Cardiff City closed the gap on one time runaway Championship leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers to just three points, for twenty four hours at least, with a hard fought 2-1 home win over Barnsley last night in a match that I thought raised questions about a range of issues which could all have a bearing on whether our unlikely promotion bid succeeds or not.
In his post match interview, manager Neil Warnock went on the attack from the off as he accused referee Robert Jones, an official who only took charge of his first Football League match last season and had only officiated in two Championship games prior to this campaign, of getting things badly wrong in not dismissing visiting striker Keifer Moore for bad challenges in either half.
There’s no denying referee Jones is very inexperienced at this level, but in recent months, he has been used almost exclusively in the Championship and his very rapid rise through the ranks would suggest that people in high places have been impressed by him – my opinion on him as I left the ground was that he surprised me by awarding some free kicks that didn’t look like fouls, while ignoring others that did, but, overall, he was decent enough.
Therefore, my reaction was that it was classic Warnock diversion tactics when I saw him resorting to blame the official mode in his post match interview on the club website – he was trying to move the agenda away from a less than convincing performance from his side.
Our manager was unhappy with how target man Moore had been able to get away with just a yellow card after what he claimed was an off the ball elbowing incident on Bruno Manga in the first half and a late challenge on Neil Etheridge after the break.
Now, I cannot recall the incident our manager is referring to in the first half and I’ve not seen or read anything since the match about it, so I cannot comment on the validity of Warnock’s claims there. However, my thoughts at the time on the sliding challenge on Etheridge as he dived on a loose ball after he had made a diving save from a shot, were that Moore would have got a bollocking from his manager after the game if he had not gone in for the ball, so, on balance, a yellow card, rather than a red, was probably justified.
That was before I had seen these highlights, now I’m more inclined to think Neil Warnock had a case because there seems to be split second between Etheridge having control of the ball and Moore starting his dive towards the keeper – it’s all about fine margins, but maybe Barnsley did get lucky there and we may all have been spared a fraught final quarter of the match if it had been a case of City’s eleven against Barnsley’s ten.
Even if our manager had a point about Moore and the referee (Warnock also explained away what seemed to be a strange replacement of Marko Grujic with Greg Halford shortly after he had scored his first goal for City to put us 2-0 ahead, by saying that the ref had said that the Serbian international would be given a second yellow card if he committed another foul), I still have concerns for our promotion prospects after a match where we seemed to play pretty well to get to 2-0 ahead and then it was if we “declared” and sat back thinking that Barnsley did not have the attacking ammunition to hurt us – if this was the case, then that belief was proved to be wrong.
There are alternative explanations for our fade out following our second goal – one is that the loss of scorers Grujic and Callum Paterson from our midfield in quick succession left us seriously short in the area of the pitch where I’d say we have been least effective this season.
Alternatively, it might be that, for the first time I can remember this season, tiredness became a factor. While the multiple injury breaks and long delays in restarting the match which left me thinking we would see one or two minutes more added on than the signalled five at the end of the game, could be expected from a team striving to hold on to their narrow lead in the face of intense pressure, the way Barnsley were able to break through our midfield, both in terms of their passing and their running with the ball, was also suggestive of a City side running low on gas.
Certainly, I had wondered if we may be creating problems for ourselves come March and April as I watched us putting so much into our early season matches, but had hoped that the increase in squad numbers seen since January would counteract this.
However, squad size brings me on to another matter which, to be honest, has been a real concern since about late September onwards – our never ending string of injuries.
I would say that in recent weeks, three very strong contenders have emerged for our Player of the season award in Sean Morrison, Joe Ralls and Junior Hoilett. While the last named was there against Barnsley giving the sort of performance that has become the norm from him over the last seven months, the other two were nowhere to be seen.
I’ll come to Morrison shortly, but, first, I want to talk about the plain weird is he injured or isn’t he controversy which surrounded Ralls from shortly after the Bristol City game when there was a messageboard claim that he had been seen wearing one of those inflatable casts on his leg, all of the way through to the announcement of the team last night. Amid all of the will he, won’t he stuff, there were also claims that Ralls could be absent for the rest of the season and given that some of those saying that the man who has seemed to hold our midfield together almost single handed at times this season could be out for weeks rather than days were hardly your typical wind up merchants, there has been a widespread acceptance that Ralls is going to be out for the foreseeable future.
