This interesting piece appeared on a Cardiff City messageboard this week – I say “interesting”, but I daresay there will be those who would be bored witless by the sort of analysis which appears in it, so, if you are one of those people, I’ll try to summarise what was said in a few bullet points.
- City are doing better than many expected them to.
- Using the measure of expected goals (I’ll not bother trying to explain it, but it is something that is applied equally to all twenty Premier League clubs, so, essentially, it is just another way of comparing us to our rivals), we are better in terms of expected goals scored than five other teams in the league and better when it comes to expected goals conceded than five as well. Combine the two and we are above “Fulham, Huddersfield Town, Burnley, Newcastle, and perhaps surprisingly, Brighton and Hove Albion” – the fact that, Brighton apart, we are talking about sides in the relagation scrap proves that, whatever it is, expected goals is a fairly accurate way of measuing the quality, or otherwise, of a side.
- It’s not new news that we are the worst passers of the ball in the league, but the analysis confirms what should be apparent anyway – we are not interested in possession for the sake of it, with field position seemingly being considered more important than possession of the ball . To quote the article, “they give the ball back a lot because they are maniacally committed to getting the ball up the field quickly at the expense of maintaining possession.”.
- Defensively, we set ourselves up higher up the pitch than I for one thought we did and do our best to get the ball off our opponents as soon as they enter our half – I’ll not go into the full details of the analysis, but, essentially, it seems we’re fairly happy to let our opponents get crosses in because it is believed we’ll win most aerial challenges that our central defenders face.
The piece concludes our overall plan is generating “just enough” to keep us above the drop zone and I would suggest that the word just is the important one there – adages like “sailing close to the wind” and “flying by the seat of our pants” came into my mind as I read this part!
Today, the suggestion that the whole edifice of our better than expected position is built on sand and could easily come tumbling down around us if our levels drop ever so slightly was given credence in a 0-0 home draw with Huddersfield Town which would have been labelled very poor if it had been played in the Championship.
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I am/was not enamoured by our 2014/15 season. The football was unremittingly dull as an expensively assembled squad showed what were, at times, painfully low levels of ability – I always say that, in terms of value for money, that was the worst City side I’ve seen.
There were so many matches that season which could be put forward as candidates for our worst game of this decade, but the one which stands out for me was a 0-0 draw with Brighton at Cardiff City Stadium in February 2015 in which both sides could only manage a single shot on goal.
Well, today was almost as bad as that match. The reason that it wasn’t was that Huddersfield just about managed to raise it above that woeful level by directing two of their fourteen goal attempts on target – they also would have, almost certainly, scored if referee Lee Mason had stuck to his original decision to give them a penalty, instead of allowing linesman Stuary Burt (City’s man of the match by a country mile!) to persuade him to change his mind.
As for City, they offered nothing apart from a penalty shout for an alleged foul on Junior Hoilett in the first half (it was up the other end of the pitch from me and, to be honest, I’ve not got a clue as to its validity) and three off target efforts, none of which I can recall at the moment.
I mentioned earlier that we are a team which doesn’t seem to be too bothered about passing the ball inaccurately, but when you are at home to a side that had lost its last nine games, a team that is eight points behind you at the bottom of the league, a team whose manager was labelling the match as a must win one with four months of the season left, then you would expect us to have managed more than 39 per cent possession.
If I’m being honest, I’m surprised to see that we had as much of the ball as that given how much we struggled to put any coherent football together. I’ve said before on here that when we are bad, we look the worst side in the Premier League by a distance – today was one of those days, as the side which the table says is the worst in the league were comfortably better than us in most facets of the game.
I’ve read a lot this season about how Huddersfield have been playing pretty well, but are being let down by their lack of goalpower and today you could see the accuracy of that claim. This is not to say that Huddersfield were that good, but they were still able to waste very promising positions with poor delivery of crossess, while centrebacks trying pot shots from forty yards offered eloquent proof of a side that has lost faith in its strikers (I believe there has been only one goal scored all season by a Huddersfield forward).
