Goalscorers emphasise the increasing impact of Cardiff City Academy products on the first team.

The football can be dull at times, but, after tonight, it seems there’s always going to be talking points at Cardiff City under Steve Morison. In his post match interview, City’s manager described himself as a black and white guy when asked about his decision to replace Max Watters with Jordan Hugill after just thirty seven minutes of their home match with Coventry City.

Watters appeared bemused by the decision and could justifiably point to having had his team’s only serious goal attempts while he was on the pitch. He sat in the substitutes seats throughout the half time interval, but his manager told the interviewer on Sky that his performance was not good enough when it came to some of the physical aspects of the centre forward role at Championship level.

Now, I think it came as a surprise to most supporters that Watters started the game in the first place following his absence from the squad in the previous two matches and I suppose the subsequent decision to haul him off so early could be taken to be an admission of a mistake by the manager, but I’m not sure he’ll see it that way.

Playing Watters was not the only surprise in Morison’s team selection, Isaak Davies was alongside  Watters up front as Mark Harris stood down and Ryan Wintle was the only one of Saturday’s midfield three to survive with Joe Ralls and Tommy Doyle being replaced by Will Vaulks and Eli King who was making his first league start.

I must admit that I’ve been surprised by King’s recent first team call ups. For me, Sam Bowen and Keenan Patten’s (bafflingly, currently on loan at Hereford) claims are stronger, but King has definitely made great strides in the under twenty three side this season and I thought he outshone Bowen (who is making his way back after three months out injured) in the recent Development team game against Ipswich.

I didn’t think King did badly tonight at all, he went about his work in the sort of unfussy and competent way under twenty three and eighteen regular watchers have become used to and it was no reflection on his performance when he was replaced by Doyle around the hour mark.

So, all in all, Steve Morison’s original selection and use of substitutes were sure to attract comment, but all he needs to do is point to a final score of Cardiff 2 Coventry 0 if anyone wants to be critical of him and I must admit that, taking into account the original selection, this was an impressive result.

So, it’s four league wins out of five now for City and the gap to the relegation places is extended to fifteen points – it’s also three straight wins at home and three clean sheets in four, so the two glaring weaknesses which kept us so close to the bottom three for so long are showing signs of being rectified, but it’s probably still a little too early yet to say with conviction that this is the case.

The best thing about the win for me though was that it was gained through a couple of high quality goals scored by former members of our Academy team.

It needs to be said mind that the quality of the goals was out of keeping with what happened through most of the ninety minutes – this was more the City we saw at Barnsley than the one that turned up against Forest and Peterborough.

One of the things which helped to make our previous two home matches so special by Cardiff City Stadium standards this season was the fact that, not only did we score the first goal, it also came within the first five minutes, so we were put at relative ease right from the off almost.

There could have been an early goal tonight as well as Watters met a good Joel Bagan cross with a header that ex City keeper Simon Moore was just able to keep out before the ball crossed the line.

Moore was also in action when Watters made a good run to fasten onto a clever ball by Vaulks just before he was taken off- Watters took the ball down and got away a fierce shot which the keeper saved unconventionally by heading away for an unproductive corner.

I never like to see a player taken off as early as Watters was and I think maybe he paid a price for having a big, physical former target man as a manager – Morison would put himself about and let his markers know they were in a game and, for all that Watters suggested he could score tonight despite his misses, it was clear almost from the off when Hugill came on that we were livelier up front as Davies gradually became more prominent.

Our manager made the point that Watters is a different type of player to Hugill, yet, when describing why he came off, Steve Morison sounded like he expected Watters to play like a target man – next year, I will have been watching City play for sixty years and I wonder if they’ve ever gone into a game without a target man type centre forward in all of that time? If they have done, I can’t remember it,

Before our slight improvement, Coventry had got on top as City appeared lethargic and somewhat disorganized in the face of some pretty relentless pressure. However, whereas the visitors had been very impressive on the own pitch back in September as they definitely appeared capable of maintaining a top six, and even a top two, challenge, this time they were neat with their passing, but pretty toothless in front of goal.

