Another home game, another defeat. Unbelievably and unforgivably, Cardiff City made it nine defeats in their last ten league matches on their own ground when they were beaten 1-0 by a Blackburn side that was nowhere near as good as their recent record (twenty two points from eight games now) suggested they’d be.
City deserve some credit for making the side that are now third in the table look pretty ordinary and this was a match they were definitely unlucky to lose, but this was the fifth 1-0 loss in those nine games and, apart from Bournemouth who scored around the hour mark, Reading, QPR, Hull and now Blackburn have all got their goal in the opening forty five minutes (the last three in the first twenty minutes actually) and then held on with varying degrees of comfort, although, in truth, it was only Reading before today where the visitors could be said to be lucky.
Although, as I mentioned, City were worth a point today, Blackburn did not need to rely on Reading like luck for their three points because they defended like a side that had only conceded three goals in their last nine league games before today, getting in important blocks when they were needed and then when the defenders couldn’t repel City’s efforts, goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski was there to foil them with some good saves.
I should say at this stage that I’m unable to provide much of a detailed report of the game because, in truth, I didn’t really see a great deal of it. The game had been switched to a 12.30 kick off so that City would be able to provide a live stream of a match UK based fans would not have been able to watch if it had kicked off at three.
However, even season ticket holders who had already paid the entrance fee for this match so to speak had to pay the £10 fee to get to see the game. I say see the game, but it seems that for many, that was a forlorn hope. When I went to log into my club account a few minutes before kick off, I was greeted by a gateway error message. I gave up after ten minutes of getting that same message every time I tried to log in, grateful at least that that I hadn’t yet paid the tenner for the viewing pass, but I understand that there were plenty who had and it seems that City will have a lot of apologising to do and decisions to make regarding supporters who had, in effect, paid to watch this game twice and were let down on both occasions.
Of course, you have to feel sorry for City in one regard in that the kick off time change and the need to change streaming arrangements were only needed because of the Welsh Government’s decision last month to ban crowds for indoor and outdoor sporting events.
For myself, I used a dodgy, non official, stream to attempt to watch the match, but, apart from the last twenty minutes or so of the first half, the constant buffering meant that I missed as much of the action as I saw.
The stream worked for the few seconds leading up to the goa though, but I still don’t know how Joe Rothwell was put into the huge amount of space he had in the area in front of our back three because I haven’t seen the part of the build up. From there, it was a repeat of what we’ve seen so often this season as an opposing player scores from around twenty yards while not being closed down by any of our team. This one came courtesy of a classy side footed effort which started outside the goal but curled back enough to find the net.
So, credit to Rothwell and perhaps to one or two of his team mates for playing him into the area from where he was able to go on and score, but I was still left wondering why he had all of that room and then was not closed down by a retreating Aden Flint who seemed to me to be doing nothing more than offering Rothwell an aid when it came to measuring up his shot in terms of where he needed to put it.
However, I read Wales Online and listen to the match commentary on the club website through that dodgy link and Flint gets credit for showing Rothwell “the angle” whatever that means! Indeed, the newspaper website even says Alex Smithies was to blame for the goal. Now, I am a bit of an old fogey and the game has changed a lot since I first started watching it, but I don’t get how and when centrebacks retreating away to keep a gap of five to ten yards from an advancing opponent became good defending rather than bad defending – similarly, I’m not sure when it became the case that goalkeepers are to blame for not keeping out the sort of shot Rothwell came up with today.
It would be wrong to say that was it as far as Blackburn were concerned as an attacking force, but there wasn’t a great else from them besides that. However, although Steve Morison talked about us playing well up until the final third today, that really only shows how easy we are to score against when you think about it. We’ve now had more than five months of the season and, criminally, we’re still only on one clean sheet kept – I’m sure I’ve said this before on here, but the more I have to say it, the more likely it is to come true – unless we start keeping clean sheets and stop losing at home, we’re going down.
One final thing about our defending today, I’ve been critical of Curtis Nelson over the past few months, but I thought he played as well as I’ve seen him all season today and would make him our man of the match.
As it turned out, Nelson came as close as anyone to scoring for us today with headed chances from set pieces. That revolving circle on my television screen to which I direct no end of abuse meant that I didn’t see the first one, but the second one (from a Joe Ralls corner) drew the best of Karminski’s saves. Sub Isaak Davies also hit the woodwork (in truth, that sounds better than it actually was though, because it was the outside of the post from a cross which was more an attempt to get a corner than anything else). Apart from that, it was a story of Blackburn blocks more than anything else, notably from a well struck Will Vaulks shot in the first half and a Ralls volley after the interval which he caught perfectly.
