colin Kazim Richards whose hooked effort from six yards flew across the face of goal and out.
Derby really should have taken the lead there from either of those efforts, but the fact was that header by Morrison remained their only on target effort on a frustrating night for them and their fans who travelled in decent numbers to the game.
The paucity of creativity meant that it was looking pretty clear that a single goal would win the game and Ralls almost provided it when Derby again failed to deal with a corner and the ball was recycled to our captain, who had taken the original kick, who, cutting in from the right hit a shot from the outside edge of the penalty area similar to the one which led to our second goal against Forest. This one beat Allsop all ends up only to hit the crossbar and bounce over.
Like Doyle’s earlier effort against the woodwork, Ralls’ shot was completely out of keeping with what his team was coming up with most of the time and I was resigned to our first goalless draw of the season after that.
By now, Uche Ikpeazu had replaced Hugill and in just about the first piece of action he was involved in was so concerned with backing into his opponent that he never had the ball under control because he never touched it as it failed to reach him!
What I said at that point was unrepeatable on a family blog, but this was a night when Ikpeazu was to partially justify Sean Morrison’s high opinion of him as an opponent he hates to face. A good chase back to the half way line to rob a Derby player of the ball was the signal of better things to come from Uche and five minutes from time he provided the goal that sent us a couple of places up the table some sixteen points clear of the bottom three.
Derby were furious about the goal with manager Wayne Rooney appearing to suggest after the game that there was some sort of referee’s agenda against his team because of their various financial misdemeanours. The annoyance was understandable, but, although I accept I’m not the best person to deliver a truly neutral opinion, it was unjustified in my view.
First of all, Derby weren’t happy with the challenge by Alfie Doughty, on for Joel Bagan, on the edge of our penalty area at the start of the move which led to the goal, but, for me, Ebesole went down in a manner which suggested far more substantial contact than Doughty provided. Indeed, the conclusion I reached was that if the sort of “tackle” Doughty provided was ever deemed a foul, then football truly had become a non contact sport.
From there, the ball was worked up field and Derby sub Malcolm Ebiowei’s effort to keep the ball from crossing the touchline for a City throw in only presented us with it half way inside the Derby half from where it was worked to Ng. City were lucky in that the recently converted centreback is one of too few players in their side (Wintle, Doyle, Ralls and Bagan are others) who can be relied upon to produce a quality pass if given the time and the former Crewe man delivered with a cross into a dangerous area that dropped towards the feet of Ikpeazu and Derby’s vastly experienced defender Curtis Davies some eight yards from the middle of their goal.
From here, it became a typical Ikpeazu scrap for the ball with both players laying hands on each other as they competed for it. This is where Ikpeazu comes in to his own and he ended up winning the battle of strength by working himself the room to guide his shot beyond Allsop and into the corner of the net.
Rather like his goal at Barnsley, there is some debate about whether the ball went where Uche meant it to (for what it’s worth, I thought the Barnsley goal was a good finish, but I’m not so sure about this one), but that’s not really important is it.
Again, you could understand why Derby claimed Ikpeazu had fouled Davies, but, while referees are prepared to allow far worse to go unpunished at virtually every dead ball situation that goes into a penalty area, I have to say that referee Andy Davies was well within his rights not to disallow the goal – that’s not to say that some officials would not have disallowed it mind and Lord only knows what VAR would have made of it!
City saw out the five minutes left and the five more added on after the ninety pretty comfortably to record a fourth home win in six to follow on from the horror run of Cardiff City Stadium form from late August to late January thanks to Ikpeazu showing what he can bring to a team. However, I’ll repeat what I said after the Blackpool match that Uche’s is not a version of the game I enjoy watching and while the recent upturn in results has been heartening, the improved, more attractive, style of football we kept hearing about in Steve Morison’s early days in charge has all but disappeared – we’re seeing more of the sort of stuff that Messrs Slade, Warnock, Harris and McCarthy served up.
Even in the impressive performances against Forest and Peterborough, we were happy to sit deep behind the ball and let the opposition have it in a home game – it’s pretty negative stuff.
The City Board are convinced by Morison though because it was announced after the game that he had signed a contract until the end of the 22/23 season.
The first thing to say about that is that the decision is understandable, I’m having a moan about how we’ve been playing, but we have been in a relegation scrap and it would have been a huge task for a more experienced and capable manager than ours to successfully implement a completely new playing style while winning a relegation fight with a very limited budget.
