Game going nowhere brought to life by substitutions as Cardiff progress in League Cup.

1 Response to Game going nowhere brought to life by substitutions as Cardiff progress in League Cup.

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   August 14, 2024 at 9:44 am

   As you say Paul, for much of the game, City’s build-up was its usual frustratingly slow affair. What a contrast to the two teams in the Championship that have impressed me most this past week: deadly rivals of each other… Blackburn and Burnley.

   My favourite player Macca, had a proper stinker up until his goal: virtually his every pass was misdirected, and he turned slower than an oil tanker. I have always seen him as a superior version of Paul Went (whose gait he has off to a fine art), but for 65 minutes last night, he was a decidedly inferior version of PW.

   Bagan impressed, and reminded me why I was puzzled as to why it was we ever sent him out on loan in the first place. My boy Jak in goal (again given the captaincy as a sign of Bulut’s guilt at wrongly demoting him?) was forced by Bulut to largely abandon his magnificent long passing, and play out from the back (part of the slow build up problem). I say ‘largely’ abandon, but there was a glorious moment in the 30th minute when he saw Rubin in a one-to-one just over the halfway line, and one long pass landed on a sixpence for him.

   But as you say Paul, the revelation was this boy Michael Reindorf…!! What a first touch he has, and what an ability to accept the ball (in true Foden-esque style) on the half-turn and get away from the tight defender in a nanosecond. The only City attacker with this quality is Rubin… so, like you say Paul, this boy must come into serious consideration for a first team squad place. Were I Robinson or Willock, I might be immediately worried.

   Good to see Tanner trying to ‘take on’ his full back. Alas he did not have the speed to get away from the Rovers boy last night, but I applaud his effort and of course his splendid assist for Macca’s goal.

   And the boy Robertson looked pretty decent: one can see why Pompey wanted to renew the loan.

   But the biggest letdown last night were the City fans. Completely outperformed by the 1,000 Rovers supporters.

   Of course, whilst their splendid ‘Oh when the Gas/ Go marching in/ Oh when the Gas/ Go marching in…’ was to be expected, it was so refreshing that they sang (the cleaned-up* Weavers version of the Huddie Ledbetter classic) ‘Goodnight Irene’… which is of course their signature song.

   And they sang it with brio, and did not make a mockery of it, like Norwich fans have with ‘On The Ball City’, or a semi mockery like Birmingham fans have made of the Harry Lauder classic, ‘Keep Right On to the End of the Road’ (which I submit is an even more inspiring song than the ‘Carousel’ classic beloved by fans at Anfield and Parkhead).

   Pity we don’t have a signature song. Our official one written by the dad of Channel 4 News presenter Ciaran Jenkins, does not quite ‘cut it’ for me.

   *When in 1933, John Lomax and his son Alan originally recorded Leadbelly singing the song in Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary, he sang ‘GET you in my dreams’ on one version, and ‘KISS you’ on another. Some years later, when it came to a commercial recording, Pete Seeger and his fellow Weavers opted for ‘SEE you’, as they figured that Middle America would be happier knowing that their teenage kids would not have their own innocent dreams suddenly hijacked by thoughts of passionate sex…!!

   TTFN,
   Dai.