City dominated possession, I’ll say that again, City dominated possession, but their 66/34 advantage only served to emphasise a common failing when they do have over, say, fifty five per cent of the ball, because it only tends to emphasis their lack of creativity more. Ryan Wintle slotted into that central three pretty seamlessly and my early impression is that he helps to improve us in that area, but only because he does much the same as most of the players we already have in that area, just that little bit better.
New loan signing from Leeds Cody Drameh made a good impression in the first half and was quieter after the break, while I thought Perry Ng at left wing back improved on his recent showings on his more favoured side.
Our manager had a point about our play in the final third, but I thought he didn’t help our cause by taking off Mark Harris and I would have liked to have seen him having a chance leading the line with Davies coming on for the hard working, but ineffective, James Collins instead.
To finish on today’s game, referee Matt Donahue somehow saw fit to issue eleven yellow cards, seven to Blackburn, four to City, in an encounter that was never dirty. Two of them were to Blackburn right wing back Ryan Nyambe, the first for dissent and the second a harsh one for a foul on Ng.
To be frank though, the dismissal didn’t do City much good. Blackburn dug in and looked to play on the break more, which meant more possession for opponents they knew would struggle to create chances.
Elsewhere Blaenrhondda maintained their upper mid table position in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier League after a 2-2 home draw with Llanrumney United, while Treherbert Boys and Girls Club got back to winning ways at home in the Second Division with a 5-1 victory over Cwmbach Royal Star.
Finally, I’ve only just realized that I didn’t do a quiz on Blackburn. Apologies for that – my only excuse is that I’d scheduled one of two jobs around the house that had needed doing for a while for the end of the week and so it slipped my mind completely!.
Maybe I’m an old fogey too because I’m not a fan of Flint backing off (it cedes too much control of the situation to the attacker) but it is a player who lacks in pace and tries to make up for it in size, in nous and by forcing Rothwell to take a shot from so far he seems to have done as good a job as possible, before Smithies disappoints himself.
However this is where we have problems in my opinion because the defense, especially when playing Morrison and Flint together, employ a defensive strategy which is usually disconnected to what the midfield are doing: our two in the midfield have been too easy to work around and instead of having one of three CB’s step up to give them coverage behind any attacker in that situation is left with wide open space.
If we’re playing with Flint or Morrison as a CB we need 3 CM’s to cover the space in front of him, if we’re not playing Flint then we’re losing a lot of experience in defence, goal threat from set-pieces and one of our better defenders this year. If we’re playing 3 CM’s then we’re either drastically changing formation or creating excessively large gaps between strikers and midfielders – I’d argue we plucked for latter yesterday and as Collins and Harris fall into “hard worker but not prolific” category of striker we lost a lot of goal threat.
There’s often been discussion in previous years whether it’s the manager or profile of the players that had us playing style of football we were known for but it was always going to be mixture of both. We’re seeing how difficult it is to change style, especially mid-season and without much transfer wiggle room, but if we stay up we should be better for this year with several youngsters starting to find their feet – McGuinness as central CB would make me a lot more comfortable with some pace/mobility/security/ball skills in two players beside him. Nelson can be one of those as RCB and Connolly returning from The Gas as LCB or maybe Bagan?
I understand that there’s a line in Ted Lasso about players needing to forget mistakes as quickly as goldfish. I’m watching the togetherness of Derby football club and wondering why it’s so different to our own this year? Do we need to know stats such as one in your headline or, not you but others, such audible groans whenever one of ours mis-controls the ball? No, we just need to win and if that means treating each match anew then let’s show up like our away fans do.
Good morning Paul and everyone – Thanks as always for your report. My £10 allowed me to watch most of the match apart from a couple of glitches, and for the most part I thought we played pretty well with both Drameh and Wintle making a good impression on this observer and Ng doing a fine job on the left hand side of defence.
But the Blackburn goal came once again as a result of allowing their scorer time and space to arrive at a shooting position, and Rothwell’s placement was truly excellent. Blame perhaps should be placed upon Flint’s allowing him the afore mentioned space, but take nothing away from Rothwell, a class player.
I agree with your comments about Nelson, excellent yesterday and somewhat unlucky that is second effort on goal was kept out by great defending.
Sadly for us, we have a very impotent attacking force and once again Harris and Collins were found wanting. As Joe Ledley commented, no-one is moving into space, so any attempt at forward passes is usually to someone who is being marked. The former in my opinion is just not up to the standard of a genuine attacking player in this division, and the latter has lost all confidence since his arrival in South Wales. Davies offers more even if he is somewhat raw, but Colwill has a lot to learn and could do with a loan move away as he has done nothing in recent matches.