I say “widespread” there, but the acceptance that Ralls was injured was not unanimous and, justifiably, some pointed to the lack of confirmation by the club and the absence of anything in the printed or broadcast media to suggest our key midfielder had a problem as reason to suggest he would be there against Barnsley.
It’s now obvious that there was something to the rumours that first appeared just over a week ago and yet there is still no indication from the club as to how long Ralls will be out. When questioned on this last night, Neil Warnock said it could be a short time or it could be much longer – the club were waiting on the results of a scan.
Now, unless we accept the very, very unlikely scenario that Ralls was not injured when it was first claimed he was, but it actually happened in the last day or two, surely the club must know by now how serious the injury is?
Given the size of our injury list throughout most of this season, it has become the norm for Neil Warnock to be asked about who is available for tomorrow’s game and who isn’t in his pre game press conferences. Our manager’s answers are usually comprehensive when it comes to listing those who are doubtful or absent, but I would say deliberately vague when it comes to any detail as to the nature of these ailments and how long any absences will be.
Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t see why there is this secrecy regarding the nature and severity of any injuries our players are carrying (for example, Jazz Richards has been absent for months on end during Neil Warnock’s tenure as City manager and I’m still none the wiser as to what is/has been keeping him out). In saying that, all our manager needs to do to justify his approach is point at the league table and, if I’m honest, this is not a matter that concerns me too much – more worrying for me is the number of injuries we are getting and why they recur so often?
The situation with Ralls is one thing – he’s someone who had been available for all but one of our matches before last night and players are always going to pick up injuries from time to time. However, while Sean Morrison isn’t a typical example of this because he was able to play for six weeks or so without any obvious problem between his absences, the aforementioned Jazz Richards is one of several examples of first team squad members I can think of who have returned to action from an injury, played the odd game or two and then disappeared again for quite a long period.
Without doing any research on this, I can think of Aron Gunnarsson, Craig Bryson, Gary Madine, Danny Ward, Jamie Ward and Kadeem Harris who are all like Richards in that they have seemingly returned from injury only then to go missing again, while I get the distinct impression that someone like Lee Peltier has been used at times while a long way short of being fully fit.
From the outside looking in, I must say that, whatever division we are in next season, I hope there is a thorough investigation into training methods and how injuries and recuperation are both assessed and treated during the coming summer – maybe such an enquiry would find that there was nothing wrong and it could all be put down to “one of those things”, but I’m struggling to remember another season where we have been so blighted with injuries.
All of this only serves to make where we stand in the table with less than a quarter of the season left all the more remarkable, but this doesn’t alter my opinion that, as someone who has seen the odd five match winning run from my team down the years, I cannot recall another one where the general level of performance throughout has been so ordinary.
Yet, having watched four of the five games in this run and seen extended highlights of the match at Ipswich, I would say that, in each case, our win has been deserved. Obviously, I’m making a few assumptions there when it comes to the Ipswich match and anyone who was there may put my right on that, but our win over Bolton was, perhaps, our most comfortable of the season so far, while the victories over Middlesbrough and Bristol City were quite similar in that neither of them were great games of football by any stretch of the imagination, but we posed what goal threat there was and there was never much sign of our opponents having it in them to get back on terms after they fell behind.
Those two matches were like quite a few in our Championship winning season five years ago in that I was able to watch us defend a one goal lead in relative comfort because I had a lot confidence in the organisation and ability in our defending.
The league table tells us that Barnsley are nowhere as good a team as Middlesbrough and Bristol City are, but last night the closing minutes had me in the state I know so well of tension accompanied by a feeling of impending doom when the score is usually 1-0 or 2-1 to us with minutes to go!
Ironically, after barely having an attack worthy of the name after Grujic’s fine drive from just over twenty yards in the forty sixth minute until the fourth official held his board up as the clock hit ninety minutes, we had good chances in added time as Bryson shot wide when it looked like he should have scored and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing came so close to ending his scoring drought as he took careful aim from a similar distance to Grujic, only to see his shot rebound off the upright.
