Anyone mad enough to read through the last three months worth of match reaction pieces on here in one go would be ploughing their way through a tale of woe – it’s been grim stuff, but it needs to be said that the misery has, to a great extent, been down to what the fans at Cardiff City Stadium have had to endure.
The Christmas cracker that was Cardiff 2 Plymouth 2 on Boxing Day has been the sole reminder that football can be an enjoyable game to watch for those long suffering supporters who only get to watch City’s home matches – even the one match we have won since October, was a thoroughly miserable affair that had nothing to recommend it apart from the fact that it got us three points.
On the other hand, those fans who are able to attend away matches on a regular basis aren’t doing too badly. Although it’s been a gloomy winter for City, it’s worth noting that even a modest set of recent home results would have ensured it was nothing of the kind.
Today’s game at Watford saw another sold out away end to go with the one at Plymouth a fortnight ago and a very good turn out at Queens Park Rangers on New Year’s Day and the obvious question this prompts, given our slide down the table and generally poor level of performance, is “why?”. Why are supporters travelling in such numbers lately to watch us?
My slightly facetious answer is that if you want to watch Cardiff City win a game these days (and for much of the previous three seasons) you have to be prepared to make round trips of hundreds of miles to go and watch them play away. Similarly, your chances of catching a halfway decent display from City are greatly increased if you are willing, and able, to put the miles in for your team.
It may come as a shock to some to learn that while City have been stinking the place out at home while taking four points from a possible twenty one, today’s 1-0 win at Vicarage Road (our third straight win at that ground) was our fourth away victory in our last seven Championship matches. True, we were second best at Preston for long periods and the win at Sheffield Wednesday was a case of floodlight robbery, but, in both cases, the fact that we came from 1-0 down to win with a pair of late goals meant that there was a bit more than just the result to make the matches memorable.
The 2-1 win at QPR was deserved in my view and we played pretty well there, while today was somewhere in the middle I’d say – we played better than we did at Preston and Sheffield, but with a last twenty five minutes or so which resembled Rorke’s Drift at times, even this completely biased City fan is struggling to argue that we deserved three points.
That’s not to say that we rode our luck though – we were maybe the slightly better team in the first half, then got right on top in the game’s third quarter before coming under incessant pressure late on, but, even then, the defending, which has been quite well below the standard set earlier in the season lately, was resolute and unyielding.
There were strong performances all over the pitch as, in a team which did not include one of the five newcomers, or the fit again Aaron Ramsey, in the starting line up, centre backs Dimitri Goutas and Mark McGuinness were in their element against forwards they could physically dominate.
At right back, I though Perry Ng was brilliant as he looked like a player full of confidence who would be at home at the top end of this league or, possibly, higher. For some reason, I found myself appreciating how skilful Ng is more than I usually do. I suppose little things like the perfect nutmeg he performed just before our goal helped in that regard, but there was also his sheer dependability and authority when defending – Ng was City’s Player of the Year last season, but it seems to me that his game has come on quite a bit in 23/34 and, at the moment, he looks very well placed to retain his trophy.
I’d also like to mention six players who have been feeling the wrath of fans to varying degrees through our bad spell. Jak Alnwick could easily find himself left out again once the visa issue that prevented Ethan Horvath taking his place in the squad has been resolved, but, as he’s done so often this season, he made it hard for Erol Bulut to leave him out with a calm and competent showing in which his distribution was probably better than normal.
Jamilu Collins has had his critics lately and I thought he was struggling in the run up to Christmas, but I had him down as one of the few bright spots at Plymouth and he continued that improvement today.
Perhaps more than anyone else, Ryan Wintle has come to be associated with the sideways and backwards passing game which has characterised City in home games in particular lately, but I think that’s harsh and there was one incident today which I thought showed him in a very good light. David Turnbull came on for the last half an hour or so and, like the other three newcomers we saw, had little chance to impress when in possession. However, there was one mishit pass from him which could have caused his side real problems were it not for Wintle’s willingness to chase back forty yards to put in a great block to clear up a dangerous situation.
Rubin Colwill’s place in the side will come under pressure with the arrival of Turnbull and the return of Ramsey, but, today he responded to that challenge with a performance that, for a while in the second half, saw him taking charge of a game in a way I’d not seen him do before. It wasn’t perfect by any means because while we saw plenty of the eye catching footwork which can gain him space where there seems to be none, there were then too many wrong options or misplaced passes to give his display the complete picture you get from the very best.