I, as you, really do fear for us for the remaining part of the season and unless we start acquiring a few more wins, the EFL Division 1 looms ever near. If, as seems possible, Moore departs, I would like to see what the pairing up front of Davies and Watters could achieve with the help of our two wing backs who both seem interested in getting forward. Worth giving them a chance.
Bristol City’s mauling at the hands of Fulham will no doubt have a reaction – so it will be no easy ninety minutes at Aston Gate. A hard week ahead on the training ground I hope.
Hey Paul and everyone,
I’m genuinely confused as to our psychological state as a squad and particularly from kick-off.
What’s our manager saying to our players to make them so dull and lethargic until we go a goal or two down? We’re so slow and ponderous?
If he picks Bacuna against Bristol City on the weekend then I’m done discussing him as a serious manager.
Why is Hudson getting a free pass re. our leaky defense?
So many questions and not enough answers halfway through January.
Thanks both for your replies. DJ, having finally got around to seeing the whole of the build up to the goal, it’s all embarrassingly easy for Blackburn I’m afraid with either Vaulks or Ralls (think it was the latter) allowing Rothwell to run past him so easily. Therefore, while I’m in agreement with what you say about three central midfielders, it didn’t do us much good on Saturday. In recent games, Steve Morison has been picking teams with just two players in the starting line up who are at home playing in the final third, so I think it’s a bit harsh him focussing on our lack of success in that area. Harris and Collins were outnumbered and none of our other eight outfield players can be said to do their best work in the final third of the pitch, they’re all more defensive players than attacking ones – granted, I’m jumping to a conclusion on Drameh without seeing him play much, but, although I thought he did pretty well, he doesn’t look as if he is going to cause the problems to opposition defences that Giles did. Morison has a real dilemma, we can’t keep clean sheets and playing eight defensively minded players has not changed that, so we need to score two, at least, to win and so we need more than just two attack minded players in our side. Maybe he’s gone more defensive because we’ve had a tough run of games, but we need more Colwill and less Vaulks in my opinion.
BJA, I still think we played pretty well on Saturday, but Blackburn opened us up so easily despite having wing backs who are more defensively minded and no attacking central midfielder in the trio selected and so, we were never going to have much of a scoring threat until we could get our big defenders up for set pieces. In saying that, I agree about Collins who does most of his best work when he drops into midfield areas – when he first came here, he was getting into scoring areas and missing opportunities, but, apart from the two headers from corners he’s scored from, I can only think of his miskick just before Harris’ goal against Preston as an example of him getting into scoring positions in open play in recent weeks.
While I can see where you’re coming from with Colwill, I would look at it differently, in that he’s been given little chance to influence recent league games because he’s being brought on too late – to score goals from open play, we desperately need someone to fulfil a Tomlin/Wilson type role and Colwill seems to be the best option we have for the number ten type role currently. As for Watters, I honestly don’t know what to make of him, because he baffled me really when he played for the under 23s last season. He offered next to nothing outside of the penalty area, but when there was a chance in front of goal, he always tended to be in the right place to take advantage. I would say that some of the goals he scored for MK Dons were impressive finishes where he used his pace and finishing to best effect, but could our non creative midfield be relied upon to give him those sort of opportunities? I’m not convinced they could – at the moment, I’d say Watters is more likely to be seen coming off the bench when we’re chasing a game, but it will be very interesting to see how he fares, presumably for the under 23s at first, when he returns from his injury.
Hello Simon, i can’t comment specifically on Saturday because I didn’t really see how we started the game, as I didn’t find a stream that worked (kind of!) until about the ten minute mark, but I agree that we never seem to start games on the front foot – that’s not solely a Morison thing, I think it applied at least back until Warnock’s days – Rubin Colwill’s goal at Luton is the only one we’ve scored in the first ten minutes of a match all season.
I can’t see anyway back into the starting eleven for Bacuna in the short term, especially if we eventually sign Doyle.
As for our defending, well, we’ve only conceded three in our last three matches, one of those was a penalty and another one was offside, so I think we have improved somewhat in recent weeks, but Blackburn’s goal showed that we’re still far from sorted at the back – in fact, that elusive clean sheet seems as far away as it’s ever been.
Hello Paul – Thanks for your replies, and whilst I understand your view of Colwill, I really think he needs to show more energy if he is to become the answer to our glaring problem of our lack of creativity in midfield.
Two other points. I was delighted to receive the return of my £10 from the City for the problems experienced over the streaming of last Saturday’s match.
And I watched Hull last night against our opponents from that match. Hull fully deserved their three points even if the referee made two poor decisions in the host’s favour. But the Blackburn side were but a shadow of the team that beat us and if I am anxious about Hull moving further away from us in the league table, this anxiety is abated somewhat by Reading losing once again at home.
I just hope that our lot are able to put in a performance to secure some points from our visit to Bristol Saturday lunchtime.