Barnsley were committing men forward by then though and I’m sure they would have felt their strong fightback in the match’s last third left them deserving a point at least.
However, given how close we came to getting another goal to go in 2-0 up at half time, I thought we were, just about, worth our win. The one goal we did get came from Paterson who followed up to strike in a low shot to end a slick counter attack featuring the scorer, Hoilett and Kenneth Zohore – the Danish striker botched his attempted finish from the winger’s cross and was fortunate to see the ball rebound backwards to the Scot, but, again, he was good in general play as he proved too powerful for the Barnsley central defenders at rimes.
Etheridge was another who continued his recent good form, while Bamba and Manga both hit the odd wayward pass, but generally defended well. However, Paterson was our best player for me – while he is not everyone’s cup of tea when used in the role he filled last night, he does give us a drive in the central attacking midfield area that is never present when he is absent.
With Derby dropping two more points at Loftus Road to leave them nine points adrift of us having played one more game, it’s beginning to look as if there are only two teams now who can take second place off us. Villa and Fulham both had 3-0 wins last night (at Sunderland and at home to Sheffield United respectively) which compared favourably to our scrambling home triumph over a side in serious relegation trouble.
It should be that if the gap stays the same over nearest rivals as the games count down, then our chances of automatic promotion must increase, but I have to admit to being less confident about our chances this morning than I was as I made my way to the game last night – I can’t help thinking that we are going to need to be better in possession than we have been for much of the campaign in the coming weeks and we must get some of the important players we are currently missing back as soon as possible.
Finally, two quick words on the attendance of 16,176 – absolutely pathetic!
HI Paul thanks for your write up – agree on the attendance, although my estimate and that of the guy I went with were significantly below that figure.
I think that was the poorest display of the season that I have seen in person, “topping that of the boxing day capitulation to Fulham. A real shame as this will be the last game I get to go to in 2018 as I take my family off to the middle East with work.
I got the feeling that after going 2 up somewhat fortunately, city took their foot off the gas and were then after losing a goal desperately looking for accelerator and instead hitting the clutch. I guess this easing off by the players is in part a product of an injury ravaged squad and a hard fought season, but it was really concerning to see the ball fail to stick to any of our midfield, with Bryson in particular looking in poor form. I too came out a little fearful of our chances, but I do think Fulham have a wobble in them after seeing their Derby highlights. Villa are the danger.
I am hoping that 1)this game wakes the team up when they face lowly opposition 2) we have 11 able bodies on the pitch for the next few weeks. March will be a crucial month and come April 1st I think we will be able to say with clarity if we are looking at automatic or the playoff lottery.
That’s all for now, I will next write from warmer climes…
Thanks for the report, Paul, I’m awfully sorry but I’m just not well enough to attend regularly now.
No clean sheet, sadly, but another three points however scratchy the performance was, we had trouble with Barnsley at Oakwell earlier in the season didn’t we? I haven’t checked!
The long list of injuries is a worry, is it something to do with the style we play? It is very demanding physically.
Looks as if we will at least be involved in the play-offs, it would be nice if we could finish above Wolves (c’mon Leeds, oo that hurt).
I come back to the question I asked earlier in the season – “as supporters, do we really want promotion?”.
The money would be very welcome but could we stand the almost inevitable humiliation of immediate relegation. I know that there a number of poor sides in the the Premier League but I’m pretty sure they are capable of putting away sides like Barnsley with a lot more aplomb than we have appeared to show last night.
I’m sure that a lot of the players would love to have the chance of playing Premier League football but unless there is a marked improvement in the quality of football we play I think the initial enthusiasm would disappear after a string of defeats.
Would the owner be prepared to put up very big money after his initial experience?
I think I’ve seen Warnock quoted as saying he doesn’t like managing at that level.
Where does that leave us?
It’s been great to have had a season where we have been at and around the top of the table but except for the first three home games, which I really enjoyed, the actual standard of our play hasn’t been great. I had the misfortune of getting to the home games over Christmas – it wasn’t the season to be jolly!