However, that seems like riches indeed compared to what City had to offer as an attacking force. Huddersfield’s problems when it comes to finding a forward capable of putting the ball into the net are brought into focus by what Callum Paterson has done for us as a makeshift in that position. Three of his four goals have been major factors in bringing about 60 per cent of the wins we’ve managed this season and it’s probably true to say that, without his efforts, we would be in something very close to the situation Huddersfield find themselves in today.
This time though, hampered by an injury which almost meant that he missed the match, the Paterson gambit (playing a Scottisih international right back at centre forward) looked to have run its course – we need a proper striker desperately.
Neil Warnock should be very grateful to Paterson because it means that he has, largely, been free of criticism regarding what, for me, has always been a big error on his part – I labelled the failure to bring a real striker (as opposed to a Bobby Decordova-Reid/Lee Tomlin number ten type attacker that he struggles to integrate into the team) into the club this summer as a disgrace on a messageboard this week and I see no reason to change that opinion now.
I should emphasise that the criticism of our manager which follows comes from someone who fully acknowledges the superb job he has done overall as City boss. With us being nominated as the team of 2018 by Paul Merson and Mr Warnock being picked as Manager of the Year in an article I read recently, his place in club history is assured.However, this shouldn’t exempt him from criticism and a starting line up today which, apart from the loanees Camarasa and Arter, could have been a City side from this time last year must only lead to more questions about our manager’s work in the transfer market in 2018.
Sorry for repeating something I’ve mentioned before on here at least once in recent weeks, but City spent a reported £36 million in transfer fees alone in 2018 and not one of the six players we spent that on got on to the pitch for us today. Therefore, as fans grow restive at the lack of signings in this window, there’s a part of me which can’t help thinking that it might not be a bad thing, given what has happened over the past twelve months.
So far, all of the transfer action has been about players leaving the club and, with us almost wholly reliant on Paterson when it comes to the striking positions, it has to be commented on that in the last seven days, Gary Madine (an unused sub for Sheffield United today) and Lee Tomlin (a scorer for Peterborough) have left the club on loan, while Anthony Pilkington (who created one of the goals in Wigan’s 3-0 win over Villa) had his contract cancelled by mutual agreement. For me, based what he did for City in the past four seasons, the last named in particular could, and should have, played some part for us this season.
With three forwards who have had some degree of success at Championship and, in Pilkington’s case, Premier League level all being involved elsewhere, it was revealing to see Rhys Healey, returned from loan after scoring nine times for Mk Dons during his loan spell there, being the forward who was brought on when Neil Warnock decided to take Nathaniel Mendez-Laing off.
Now, just as at Gillingham last week, I thought Mendez-Laing looked like the one player who might provide an attacking spark with a moment of magic, but the real talking point here has to be what sort of message Healey’s introduction sent out to Decordova-Reid and Josh Murphy who arrived at the club for a combined fee of £21 million in the summer?
The two expensive newcomers spent the ninety minutes sat on the bench and, while they can hardly be called spectacular successes since arriving at Cardiff, the two of them have offered a more likely way of us finidng a goal than someone who was thrown in at the deep end having been playing at a level three below the Premier League for five months surely?
Indeed, with Paterson dispatched to the right following Healey’s introduction, we were treated to the bizzare sight of our striker taking a long throw in as Aron Gunnarsson joined the fifteen or more players in the penalty area contesting for the ball as it dropped our of the sky.
It was desperate stuff on one of those occasions when Neil Warnock’s Cardiff team can look clumsy, musclebound Goliaths trying to come to terms with sprightly and mobile Davids, except this time Huddersfield weren’t particularly sprightly and mobile – we just made them look that way.
With Victor Camarasa a long way short of the standards he set at Palace and Leicester (to be fair, he was affected by injury like Paterson and only played because he said he was fit enough to) , City’s midfield had one of their headless chicken days when poise and composure are completely absent and so it was hard to be too critical of the the players in front of them, because they were reduced to chasing hacked balls forward in the hope that a defender might make a mess of the simple defensive tasks required to deal with such clueless play.