So, I think Morison has earned his contract extension. This time last year, Mick McCarthy was signing his two year contract with me hoping he would make the changes needed to make us into a more watchable team during his first summer in charge, but never really believing deep down that he would.
In the event, McCarthy made us even harder on the eye, but I’m more hopeful that Steve Morison will change things for the better on the entertainment front.
I say that for a few reasons. First, it is very likely that there is going to be a very high turnover of playing staff this summer with so many senior players out of contract – he’ll need Boardroom backing, but the opportunity is there for Morison to implement a complete revamp if he is so minded. Second, while they were also very content to let the opposition have the ball, Morison’s under 23 side played far more watchable brand of football when they had the ball than the senior team does. Third, although results were mixed and the twin bugbears of not being able to keep a clean sheet or win at home continued, I thought there was an attempt to play more football when Morison first took over the senior team.
I suppose the fact that we’re still signing a player like Ikpeazu is suggestive of things not changing too much, but looking at the largely deserted stands last night, the announced crowd (just over 18,000) once again bore little resemblance to the numbers actually there. It seems a number of season ticket holders are not making it to home games despite the upturn in results and it’s reasonable enough to at least ask the question as to whether this is because they don’t feel they’re being entertained enough?
Just a quick word about the under 23 side that Steve Morison left behind, they lost again, 3-1 at home to Bristol City, this lunchtime and the winning run of earlier in the season seems ever so far away now. however, with some now in the first team squad and others out on loan, this is a transitional period for the side and it was inevitable that results would suffer. I did not see much of the game due to a combination of a doctor’s appointment and a dodgy stream, but Jack Leahy, who signed a one year contract extension this week, scored a good goal from a fine Ryan Kavanagh cross and there was some of that more attractive football from the Morison era on show in the little I saw of proceedings.
What impressed me greatly last night was Derby’s right-winger, Number 36. I felt that if the ball could be delivered to him or for him to run on to from his position as a traditional winger sticking to the sideline he could do real damage to us. What makes real speed is not just speed on its own but speed in the first step or so. I have a young cockepoo dog which gets immediately into speed, can jump like a rocket and body swerve like an escaping hare. My Airedale terrier, all six stone of muscle, can get up to speed but not with immediacy and finds body swerving difficult — as I found on Boxing Day when her ran into my right knee and knocked me down so that I now have ligament trouble which is going to take six months to repair. My first reaction when I saw the Derby right winger was that he has all the attributes of genuine speed and I would like to see him playing for Cardiff City. What Derby did was to highlight that we still don’t have real speed and skill in the locker, and I hope Paul has it right that our manager, now given an extended contract, will make appropriate signings for next season. At least, for the moment we can breathe a little more easily.
P.S.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested, my latest book on Amazon is entitled “Airedale Anecdotes, 1850-1950”, although I’ve also included an account of Tedi (as my airedale is called) falling into a deep crevice on top of the mountain and thankfully was rescued by the Fire Brigade.
Thanks, Paul, excellent as always.
First time I’ve watched a whole game for months and as you say not the most entertaining encounter I’ve ever watched.
First your point about our recruitment. At a time when big strikers/target men are a rarity in the elite English clubs we bring in two of them Not a sign of one at the Manchester clubs, nobody at Liverpool. Chelsea have Lukaku but he’s hardly getting a touch of the ball.
Our two recent recruits suggest our transfer policy needs updating. I have never been a fan of Hughill. I was at CCS for the game against Preston when our erstwhile commenter ‘Dai ?????’ was so impressed by Hughill’s performance that he thought we should buy him. My impression on the day was that he was a “willing donkey” with very little quality to go with his effort.. I have seen very little of Ikpeazu but on last night’s evidence he doesn’t bring a lot of quality to the game. I can see his strength and ‘style’ could create panic in opposing defences. His goals per minutes played stat must be quite impressive but as you said about James Collins in the last game, Paul, if Ikpeazu was put through in the same sort of position he would just as likely to scuff his shot than place it coolly in the bottom corner.
The trouble is I haven’t seen enough of a player like Watters to know if he could be a “50p shop” Jamie Vardy. Pace frightens defenders and Isaak Davies fits the bill for me.
First viewing for me of loanees Drameh and Doyle, they are the sort of players that we should be looking to sign. Didn’t see enough of Doughty but I like Wintle, if we can persuade Ralls to stay we may have two-thirds of a decent mid-field.