I would love it (to paraphrase Mr. Keegan) if we finished top or second or won through the play-offs but I would fear for next season.
Paul,
Excellent update on our position and the concerns on the injury crisis which has befallen the side. Key players out Morrison, Ralls, Peltier, Richards and now Madine(one of the message boards said he has cracked ribs). You wonder what is going on when there is no directive from the Club. I did not make last night’s game due to not driving back in the dark. Will be there Saturday going by train.
From the beginning of January 2018, my prediction was 87 points now up to 90 points, with some wins rather than draws. My forecast includes losing to Derby, Wolves and Aston Villa. We can only wait and see.
Geoff
The secrecy over injuries has been a constant thorn in the side for some years now. u mere fans are left to guess why on absences once we get the teams through on our mobiles. Do management see revelations of injuries prior to a game as a possible advantage to opponents? Fair enough, but we are never even given reasons after the game. Makes me long for the days when the South Wales Echo was a proper evening paper, and it’s back page was the last word for all the news on the Bluebirds, good and bad.
We have a striker called Kennith
Who can be a bit of a menithe.
He runs with great place
All over the place,
But doesn’t believe in head tennith.
I could be completely off track here – I sincerely hope I am – but I fear we may have witnessed the end of a career last night. There was something terrible about the way Callum Paterson sat on the turf, clutching his knee. His thoughts were almost audible: “O, no, please God, not my knee!” For an hour he’d shown us the great player he could be – box to box, bite in his passes, lethal finisher, exuding power, a real dynamo. I was just turning to my mate, saying, “We’ll never hang on to this guy even if we go up. If he stays fit, he could go to a top Premiership team” – when Snap! I don’t know he did it. Did he just turn awkwardly? The football gods – indeed the gods full stop – can be cruel sometimes. It only takes a second for a chainsaw to go through a tree trunk and we may have seen the end for this fine Scots pine. Massively frustrating for us; a tragedy for him.
Maybe it was the other knee for all I know. I repeat, I hope I’ve got this all wrong and Callum bounces back on to the pitch on Saturday to ram my jejune jitters up my jacksie! I so wish.
Ta for yet another excellent report, Paul. Yes, a win is a win and 3 pts is 3 pts but the quality of the performance, particularly in the 2nd half, was concerning. Were there contributory factors?
Irrespective of what the media say about 433, City again played 4411 last night with Paterson in front of midfield-four which had Bryson and Grujic in the centre of that midfield. Sure the team largely picks itself these days, due to a shed-load of injuries, but I found it mystifying that Damour was on the bench whilst Bryson was shoe-horned into a role made for Frenchman, unless of course, Damour was also carrying a knock and couldn’t get through 90 mins.
Ok, I’ll get to the main point of all this. Bryson has been a good player at this level for Derby but now cuts a peripheral figure running around all over the pitch, from first to last, but arriving where the ball last was after it’s been moved on. The only game I thought Bryson was noteworthy was at Nott’m F where he played in the Paterson role of last night (ie in a 4411 behind the striker and infront of the midfield). There he closed down like a terrier and was excellent. This I feel is the only position he can now play. Last night he was a marginal figure. Ralls or Gunnarson he is not. Why expect him to play it? After the 56th minute withdrawal of Grujic the central midfield duo of Halford and Bryson were totally inadequate at this level and not surprisingly Barnsley had a field-day cutting through the centre of midfield like a hot knife through butter. Even so, bad misses by Bryson and Mendez-Laing late on, hampered a more convincing margin of victory.
The long awaited return of Harris was pleasing but was he totally 100% fit? His contribution and substitution on the hour did not dispel the doubts.
And now onto the subject of the refereeing last night. Inexperienced the official may have been, but that didn’t excuse:
– allowing the game to continue whilst two City players were on the turf, motionless within their own 6 yd box, for what seemed almost 30 secs whilst the opposition had the ball.
– again, Paterson, in a heap on the halfway line, waited approximately the same time for the game to be stopped.
– the cynical, studs-up, challenge by Moore on the City keeper’s face was appalling. That only a yellow card was brandished left a bit of a taste in the mouth.
– some free kicks being awarded with minimal contact having been made left me exasperated.
