I’m pretty sure we saw a career first today for Cardiff City midfielder Manolis Siopis in the home match with league leaders Sheffield United as he provided a hundred per cent of the on target goal attempts from both teams in the opening forty five minutes.
I suppose many of you who didn’t watch the match probably muttered something like “there must have only been one of them then” when you read the above paragraph and you’d be right. The Greek international showed decent technique to get his volley from about twenty five yards on target, but accuracy without power was never going to trouble goalkeeper Michael Cooper.
Still, it was more than the best Championship team currently could manage and, being realistic when you consider the league table and the relative form of the two sides, an incident free and goalless opening forty five minutes represented a pretty good outcome for the home team.
The plan from City was clearly to frustrate the team with eight wins in their last ten matches and hope to nick a goal from somewhere.
Bulutball was making a comeback and, to be fair, for more than an hour what City produc ed was much better than what was on offer in our previous two home games. However, whereas our previous manager had the division’s best set piece attack to fall back on last season, we are no better than average in that department this time around and so, when you consider that we were up against the Championship’s second best defence with what is now, officially, the Championship’s worst attack, you’d couldn’t help thinking that the only score line by which we could avoid defeat was 0-0.
Instead of that, Sheffield gradually upped their attacking game and Keiffer Moore showed that, as he enters the New Year shortly in his thirty third year, he may well be the best striker of his type in the division with two high quality goals of a type that prove he is more than just a target man.
By contrast, in the biggest indictment of the club’s haphazard recruitment in 2024, all City can offer in the striking department are a series of players who all have faults in their game which mark them down as below average in important facets of the modern striker’s game.
Wilfried Kanga is, well, what can you say? Yakou Meite is I believe having his best spell of form since he signed for us and is a very willing runner, but has technical limitations and is not a great finisher, Callum Robinson has the technique and is probably the best finisher at the club, but questions have emerged in the last year about his fitness and mobility as he struggles with a chronic injury. There’s also Michael Reindorf who has done so well to put himself into first team contention with his consistent goal scoring at under 21 level, but, truth be told, he’s has looked what he is in his appearances so far – a promising,, but raw novice who is, ridiculously, being promoted in some places as the answer to our striking problems – anyway, Reindorf’s joined the queue of players trying to gain access to the badly overcrowded Cardiff City treatment room in the last few days.
Two regulars in that treatment room in recent times, Kion Etete and Isaak Davies will perhaps be available to increase competition in the striking department quite soon. The former began another comeback after his aborted first one about a month ago with forty five minutes in the under 21s 3-1 win over Watford in the Premier League Cup on Thursday and the latter has just started stepping up his training following a setback about six weeks ago.
Even if they were to both come back on schedule and quickly move into first team contention, neither Etete or Davies have a good scoring record for the senior team, with the ex Spurs man’s “body language” being questioned at times and there will be questions as to whether persistent hamstring problems mean that Davies will be able to provide the attacking speed we so clearly lack.
All of this means that, as we’re now the only team in the Championship with less than twenty goals to our name, we surely need to add at least one good finisher to our ranks in January if we are to avoid relegation.
That may sound overly dramatic, but I believe we’re now at that stage. Weve needed a good striker throughout 2024 and, through two transfer windows have failed ignominiously to bring one on. However, in January last year, we had a big enough buffer to get away with our failure in their striker recruitment stakes and through the summer, it could be claimed that the problem could be sorted out in January, well, now it absolutely has to be.
Even if we do actually get the striker recruitment right this time, he will be coming into a team that creates very little. Injuries don’t help here. For example, Chris Willock was following up his good showing at Stoke with what might have been a better display here, but he picked up what looked like a groin injury early in the second half and im afraid his replacement Rubin Colwill is looking a shadow of the man who was a nominee for Championship player of the month in October.
Colwill had what I would rate as our best chance of the afternoon soon after he came on – granted, it was a difficult ball to catch cleanly and it came to him on his left foot, but a confident and in form Colwill would have at least hit the target, here though he blazed his shot well over the bar.
The best City could offer were well struck shots from outside the penalty area by Meite and Robinson that drew saves from Cooper that he would expect to make ninety nine per cent of the time and a decent effort from distance by Anwar El Ghazi which flew not too far wide.
How City must have wished they had the man who was supposed to be signing for us around this time last year back in our ranks again. Sheffield had worked Jak Alnwick a couple of times after the break, but City were still pretty comfortable at 0-0 as the game moved towards its final quarter, until Moore came into his own.
The big striker outmuscled Jesper Daland when challenging for a cross and then brought the ball down before producing a high quality instant finish into the top corner from fifteen yards. If Daland could argue tpo some extent that it was more Moore’s ability than any mistake by him that was responsible for the first goal, it was his error which led to the second one as his pass was intercepted and Moore was able to move forward ten yards and place a precise shot past Alnwick on his near post. Having seen replays of the goal, I think that Moore deserves to be credited for the accuracy of his shot, but there has to be a question about Alnwick’s part in the goal.