Thankfully, City were pretty solid defensively as a clean sheet was kept for the third time in four league matches. Of course, luck was on our side when the erratic referee was persuaded that Florent Hadergjonaj had fouled Bennett rather than the other way around – by that I mean it’s so rare to see a ref change a decision like that, rather than as a comment on the merits of the penalty shout (from my view about a hundred yards away, it looked like Bennett had fouled Hadergjonaj with the question being whether the offence had occured in the penalty area or not).
Apart from that though, we defended a series of Huddersfield corners (more than a half of their goals this season have come from set pieces) well and, under different circumstnaces, I’d be saying that we could head up to Newcastle to play a side that really struggles in front of goal in home games with a degree of confidence. However, unless Camarasa can come up with a worldy like the one he got at Leicester, we’re going through a phase where it’s hard to see where the next goal is coming from and our midfield especially will have to play a lot better than they did today for us to get anything from the game.
At least it was a good day for my two Rhondda teams as Blaenrhondda FC and Ton Pentre recorded 3-2 away wins. I would have been better off nipping over to Whitchurch to watch the former’s win which keeps them well in the chase to finish second in their league, while Ton’s win at Undy Athletic takes them to what I think is a season’s high twelfth place in the sixteen team Welsh LeagueDivision One with Pontypridd Town and Taff’s Well amomg the sides below them.
Once again, I’ll finish with a request for support from readers by becoming my Patrons through Patreon. Full details of this scheme and the reasons why I decided to introduce it can be found here, but I should say that the feedback I have got so far has indicated a reluctance from some to use Patreon as they prefer to opt for a direct payment to me. If you are interested in becoming a patron and would prefer to make a direct contribution, please contact me at paul.evans8153@hotmail.com or in the Feedback section of the blog and I will send you my bank/PayPal details.
Congratulations, Paul, it takes a lot of discipline to write a report on a game that sounds and reads like one of the performances we regularly witnessed in the Slade/Trollope era.
As you say one of the few positives (probably the only) was the clean sheet but not being able to construct one attempt on target against a side at the bottom of the league is very depressing.
In a couple of his news conferences lately, Mr. Warnock has been giving off very negative vibes, has he lost his appetite for the job? He has said in the past that he has a dislike of managing in the Premier League and his comment that this would probably the last January transfer window that he would have to endure suggests that he is thinking of getting out of the game. I am sure that Neil is still in credit with the majority of City fans but if he is thinking of retirement shouldn’t the club be making preparations to getting someone younger (Bellamy???) in to shadow Neil until the end of this season and the if the “Gaffer” does pack it in the changeover would be smoother.
I think Neil’s words and body-language in those “pressers” probably didn’t help the attitude of the side for yesterday’s game. it is difficult for the loan players Arter and Camarasa to give a truly committed performance if the enthusiasm of the manager appears to be evaporating.
Without that commitment throughout the team we are left with a side that are just not good enough at this level. The games we have won this season are the ones when we wanted it more than the opposition. From what I have read Huddersfield showed that ‘wanting’ yesterday, we did not.
Our formation was all over the shop, need to keep zonal marking in the centre mid and not mark man for man, got pulled all over by Huddersfield. And why warnock is not playing reid or murphy is a mystery. He needs to utilise the squad.
Shocking performance. Patterson looked injured, Camarasa off the boil.
We were playing a team who started by just wanting to disrupt and turn it into a scrap. City fell for it. Mr Mason too.
I had a good view of penalty and my initial thought was town player pulled Bennett back, then down. Watching motd he was leaning on Bennett so in my opinion when Bennett went down he fell with him. No penalty and maybe not free kick.
Hoilletts was a penalty. The bias BBC said no. But slowed right down it was difficult to see a touch so in real time it would have looked a penalty.
That said we did not deserve to win.