The interminable injury problems, at some points we have had a dozen players out, has been awful. Any team minus Richards, Peltier, Morrison, Troare, Ralls, Gunnarsson, Ward and Madine would leave it deficient. That results have continued and we are still in second place is a testimony not only to the grit and character of the players but the organisational and man-management abilities of our manager.
Hi Paul,good observations as usual,my take on last night was that we sought of got out of jail a little bit,understandable really with the changes that had to be made to our midfield,but they say a good team wins when not playing well but hope all these injuries doesn’t derail our bid for promotion.
Regarding the crowd las night it was disappointing but I think sometimes it’s because of a lack of away support to boost numbers I mean Barnsley fans must have come “in a van”I looked at Fulham’s attendance and that was 18000 I wonder how many Sheffield fans were their to boost the gate.Hopefully the crowd should be up by a sizeable crowd from Birmingham especially with new manager bounce,well we live in hope anyway.
Paul – Thanks again for your perceptive view of many matters relating to the Bluebirds, their wounded, their performance and prospects.
Before commenting on the above, may I also make a few remarks concerning the referee. His yellow card for Gruzic was farcical. Cards given for stumbles leading to collisions as happened to our Serb are surely not warranted, nor deserving, and no doubt was the reason for the lad being substituted on the hour mark. And didn’t that change the balance of play. And surely the clattering that Etheridge took from Moore was worthy of more than a yellow. Patterson’s disallowed goal, so a pal who sits at that end of the ground told me at the interval, was not offside as he was onside when the cross was delivered. But I haven’t seen a replay of that incident.
We do have the best part of team who are now unavailable, with I believe the likes of Morrison, Ralls, Gunnarson and Madine indisposed through injury. There seems to be a lack of serious information coming from NW as to when this quartet will be fit, and with three matches in the next twelve days, I can only hope that the first three of this number will be able to put in an appearance, as I believe them to be necessary if we are to retain our current second place
I think we must accept that the team last evening was seriously weakened by their absence. The glaring misses by both Harris and Bryson had much to do with their lack of game time this season. Mendez-Laing looked a little sharper than of late, and I think I prefer Damour to our Derby loanee. I didn’t think that Barnsley were really in the game until Gruzic’s departure, and we should have been out of sight well before this moment. But oh, what dreadful passing took place. I lost count of the times we gave the ball away, and that was regardless of the opportunities we were creating for ourselves. Consequently the last twenty minutes or so were back to the bad old days. No wonder Barnsley felt they were deserving of something from the game.
So with a quarter of the season to go, we need to hang on. Many difficult fixtures ahead, and I just hope that our performances will be better than last night.
The news today is that we are still £100 million in debt, and that we incurred a loss of £20 million plus for our last financial year. I have no idea how we recover from those figures, but were we to go up, money will be needed to strengthen the team, and that will only make our financial situation worse. And if we fail to be promoted, financially – then what? But I’ll try to help by purchasing next year’s season ticket before April 8th!!!.
Yes, last night’s display, particularly in second half, was abysmal. I don’t believe it was down to tiredness, rather the fact that we seem to be down to bare bones with so many of our first 11 out injured. We now seem in an even worse situation post game. Incredible how we keep winning !
Attendance was dreadful, but shows we are not a big club. Very fortunate to have Tan bankrolling the club. Any idiot who still bears him ill will needs their head examining.
Two home games in 5 days means some people have to choose on cost grounds so would play a part in the attendance, coupled with the very low turnout of away fans.
I saw the replay of Paterson’s disallowed header and it looked clearly onside!
It was good to see Kadeem back but understandable he was not at his sharpest as it was his first league start of the season. Let’s hope he doesn’t also join the list of those who return from injury only to get injured again soon after.
Thanks Paul great summary .
Thought the referee did okay in my view hd kept yellow count down ,didn’t think the challenge on Etheridge was worth a red .
Although the second performance was poor it was bloody exciting.
We missed 3 goals than one might consider open offers, hit the post, thought Patterson’s goal was not offside , it could have easily been 5-1 whilst not playing that well.
Felt Patterson absence was felt badly , list count on how many headers he won .