Most interest in the final stages came from a brief but encouraging showing as subs by Cian Ashford and Ronan Kpakio on his league debut – the seventeen year old showed few nerves, was prepared to get into forward areas and I feel he looks more at home in those advanced areas than either of the other right back candidates Perry Ng or Andy Rinomhota.
For what must be the first time in ages for a league game, City had two subs who were still eligible for our under 18 team, as Troy Perrett, who only reached eighteen in October, was an unused substitute.
Perrett probably owed his promotion to his good showing for the under 21s in the game with Watford on Thursday that I mentioned earlier. Omer Riza was watching as City moved into a position whereby a win against Everton in their final game would see us win our qualifying group.
It was another entertaining and enjoyable performance by the youngsters as Isaac Jeffries, sub Morgan Wigley, with what I believe was his first kick, and my pick as man of the match, Mannie Barton got the goals in what was a comfortable win.
I’ll finish with some random thoughts on why I’m increasingly coming around to thinking we’re going down this season. First, we’ve now lost seven home games with eleven of our twenty three fixtures played (strangely six of them have been by 2-0) and that’s an appalling record which, even with as little as three home losses through the rest of the campaign, will leave us with a home record that you’d expect from a relegation candidate.
Second, although it’s hard to keep track, I believe we have ten players with first team experience unavailable through injury and an eleventh went off injured today. Is it just bad luck that we’re getting so many injuries or is there more to it than that? Is there the same reluctance to bring in medical staff by those running the club as there is to bring in coaching staff to get our numbers up to the sort of levels seen at most other clubs in the division?
Thirdly, why is Omer Riza so reluctant to pick Will Fish? I think I’m right in saying Fish played about thirty five minutes in Riza’s first game in charge and has not been seen since. It’s the sort of thing which again raises questions about the lack of a Director of Football at the club because there appears to be little in the way of coordination between the manager and recruitment team (eg the signing of Roco Simic where Erol Bulut clearly knew very ;ittle about the player).
Thanks Paul as ever…
For once I won’t subject you to the noise of the usual bees that come buzzing out from my bonnet: recent events of Fraser Forster on Thursday to Arijanet Muric yesterday… plus no doubt a plethora of eejits this weekend in the EFL and National Conference leagues, is starting to signify the death knell for ‘playing out from the back’ and kamikaze defending. (And how fitting it is that Guardiola and his tiki-taka seems to suddenly be in need of urgent remedial treatment.)
No for once, I will stay silent on that. Instead I will so agree with you that we are doomed to be relegated. And here is for why…
Our player recruitment this past year has been nothing short of disastrous. Our centre backs of Chambers and Daland are EFL Division 1 standard… and that is being charitable. Of the arrivals in the midfield and forwards, none of them are real quality. The best of the bunch is probably Willock… a player who has a few tricks up his sleeve, but was not the guy we needed… viz… a player who can put the ball in the net.
No, the player I urged us in your columns to break the bank for when it became apparent he was leaving Ipswich, was then allowed to go to the Steel City. We should have outbid the Blades.
I was surprised to find a fellow member of our MAYA community – someone whose opinions I respect so I won’t embarrass him here by naming him – saying that he did not want us to re-sign Kieffer, as he lacked the necessary ball control.
Eh? Where did he get that from? We saw precisely how well Kieffer controls a football with that first goal yesterday, did we not? Superb stuff.
I note that Kieffer has been accused of poor sportsmanship in celebrating his goals with his travelling fans yesterday, but hey, we always knew he was a mercenary ‘gun for hire’ character,did we not?
Quite understandable really, when you consider he was playing for the likes of Truro, Dorchester, Yeovil and Forest Green until well into his 25th year… i.e. he is now trying to make up for all those years of lost wages.
Amazing really that managers who are allegedly streetwise and knew the British lower divisions wanted to spend £15m of Vincent’s money on a less-than-prolific Argentinian striker having his first really decent season in Ligue 1… when players like Kieffer had been there all the time, performing so well below their radar.
Thus trust me when I say ‘stop looking abroad for players’. Just develop a proper UK scouting system.
So farewell then, Championship football. I look forward to playing Wrexham next season… methinks Phil Parkinson is a decent fellow, but not quite good enough to take that squad up.
And gee, I remember some great games against Wrexham, and none greater than that epic struggle in the 4th Round of the FA Cup in January 1977 at Ninian.
We went into a two goal lead with goals from David Giles and Peter Sayer… only for Liverpool born Graham Whittle to immediately pull one back.
It was a tremendous end-to-end game, and just when we thought we were home and dry, Billy Ashcroft their very dangerous fellow Scouser centre forward, plundered an equaliser. I can still see part of the huge contingent of 5,000 away fans, who were housed in the grandstand toward the Grange End, all leap to their feet in ecstasy.
Our hearts were broken… and I began to wonder if I could get time off work to travel to the Racecourse for the midweek replay. After all we were now in the 90th minute, and these were the days before ‘Fergie time’… let alone VAR taking games to 100 minutes.
But then a miracle happened: straight from the kick-off, my favourite City player of that era (yes even over Willie Anderson) got the winner. John Buchanan. Gee, I so loved that man.