Paul you mention midfield. Yesterday they were there in name only not in way they play. Where is our holding player looking to pick passes for our wingers. Whether to feet, in behind or the channel ball.
That said yesterday town made sure we were not going to be a danger with their professionalism. Ie. Taking out mendez when he was through. Going down at the slightest touch. Sometimes I think we are naive in that department.
Still as poor as our squad is we are still in the melting pot to stay up. Who thought that would be the case after 6 games.
I came away from yesterday’s game thinking that Cardiff are to football intelligence what Charles Hawtrey was to cage-fighting. The team plays with the unsuccessful predictability of those adverts from the carpet companies saying “Today is the last day of our sale.” We all know it will be the same advert tomorrow, and for many tomorrows after that.
Where is the unexpected? Where is speed in thought and deed? Where is the will and the skill to replace hoofball, even on occasions, with fluid and successful football. As things are, it will not happen.
Why are we looking for a centre-forward when we’ve just sent out on loan an experienced and effective striker who was never given a genuine opportunity to show his capabilities?
I’m somewhat alarmed to hear certain comments that Mr Warnock sees Zohore as our talisman once he returns to full fitness. He could be effective if we had creative players able to give him passes to run on to, always assuming those passes were for his left foot. We don’t have those players, and I’m still puzzled why our manager, or any perceptive fans, could think so optimistically of Zohore. His basic weaknesses will always be there.
It is perhaps evidence of poor planning that we are having to rely on the bravery and enthusiasm of an out-of-position Calum Paterson to provide the blunt force up front.
Is it likely that we can sign a centre-forward of genuinely high quality, or a midfielder with the necessary skills, or any other player to improve the team? It seems doubtful at the moment, but I live in hope. Even a top goalscorer need to be giving scoring opportunities, and the player or players providing that opportunities need to have someone who will make the most of those opportunities. Football is a team game after all.
I was quite impressed with Huddersfield’s number Eight yesterday, especially with his ability to find space – or was that due to Cardiff’s inadequacies?
In fact, the best part of the whole afternoon for me occurred walking in along Bessemer Road on the way to the game. I bought an absolutely outstanding steakburger from a stall attached to the motorbike shop. I’ll be calling there as regularly and predictably as Cardiff’s inability to produce worthwhile football.
Good morning Paul and others – How is it that we are able to be the comfortably second best to a team that has lost its last nine games, and we’re playing at home?? Yesterday was a complete embarrassment. Dire is the only word to describe our performance. Sitting alongside me were two young ladies whose first visit to the CCS this was, and I doubt that they will be back ( absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I asked them for a couple of chips as they took their seats alongside me! ).
We were lucky to escape with a point. It is not often that a referee changes his mind and I am yet to see the incident as I could not face MOTD highlights ( HIGHLIGHTS ?? ). Quite where our lot go from here is questionable. Our four summer purchases all on the bench, with only the recalled Healey and Ralls taking over from Mendez-Laing and Viktor late on in the second half.
Paterson was not fit and should not have started. Reid would have been better. And defensively, our captain is struggling, not by injury but indecision and it may be time to give him a rest and restore Bruno alongside Bamba with a fit again Peltier at full back.
Our attempts at attracting new recruits is not going well. Clyne who seemed a certainty is now with the Cherries, and neither the Nice midfielder, nor the Nantes striker seem keen on South Wales and our last three performances will probably see others question whether we are a sensible destination for those who seek the riches that the Premier League will offer. By the way, it was interesting to read that NW went to Nantes in mid-week with the agent Willie Mackay to try to persuade the French Club to part with Sala. I believe that this is the same Mackay who apparently has only four current players on his books, two of whom are his twin sons who now are on the City’s staff. I have no idea how transfers are effected these days what with agents and the like, and I am sure that all was above board. Perhaps it was to help with the lingo.
Goodness knows what the next week will bring, but it would be good to have some encouraging news on Zahore. Also, I am sure we wish the best to Pilks and Connolly at their new clubs at the same time wishing that the former had been one of our 25 man squad at the start of the season.