Nevertheless, it was a very encouraging showing by Rubin – especially for those of us who have fought his corner for the last three years since he burst on to the scene. Until we scored, Colwill came closest to finding the net with a well struck left foot shot from over twenty yards out which flew not too far over and the chance was created for him by a very nice lay off to him by Kion Etete.
It was Etete’s best piece of target man play on an afternoon where his growing army of critics would probably have seen very little to make them question their opinions of him. However, I reckon Erol Bulut would have loved Etete’s performance as he worked so hard for the team and the manager who has this thing about players doing their bit when out of possession could not have had any complaints about his centre forward on that score as he was even filling in at right back at times when we were under really fierce pressure – the fact that Etete was still on the pitch with ten minutes to play rather tells a story I feel.
I mentioned the term centre forward earlier and, of course, there will be those who, quite reasonably, ask whether a player in that position should be as preoccupied with defending as Etete was? I suppose what I’m trying to get over here is that maybe some recognition should be given to the fact that playing as a target man for Cardiff City is a very hard job given the quality of service and lack of support they tend to get and that task is made even harder under a manager so intent on ensuring that his attacking players do their bit defensively.
There were those who would happily have cancelled Josh Bowler’s loan during the January window and it was hard to disagree for much of the first half, but he will be forgiven an awful lot if he can come up with a few more goals like todays match winner in the forty third minute.
One of those quality bits of play from Ng that so impressed me today provided a pass to Bowler which he received about thirty yards out. The winger still had a lot to do though as he beat a couple of opponents before curling a left footed shot from twenty yards well beyond the diving Ben Hamer for a goal which probably deserves to be in our top five for this season.
I’m probably going over the top about our performance today, but after what was a shameful capitulation against Leeds, it was so good to see City so united – every one, including newcomers Turnbull, Wilson-Esbrand, Phillips and Diedhiou, mucked in and protected our lead with an intensity which will have some (not me though!) saying that a top six finish is still on.
In the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division, Ton Pentre have turned a corner after they recorded a fourth straight win with a 7-1 trouncing of Cardiff Airport, while Treherbert Boys and Girls Club were unable to cash in on a defeat for leaders Cwmamman as they were held 2-2 at home in a fourth v third clash with Porthcawl Town Athletic.
Watford has been one of those away games I’ve tended to go to when possible over the years. I remember us playing on their previously terrible pitch that was either like a bog or a rock hard bobbly thing mid-winter when rugby was also played on it. I remember us frequently coming unstuck from players of the like of Troy Deeney!
I was also at last seasons midweek away game on a spur of the moment decision. We started that game so passively and allowed Watford to show their skills and ability and easily carved open our defence to score an early goal, and we feared a long night. However we turned it around by becoming more aggressive, showing that Watford’s defence was nowhere near as good as their attack, resulting in a beautiful goal from Etete and a worldy bicycle kick from Sory Kaba.
Leading 3-1 at half time I remember saying to the fans I was with, that I’d take a 0-0 second half, even though that meant we wouldn’t see a Cardiff goal in front of our fans.
That’s what happened, and that 3-1 win went a long way to securing our safety in the Championship.
Yesterday there were some similarities. On this occasion it was Josh Bowler who scored a worldy at the far end. Not wanting to take anything away from his dribbling and the final shot, I thought yet again the Watford defence was guilty of what used to be called some ‘powder-puff’ challenges in the build up. Contrast those challenges with a couple of crunchers that Romeo put in for us when he came on second half.
And so again yesterday at half-time I found myself saying I’d take a 0-0 second half.
For once I can’t add anything to Paul’s excellent match report. There are two points I wanted to make though:
I wondered before the game how the different build-ups would affect each team. For us it was our first game in a fortnight, and players had been given some time-off last weekend.
On the other hand it was Watford’s third game in a week, having been in the FA cup last weekend, followed by an away trip to Sheffield on Wednesday night. I thought the resultant differences in energy levels told, especially in the second half, when we needed to defend!
Finally I’d like to pay tribute to a very decent refereeing performance yesterday by John Busby. Although I’m not going to agree with every decision the ref made, I thought he handled the game very well. I mostly agreed with his yellow cards and even saw why he didn’t award us a penalty when Karlan Grant went down in the box under a challenge. Whatever the contact, Grant went down far too theatrically, so without the benefit of VAR, I wouldn’t have awarded it either.
I’ve been critical of several of the refereeing performances so far this season, so I’m very happy to acknowledge a decent one yesterday!
Buongiorno, Paul…
Thanks for doing the hard yards for us. Having seen the full 90 minutes, I can say that there is much to admire in your report, and just the one thing to break a lance with you over.