That said, there was unanimous support from the pundits for them being awarded a penalty as Callum O’Hare first went down under a challenge by Aden Flint and then tried to cash in a fumble by Smithies as he tried to prevent the ball going out for a corner. When the keeper instinctively reached for the ball and instead touched the Coventry player’s heal, O’Hare reacted again and fell down, but the referee, and the linesman on the Ninian Stand side, who had a good view of what happened, saw nothing wrong, nor, indeed, did I.

However, the ex pros (including both managers) who discussed the second appeal after the game all thought it should have been a penalty, so I’ll bow to their superior knowledge – certainly, Smithies, after his blunder which gave Millwall the corner they took the lead from on Saturday, has shown signs of his earlier erratic form in our last two games, even if he did redeem himself later somewhat with a fine save at a vital stage of the match.

Such was Coventry’s dominance of possession at this stage, as City were  as bad as they’d ever been under Slade, Warnock, Harris and McCarthy at retaining the ball, an away goal seemed inevitable, but at half time there was only a long range shot not too far wide by the talented O’Hare to point to as a tangible threat to our goal. City seemed to be hanging on at times, but Watters’ two misses were more of a threat on the goal than anything we faced and there was also a wild effort from a reasonable chance by Vaulks which was at odds with what I thought was a more composed and effective display by the midfield man.

If it could be said that a first period almost as barren as the one at Millwall had been Coventry’s, then the second one was City’s, not overwhelmingly so, but enough to say that they deserved a single goal victory margin.

Chances were still at a premium at either end of the pitch, but City wasted a great one when Cody  Drameh went on one of his lung bursting runs past a couple of defenders and combined with Hugill just as he did twice in our last home game. This time though, the cross wasn’t quite as good as last weeks were which meant that Hugill had overrun the ball slightly when it reached him, but he will have been disappointed I would have thought to send his shot from around the penalty spot straight at Moore.

There was also another reprise of the Peterborough game as Flint was faced with a sim8lar, but more difficult, opportunity to the one he had for his goal that night. This time, a concerned Moore was happy to see a very well struck shot fly a yard or two over, but, on both occasions, Flint showed an underrated ball striking technique which is another reason, besides his size, why he is a central defender with more than fifty career goals.

As the game went into its final quarter, City we’re able to build up a little of the attacking momentum that can see them earning set piece opportunities. Coventry coped well enough with them until the seventy second minute when they fell behind to a quality goal. The dead ball situation helped as Vaulks’ long throw meant City had a two on one when the ball was half cleared  back out to the touchline, so Bagan was able to play a one two with his team mate which left him in a bit of a space inside the penalty area.

I was surely not the only person to expect the wing back to try to get to the bye line and deliver a cross, but, instead, he cut back onto his right foot and placed his curled shot from the corner of the penalty area to perfection just inside the far post for his second goal in consecutive games.

Bagan’s goal at Millwall had been a straightforward affair volleyed in from close range, but this was one to be proud of and manna from heaven for an old fogey like me who thinks left footed players should play on the left and vice versa. The modern fixation with using players on the “wrong wing” can be effective as they come infield into shooting positions, but it becomes more so if the player concerned is good enough to go on the outside of his marker as well because it creates that element of doubt in defenders – Bagan has now given opponents something that will always have to consider in their preparations because he has now shown that he can hurt teams when cutting inside as well.

The goal was enough to win Bagan a deserved man of the match award from Sky, but, just as on Saturday, a match that looked set to be decided by a single goal was not done so.

Before we doubled our lead though, Coventry wasted their best chance of the night when O’Hare, in his one significant second half contribution, picked out Viktor Gyokeres, the scorer of the only goal in the first meeting between the teams this season, with a superb cross, but the Swedish international directed his header from an unmarked position some eight yards out too close to Smithies who was able to make a great block.

Three minutes from time, City sealed the points when Hugill received a long clearance by Smithies and did very well to send sub Mark Harris, on for Davies, clear in the inside right channel. The young striker then backed up his manager’s claim that he is more effective coming off the bench than starting by cutting back inside the last defender and then shooting across Moore in a composed fashion – there are those in City’s support who are unconvinced by Harris and there can be days when he does look a little bit out of his depth, but he has shown enough for club and country (remember how he helped turn around what was looking a very dodgy afternoon in Belarus?) in my book to show that opponents underrate him at their peril.