Thanks Paul and others for comments to which it is difficult to add. All good points made and I can only concur with analysis, our lack of quality everywhere and concerns over the transfer window which has not yielded anything concrete to date. Other thoughts:-
– why can’t we string more than 3 passes together? Huddersfield at least passed the ball around with some confidence in midfield whilst we ran around like headless chickens
– how could we have such poor possession stats and lack of shots on goal in such an important and winnable fixture?
– Couldn’t believe how many corners we gave away as the home team who normally gain at least parity in this area ( even if nothing much comes of them this season!)
– what’s happened to the quality of our set pieces? We don’t seem to have any imagination or variety in this department. What’s going on at the training ground here?
– thought at least Murphy and Reid could have been give 20 minutes to inject some pace and variety when others were clearly struggling
– sadly, Etheridge’s distribution was back to the bad old days, other than a couple of quick passes out which were a rarity
Other than that, a totally depressing afternoon which, as Paul correctly states, was a throwback to the dross we were served up a few years ago. Can’t even bring myself to watch the highlights on MOTD yet!
Finally, also have to agree with comments above regarding NW’s utterances over the last few days. It does feel rather negative and not instilling greatest of confidence. Yesterday’s performance will have done nothing for his demeanour. I just hope both he and our team rediscover their collective mojo’s asap.
As I sometimes used to remark about the match reports in the old Football Echo – “I must have been watching a different game”.
True the game overall was low on quality, but I thought it was much more exciting than a 0-0 scoreline suggests.
It was frantic end to end stuff at times. The only issue being that whichever end it got to, the defences almost always came out on top of the attackers!
In the first half, Huddersfield were definitely more fired-up, and seemed to have the ‘must win game’ phrase ringing in their ears!
They were well-organised and worked very hard. They nearly always had two men on Camarassa, and sometimes three – they’d obviously identified him as our main threat. It reminded me how some teams used to mark Whittingham out of the game when he was seen to be our main playmaker.
We improved in the 2nd half and I was pleased to see Rhys Healey introduced. Warnock needs to give him game time in the next few weeks, so he can decide whether to keep him until the end of the season or let him go back on-loan to MK Dons. They are very keen to have him back, having scored 9 goals in 21 games and been voted Fans Player of the month for October and November.
I do agree that we need to be much better at Newcastle next week to get anything from there (I know we can be)!
I also agree what you wrote about the Cardiff v Brighton game in 2015. It was a Tuesday evening game, and I’d had a long, tiring day at work, and travelled to the game straight from work.
It’s the only game I can ever remember nodding-off in (during the first half), as there was literally nothing happening!
That game, in conatrast to yesterdays, in my opinion, really was the worst 0-0 draw I’ve ever seen!
Thanks as ever for your write up Paul.
The direness of the match and of City’s performance is now so well documented by yourself and others that there is little for me to add.
Of course it isn’t the first dire 0-0 we’ll have experienced and it won’t be the last but unlike most of others it may be one that will be remembered a little longer than most and indeed could prove more significant than most. I do just wonder if that match could turn out to mark a watershed in Neil Warnock’s managerial reign at City. In the midst of a crucial transfer window when he is, we are told, pursuing multi-million pound signings, to demonstrate so openly the inadequacies he considers to be in the multi-million pound signings he has already made by not using them seems ill-judged to say the least. His bizarre entry into the Brexit debate following on from his Clyne comments and the strange Tottenham at Wembley outburst suggests that his PR instincts are also going somewhat awry at the moment. I wonder whether we’re seeing a turning point in Warnock’s reign at City.
Rereading my previous comments I think I’ve been rather harsh on the 2nd half of the 0-0 against Brighton in 2015.
Whereas the first-half was indeed a non-event, we did improve in the 2nd half and managed a couple of shots on target!
I’ve also started to remember some of the dire City 0-0 games I watched in the 80’s and 90’s, particularly under the managerships of Alan Durban and Phil Neal.