Let me get the latter out of the way early in my response. How can you say Jak’s distribution was ‘better than normal’? Eh? It is your use of the word ‘normal’ that raised my eyebrow.
You and Glen Williams clearly are watching a different Alnwick than I watch. To me, he is our best goalkeeper as a distributor of a football since Maurice Swan.
Our duplicitous manager tried to frame him on this ludicrous ‘poor with his feet’ charge, by making it the excuse for dropping him, and putting in the inferior Icelandic… whilst shamefully not telling us the real reason… that he had promised Runnarsson and Arsenal first team football at CCS. I am sorry to say that this lack of honesty on Bulut’s part will forever represent a major flaw in the man’s character from this day forward, as far as I am concerned.
But you are indubitably right in assuming that we are going to see Bulut replace the superb Alnwick with a chap who Luton decided not to take up their option of a £1.5m transfer on… and instead left him high and dry at Forest… a team who he only ever played 6 games for, and who would not include him in their own 25 man squad… buying the highly questionable Matt Turner to replace him as one of their 3 keepers. (Rob Edwards at Luton incidentally decided that the American was not the answer, and that the Belgian Thomas Kaminski was a much better prospect, being a recent Player of the Year at Ewood Park. And what a fine Luton Town goalkeeper he is proving to be.)
So seeing Glen Williams the other day (after the transfer window slammed shut) picking the Coloradan in his best available City starting X1… well it made me wonder how much Williams is in the pocket of Bulut.
Pity he is not literally in his pocket, for if he was, Bulut would give him a seat on the players’ bus to away games… seeing as Reach* are now so cash strapped, (their – presently being introduced – paywalls being a desperate attempt to stem the haemorrhaging of their cash reserves) that they cannot fund his travel to some away games, and thus it is that we have to read a Press Association report on it… and then get no Bluebirds player ratings. Indeed, we have once or twice been subjected to the ‘home team ratings only’ in those PA away game reports.
YCNMIU, eh?** (I’d guess because the PA reporter normally covers the home team, and only felt qualified to rate players he knew well?)
http://tinyurl.com/k5wmwtre
Now, changing the subject… let me come to David Turnbull. I recall you saying that in contrast to my being a Glasgow Rangers man, you always felt kinship with the hoops. Well Paul, I need not tell you what educated spectators there are at Parkhead… so no doubt you like me will be troubled by this reaction from virtually 100% of the Celtic fans contributing to the link in their fans forum page.
Of course it is customary on fans forums to have disparaging views on players leaving their clubs… but they are usually balanced by the ‘thanks for your service’ fans. Not so here… it is disturbing to see Celtic fans labelling him as ‘lazy’. (What… at just 24, with seemingly plenty of miles still in his legs?) This does not augur well with the qualities that Bulut considers prerequisites in a player. Could it be that he has not done due diligence with Vincent’s money here? Just signed him after watching a film of Turnbull’s YouTube goals… which incidentally according to fans almost invariably came against Scottish Premiership no-hopers… almost never on floodlight*** Euro nights against big Euro opponents…
http://tinyurl.com/4d29vp2u
*And whilst on the subject of WalesOnline… I think it appalling that we cannot get ‘on the day’ match reports on Newport County matches… seeing as Newport is not much more than a dozen miles from Cardiff… but hey, maybe I should not be surprised… if what I read recently that WalesOnline now comes out of… Bristol…!! (Can that really be true, Paul? Tell me it is a hoax.)
**= You Could Not Make It Up, eh… even if you tried…!!
*** Can I have your permission Paul to steal your ‘floodlight robbery’ line. Brilliant. It made me LOL. I promise not to use it in these MAYA pages.
(“Ah, but you will Oscar, you will,”says Paul…)
TTFN,
Dai.
Morning both and thanks for the replies. Dai, we’ll have to agree to disagree about Alnwick as a distributor. If the criteria for judging goalkeeping was solely how well they controlled he ball with their feet and passed it, then I’d agree with Messrs Morison, Hudson and Lamouchi who, more or less, favoured Allsop over Alnwick all through last season. Allsop was more skilful with the ball at his feet in tight situations than some of his team mates and, although he came close to making the sort of blunders we see from keepers when they think they are outfield players, I can’t remember us conceding a goal last season through playing out from the back – Allsop also had a kick like an elephant on him and so could knock the ball huge distances up the pitch when we started playing in a more direct fashion under Lamouchi.