In defence Ng looked comfortable, Bagan survived a torrid opening period against Ebosele and was always looking for the ball when we did manage to retain it for any length of time.
Do you think the first-half tactics were deliberate? I know the side seem quite comfortable out of possession but in opening 45 minutes Derby seemed to have more players than us. Probably down to our inability to pass the ball to a player in blue. From the start of the second period we looked a much better side and looked as if we might want to play football.
With relegation fears almost disappearing what will be our approach?
One last thing. Did anyone else find Allsop’s (Derby keeper) positioning, insulting and irritating ? He spent more time outside the box than in it. He should have been punished with a long shot, I’m sure if Vaulk’s had been on the field he would have had at least one attempt.
I think there will be three sides who fail to make 47 points so a big win for us (we now need 0.73 points per game needed to reach that figure) and a big loss for Derby (2.45 points per game needed) who surely must be down now.
Derby’s points total before deduction is 42 which would make them a lower mid-third side in quality but vast majority of their points have come at home with just 3 defeats so far at home compared to just 2 wins away from home – they have joint 13th best goals conceded but are struggling to score goals with 19th best record in this category, and I think we saw that with us getting very few good chances created (Ralls crossbar effort and…?) and how much they were missing a striker (they’ve scored 1 goal in 3 games without suspended Tom Lawrence) with good play up until final third and then not much at all.
Despite their obvious struggles and now high likelihood of going down, I thought their work in defensive and midfield third was really smart and probably better than ours with higher level of football intelligence and trust in their skills. Do we put that down to our first XI having played a lot of football recently so we’re seeing fatigue? Or Rooney and Morison being tasked with similar job (change style of play, emphasis on youth) but Rooney having had a summer and 51 games more in charge than Morison (as well as higher ceiling as player) which makes it easier to get the message across? Or that it takes a lot for a right-footed player to play LCB (next to a LWB having a difficult game) so our base was unbalanced?
There are definitely things Morison has done well and some things which are little bit of a concern with regards to longer deal so I’m not yet completely sold on the idea. I’m not one who is worried about current more defensive style of play, counter-attack isn’t negative football if there is high skill demonstrated in getting up the pitch and we have to recognise that not so long ago there was only two sides who had conceded number of goals we had but now there are four teams behind us in that category, but am a little concerned that Morison has Plan A and not much apart from personal change behind that. Or am I being hypercritical considering 23 games to get a Plan A sorted isn’t bad going at all? That being said, if longer term plans are to really make use of loan market then we’ll need to check it’s not to neglect of our young players because selling them on will now be lifeblood of the club again.
It was an important evening, we have more stability going forward and it’s looking more likely that we will have a couple of games plus at end of the season to experiment a bit more before going into a very important summer. Let’s keep it going.
Correction:
and a big loss for Derby (2.36 points per game needed) who surely must be down now.
Thanks for a set of varied and equally interesting replies. Anthony. I read somewhere that Ebosele is bound for Italian football in the summer – just found it, here’s the link;-
https://www.nottinghamforest.news/2022/02/04/nottingham-forest-derby-county-festy-ebosele-udinese/
the article confirms he is out of contract in the summer, but, based on the little I’ve seen of him so far, I’d say he’d get more attractive offers from elsewhere and, although I’d like to be surprised on this, I don’t see that we would be seriously in the running for a player like him – time was when we could have been, but we used the advantages Premier League football gave us pretty abysmally. Ebosele gave Joel Bagan more problems than I’ve seen any other right winger/wing back do (despite the criticisms I’ve seen of Bagan defensively, I think he’s pretty sound on that score generally), but, to his credit, he handled the Derby man better as the game went on. The Sky commentary on the game was interesting in that Don Goodman was critical of Ebosele for still being stuck out on the right wing when dangerous crosses were coming in from the left, but that can be coached into him and the basics are there for him to become a Premier League standard player if he is so minded.
Best of luck with the book, I’ll try to remember to put a plug for it in my piece on the QPR game – remind me if I forget to!