A particular low point I remember was an away 0-0 against Torquay on a Tuesday evening. Torquay were bottom of the league by some distance, and seemed to be there for the taking.
However, Phil Neal kept bellowing at our players to get back if they ventured over the halfway line! His aim seemed to be that a 0-0 draw would maintain the gap between the two teams, and that was the limit of his ambition. An awful performance, mostly due to the manager!
I’m sure I could think of others, and it makes me realise that however disappointed I am with our performance in particular games these days, we come forward a long way in comparison with some of those those from around 30 years ago!
Thanks paul and others for taking the time to comment on Saturday’s game. No further comments to be made you all said it, It was a dire performance. I was just shell shocked walking out of the stadium to the car.
Adding my thanks to Paul…for the ever-present wisdom and generosity of spirit – and for giving the rest of us a platform.
Thanks, too, to the other contributors…after a weekend of such gloom, their heart and passion always shine through.
To lack technique, pace, quality (in football terms) is bad enough – but, if the unquantifiable things go – heart, spirit, will – then we’re in trouble…
…and Warnock’s perceived persona is such a tricky thing, it doesn’t take long to begin feeling the onset of doubt in his direction.
Let’s hope it’s just a bad Monday (and previous Saturday).
Hello Paul and others – It is just after 5.00 p.m. on Monday and I gather that Sala is in Cardiff to discuss transfer terms. Surprising or what?
Last Tuesday’s visit to France by NW now seems to have been very worthwhile and I trust that we may yet have a new striker before too long. Some research on the lad shows that he has been substituted late in the last two games, Nantes losing by 1 – 0 at home yesterday. I do not know the reason for his withdrawal. However, I was most interested in the fact that his agent is a certain Meissa N’diaye who has a number of high profile players on his books including a certain Sol Bamba. Any influence from that source I wonder?
Keeping fingers crossed that this deal happens, and perhaps others. Goodness knows we need them after Saturday.
Paul – I see that WOL states that Sala’s agent is now Mark Mackay, Interesting. This guy is Willie Mackay’s son who allegedly accompanied NW to Nantes. Intriguing!
Belated thanks to all of those who replied to the piece on Saturday’s match. Views on the Hudderesfield game were almost unanimous, but it was interesting to see Blue Bayou talking in terms of it being “much more exciting than a 0-0 scoreline suggests”. I can’t agree with that, but would say that we always tend to look at games from a Cardiff point of view and so I agree that words like “dire”, “woeful” etc can be applied to encounters where those words could be applied to our performance rather than the general quality of the match – the only thing I was hoping for in the final quarter of Saturday’s match was that we could hang on for the draw.
Just a few other thoughts about matters raised in some of your replies. Pr, regarding Lee Mason, is it me or do we see less of him on the television these days? I’ve just checked on Soccerbase and it appears that he is doing as many matches as he ever did, but maybe they are less high profiles ones. Anyway, leaving the penalty incident and my Cardiff bias to one side, I thought he was generally poor on Saturday and there were a few other occasions when he appeared to change his mind on things like throw ins – I was reluctant to say much about him in my piece because I didn’t want to give possible excuses for our poor play, but he wasn’t very good was he. Anthony, Philip Billing (their number eight) is a player I like and I would hope he would be someone we would look at in the event of Huddersfield going down and us staying up (he’s certainly big enough to be a Warnock player!), but I think he it’s more likely that he is bound for better teams than us.
BJA, I’ve just mentioned on a City messageboard that Morrison is struggling at the moment – I’d say he may well be the one to miss out if we sign a right back. As for Mr McKay, I’m pretty sure he was at the Development team match yesterday watching his son play for us. Huw, much as I like Camarasa, he isn’t great at taking corners and would prefer to have him loitering on the edge of the penalty area while someone like Hoilett or Ralls takes them. Richard and Lindsay, I agree about our manager to the extent that his “perceived persona” can sometimes work against the club – I also believe that the way we play means that certain players would not dream of signing for us.