Connolly for me was a liability at times at full back and Bennet got skinned a few times.
Holilet was the class act got me .
Saturday will be interesting if we have a full 11.
In midfield I’d play Bryson,Damour, Gruzic, I’d give Wildschut a run as well , Halford may play though as he reliable, and experienced in these end of season fights.
We’re still there , looking down on others , I can only praise, and look upon our manager, as a top end motivator and man manager ,bloody incredible journey .
Thanks again Paul for another quality summary.
The game changed when Grujic and Paterson departed. Thought we were in control, despite again carrying Bryson the shadow chaser. Damour for me offers far more.
We really are down to the bare bones. Dread to think what team we will put out if both Paterson and Zohore are unfit for Saturday.
Thanks for the replies which, sadly, I will not be able to give as much attention to as I’d like to due to a very crowded MAYA related schedule today! Some quick thoughts in reply to some of the matters raised though;-
1. Royale, Neil Warnock said Paterson’s injury did not look too serious in his post match press conference, but I suppose that given my comments about the information put into the public domain by the club regarding our injury situation throughout this season, maybe we could do with a bit more reassurance than that.
2. Matt, I overheard a steward saying that the club were expecting an actual attendance of around 9,000 as I made my way into the ground on Tuesday night, but I reckon there was more there than that, my guess would be around 12,000 – enjoy your travels!
3. Geoff, I’m pretty sure ninety points would be enough to take us up in the top two.
4. Paul, the Echo really did have “last word” properties all of those decades ago didn’t it!
5. Nice work Anthony – I reckon that one of the main reasons why Paterson plays where he does is that he gives us someone in advanced areas who can play “head tennith”.
6. Welcome on board Steve, good to see a contribution from you – I thought Bryson did okay in the first half and I suppose you had to applaud the way he was able to get forward to support Zohore so late in the game for that miss he really should have scored from, but, overall, I can’t really argue with you about his overall showing.
7. Five straight wins and guaranteed second place going into the last ten matches, I think the least we should expect on Saturday is 20,000, but I’m not hopeful of us getting it – Liverpool reserves v Porto in a virtual dead rubber was the excuse on Tuesday I suppose and I daresay it’ll be Six Nations rugby when we play Birmingham.
8. BJA, Trust Chairman Keith Morgan (who is excellent at explaining football club finances) has issued his commentary on the Accounts to members and I’m a bit more reassured after reading what he has to say, but I was certainly shocked by how big our loss was last year – such a figure puts us in danger of a breach of FFP rules.
9. Robert, I thought we look knackered in the last half an hour, but I concede that this may have been down to a couple of changes in personnel which probably helped Barnsley look fitter than us – we should have a better idea on this ten days time after we’ve ended a run of four matches in just under a fortnight.
10. Blue Bayou – just saw Paterson’s disallowed goal on the club website highlights, to me it’s one of those decisions where the attacking player should get the benefit of any doubt.
11. Russell, it’s odd with Wildschut, he’s not played much, yet, without having any “mares”. he has dropped down to our fifth choice winger.
12. Jeff, I think we are looking at Pilkington up front if Zohore isn’t available – I’d move Hoillet inside and bring in a winger if Paterson is out. Midfield is the big problem area for me, I can see Bamba being used there if Morrison is fit (be surprised if he is though) and I suppose Connolly could play there with, say, Halford at right back.
Thanks Paul and sorry for late reply. Been offline for couple of days.
Just welcome your comments re injury updates – or lack of!
Been thinking myself recently that, although Mr Warnock is great value in quips and quotes and doing a great job, not sure why we are not getting accurate and informed updates on injury situations for the various absentees. Not sure why the mystery as not like we are fooling upcoming opponents and bit disrespectful to supporters not to keep us informed. Local media outlets don’t seem to ask such questions so we can only speculate and wait for titbits from the manager.
From a wider perspective makes you also wonder about the training regime/fitness programme generally.
Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but thanks for highlighting.
Onward and upward!
I’m in complete agreement with you Huw – the they’ll know our tactics line doesn’t wash with me when it comes to keeping quiet about injuries doesn’t wash with me, because we play, esssentially, the same type of game no matter who is or isn’t injured.