What a game it was…!! Maybe not as memorable as my all time favourite when I was in the boys enclosure and we were 5-0 up against Liverpool at halftime. But as an ending to a game… only the victory against Scotland can match it… the game when were trailing and despondent in the 83rd minute, only for the late Ken Leek to pop up and score two goals out of nothing to send their Tartan Army home in stunned disbelief.
TTFN,
Dai.
I find I often see things differently to Dai, so I thought it worth mentioning that I agree with him about Kieffer. I couldn’t quite understand those fans last season who claimed he wasn’t good enough to spend money on to bring him back to us. They tended not to be specific, apart from saying that they wanted Vincent Tan to splash the cash for a ‘decent’, although non-specific striker instead, as though there’s plenty of them growing on trees.
Just as Kieffer did on Saturday, as he did for Ipswich here last season, his moment of quality broke the deadlock. He didn’t celebrate with Ipswich last season, but judging by the booing he was getting from a section of the Cardiff fans on Saturday, you can’t blame him for his (rather muted I thought) celebrations after two high quality finishes.
Up until the first goal I thought we played pretty well against the top of the table team, who had won 8 and drawn 2 of their last 10 games, and had the best defence in the league. We kept our shape well, and although Sheff Utd had most of the possession, they didn’t do a great deal with it, and Kieffer had been pretty well-managed by our defence until then. I’m from the era when they used to mention that Chelsea striker Peter Osgood would often be anonymous for 85 minutes of a game, but when he got his chance, he tended to put the ball in the back of the net, and that’s what Kieffer reminds me of sometimes.
Although I agree with Dai about Kieffer, I don’t agree that we’re bound for Div 1 yet. Yes I am concerned about our injury list, and after the game, Omer said that O’Dowda, Ralls and Willock would also miss the Oxford game due to injury, along with Tanner and Ng and our other long-term absentees. There’s also the concern that Robinson doesn’t seem fit enough to play more than one half of football at most! I’ve seen reports that we’re considering recalling Ryan Wintle from his Millwall loan in January, now that Erol is no longer here. I know Omer said Wintle would want assurances of game time, but that might not be hard with our injury list.
As is often said, though, many games in this division are decided by small margins. We did enough to win away at Coventry and Stoke (although didn’t) and I believe we still have those performances in us.
I feel confident that we can turn the corner, although admittedly I don’t know how long the corner is!
Thanks both for the replies. Dai, having had my say about playing out from the back (IO think an end of season analysis would prove it to be counter productive for most clubs), I’d say my main complaint about the modern game is that it lacks spontaneity. OIn terms of technique, I don’t think English football has ever been so strong, but coaches want players to be much of a n=muchness, so the maverick winger is seen much less frequently and out and out strikers are considered luxuries that need to add more stings to their bow.
You’d think those supporters who boo opposing players at Cardiff City Stadium might have learned their lesson by now. It nearly always ends badly as someone like Kevin De Bruyne or Kiefer Moore comes up with something to silence them – like Blue Bayou, I thought Kiefer’s celebrations of two fine goals on Saturday hardly qualified as being over the top. Surely the relevant point is that we’ve not seen a City striker score a goal as good as Kiefer’s first one since, well, when he was playing for us! Someone posted on the messageboard that the site which quotes fees for all transfers is saying that Sheffield United paid £1.4 million for Kiefer and we paid £2 million for Roco Simic who has barely played for Kortrijk during his loan there. I tend to take the valuations shown on that site with a pinch of salt, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got the figures right this because it would be so typically Choo, Dalman and Tan.
That 1977 game with Wrexham is probably in my top ten most memorable City games I attended. The winning goal was so unexpected for a couple of reasons as far as I’m concerned. First, Steve Grapes, a winger who looked to get his cross in early rather than look to beat his full back went on a run past two or three Wrexham players straight from the restart and then when the cross came in Buchanan decided not to go for his trademark balsted shot, but, inmstead, chose the better option of a controlled sidefooter past the keeper.
As for Blue Bayou, i’m finding it harder to share his confidence about where we’ll finish this season. I’ve placed a lot of faith in how good we were in beating Plymouth and Portsmouth, but, with us almost at the half way point of the season, I’d say they remain the only truly convincing performances we’ve put in. Whet matches can we look at and say that we’ve been unlucky in this season? I can’t think of one of our seven home defeats that was undeserved and, although you could say we didn’t deserve to lost be so many at Burnley and Hull, none of our away defeats have been hard luck stories either. Yes, we could well have won both of last two away matches and that penalty at Coventry wouldn’t have been given on another day, but the way we defended that late free kick at Stoke makes me feel Coventry would have found a way to equalise – or we would have provided them with one.
Would Wintle add more to our midfield? I think he might, but not to the degree that our goalscoring figures will improve to the degree that they need to – we need someone who can score at a good rate in a team that creates little and such players don’t come cheap – we got lucky with Sory Kaba, a fairly ordinary footballer who was able to get on the end of chances, who we only paid wages and a loan fee for, but is lightning likely to strike twice? I’m not optimistic.