Colin, some thought provoking stuff there, particularly about our penchant for hoovering up target men! Dai Woosnam reminded me by e-mail after his debut goal against Forest of what he said about Hugill after that Preston game. I think Hugill’s limitations have been shown by his stint as a Premier League player, but, if we must have a target man (I’ve no problem with us having one either), I think we could do a lot worse than him at this level. Ikpeazu is more debatable, but David Prutton said something interesting in the discussion after the game when he remarked that we scored a typical Championship goal – I thought that it was quite perceptive and while you’re going to have managers at this level who wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole, there will be others who see a use for him and I have to admit that he did get the better of Curtis Davies in a way that more skilful, “nicer” players (e.g. Isaak Davies in a first half one on one) don’t tend to. Nevertheless, I find it predictable, and a little depressing, that our manager appears to be firmly in the latter of those categories I mentioned – the question being will Morison be as keen on having Ikpeazu and Hugill at the club next season with the virtual blank canvas he has this summer to put together a squad which will be truly his?
DJ, my suspicion is that forty seven points is a bit on the high side as to the total that will ensure safety this season, but I take your point. After Tuesday, a team in Derby’s position can have very little expectation of overtaking us and it’s going to be a real dogfight when they entertain Barnsley tomorrow with the loser almost certainly down and a draw no good to either side really. Realistically, the bottom three can only have Reading in their sites now and any other side dropping into trouble are going to need to have a run something similar to our eight straight losses in the autumn.
Showing his trademark honesty, Steve Morison admitted he was disappointed with his side’s display as he talked of tired minds and bodies – people like me may well need to bear this in mind after tomorrow’s visit to a QPR side that didn’t play a midweek game, but I probably won’t if we’re beaten!
You touch upon the dilemma anyone wanting to make constructive criticism of Steve Morison (like I often do) faces – he inherited a squad that was dropping like a stone on the back of eight straight losses with very little in terms of a transfer budget available to him and was also meant to revamp the playing style, it’s a task list that even Guardiola would struggle with!
Hi Paul,
I have enjoyed reading your articles on ccmb for the last ten years or so, but as someone happier to browse rather than engage i had always left it at that. For no apparent reason I suddenly thought it was about time to become a patron! I have a feeling I watched the same QPR stream as you which buffered and was made more disjointed by having Radio Wales MW on too (3 minutes ahead and with an awful reception) so I don’t feel I had a great view of proceedings. It has been a bit of a guessing game as to when we we would see Colwill play this season and assuming that we are unlikely to start matches with the team and setup we finished the match with (Colwill as a 10 with Hugill and Davies ahead of him), I would like to see Colwill and Davies start upfront. PS have you been able to follow much of the players out on loan?I always gathered you were more an admirer of Sam Bowen but I liked what I saw of Keiron Evans when he had a those few outings before going out to Linfield?
Sorry for the late replies and for the fact that this has to be so short as I’ve got a lot on for today! Colin, I think Isaak Davie’s pace was the biggest single factor in turning around Saturday’s match. He’s got a few rough edges, but he’s been an important part of our season – I’ve always liked and marked him out as the one to keep an eye out for out of the group breaking into the team this season, but he’s exceeded my expectations in his first season.
DJ, forty seven points will surely be enough now, but when you consider that we’re fourth in the form table over our last ten games with nineteen points, it rather shows the task facing the bottom three if they want to get to forty two points! Regarding possession of the ball, I accept that it’s not the be all and end all as I maybe once thought it was, but I maintain that we really do need to be better at it – I know I’m right when I say that no one got into football as a kid because, as a kid they admired the shape of the team they were supporting when out of possession, it was all about what you did with the ball and I think it is so hard to keep fans onside when your possession figures are down in the twenties and thirties every week.
Great to hear from you Bud and thank you so much for your intention to become a patron – welcome to the Feedback section and I look forward to hearing more from you. I’m not sure we’ll see Colwill and Davies in the same starting line up too often in what remains of the season because Steve Morison clearly wants a target man in the team – I suppose it could be done if we went with four at the back, but we’d have to play with full backs then rather than wing backs. I’ve only heard a couple of things about Keiron Evans at Linfield, one was that a game he was down to start in was postponed and that he was named as a sub on Saturday (don’t know if he came on) – it’s a pretty good standard he’s playing at, so I don’t think it’s as pointless a loan as some of the ones we’ve seen to Welsh League clubs in recent years have been. You’re right about Bowen, but, for whatever reason, Steve Morison is off him as far as the first team is concerned and I must be honest and say his recent performances for the Under 23s have hardly demanded that he be included – I’m still very surprised at our manager favouring Eli King over Bowen and Keenan Patten and that’s no criticism of King, it’s just that the other two have qualities which could help the first team if they could establish themselves whereas King is more of a “sitter” who, to be fair, has not let the team down when he’s played.