However, there’s more to goalkeeping than imitating outfield players and Allsop let in enough poor goals through straightforward substandard goalkeeping for me to say that Alnwick is the better goalkeeper of the two. Alnwick has been very good this season, but, as you say, it seems whatever he does is not enough to fully satisfy his manager – Bulut’s argument that Runnarsson was the better goalkeeper with the ball at his feet, which he used as the excuse for dropping Alnwick for five games before Christmas is, at best, unproven – my own view is that Alnwick had the Icelander beaten in that aspect of goalkeeping as well as the more important one about keeping the ball out of the net.
I may have mentioned this before on here, but I think that Peter Shilton probably realised that it was time to pack up when he was with Leyton Orient in he fourth tier in the mid nineties and he found himself being left out of the team because the other goalkeeper at the club was able to kick the ball further than him. Maybe that will be Bulut’s excuse for picking Horvarth in front of Alnwick, but, whatever it is, I’m sure it will no be long before we hear it.
You noticed the PA reports in Wales Online as well then have you, I suppose it’s inevitable in a way given that newspapers, especially regional ones, look to be on their last legs, but my mind goes back fifty years and more to when I’d be at my local newsagents at about 5.40 on a Saturday afternoon waiting for the imminent arrival of the Football Echo with it’s match report by Peter Jackson on the game at Carlisle or some other far flung outpost which had ended an hour earlier! Agree about Newport County as well, but it must be five years and more since I last read a report on a County game that was written by a Wales Online staffer.
Regarding Turnbull. until recently, I regarded what a club’s supporters said about a player we were signing from them as the best way to get an idea if we were bringing in a worldbeater or a dud, but, after Karlan Grant I’m no longer as sure of that – the overwhelming view on Grant from Baggies fans was that he was lazy. Now, if we were looking to do a deal with West Brom to sign Gran permanently and they said he’s yours for £5 million (a third of what they paid for him apparently), I’d politely ell them to take a running jump, but, in terms of work rate and team ethic, Grant has been exemplary since he’s been here – so many West Brom fans go him so wrong.
That said, what I’ve read about Turnbull online from Celtic fans has been overwhelmingly negative and, again, the main criticism seems to be about his attitude in that he’s another who has been labelled lazy.
For myself, I remember seeing Turnbull as an eighteen or nineteen year old at Motherwell and being very impressed – I can recall thinking that I’d love City to sign him, but,even though we were spending a fair bit at the time under Warnock, I felt he was destined for bigger and better than us.
I honestly don’t know what to expect from this signing, but there were a couple of examples of dissenting Celtic opinions I came across yesterday. First on a You Tube video where he presenter accused the club’s fans of being unfair about Turnbull and then on a City live stream from last night where each of the four people involved seemed very enthusiastic about the signing with two of them I believe saying that their opinion was partly formed by what a Celtic supporting friend had told them about Turnbull.
Blue Bayou, I suppose it’s a bit patronising to say you were disappointed by a team your club has just beaten, but, nevertheless, it was true for me. I make it that Watford had played twenty one matches in all competitions before Saturday since drawing at Cardiff City Stadium in October and they’d only lost three of them. Therefore, I was expecting better from them. but, while they put us under a lot of pressure in the last quarter of the game, I can only remember them opening us up once when they got behind Wilson-Ersbrand, but nothing came of it.
However, you make a fair and good point when you mention Watford’s game at Sheffield Wednesday in midweek – there was that spell at the start of the second half when City successfully pressed Watford high up the pitch and were dominating their opponents physically in a manner I don’t associate with us. Of course, while you are concentrating on your side doing well at the time, a more sober analysis of Saturday’s game may conclude that City’s twenty odd minutes of supremacy had more to do with Watford’s tiredness than anything we were doing.
Finally, I must agree with what you say about referee John Busby, who, in my view, proved that cliche about you don’t notice the best refs to be right. I barely noticed Mr Busby all through the game and I’m with you again on that penalty claim for a foul on Karlan Grant – no way was it a penalty.
Thanks Paul. You started by saying “Dai, we’ll have to agree to disagree.” I would not have it any other way, compadre, for none of us want to live in an echo chamber, and anyway, I disagree with MYSELF half the time, so disagreeing in an agreeable way comes naturally to me.
So far since my return to your pages after a 3 year or so absence, we have disagreed on a wonderful number of subjects. I told you that Rebecca Welch was a fine referee, despite your misgivings, and by golly she is proving to be just that. What a brave decision that was to red card Philip Billing on his home ground for that foul in the centre circle. And on the subject of referees: I sought to differ with you on 30 year old Sam Barrott’s performance at Hillsborough in the Championship game. You called him a homer, but I said he was anything but… my having previously seen him referee games on Sky. Note how since Xmas he has now been given some big EPL games to referee, and additionally a Carabao Cup semi. And then there is the boy Whittaker, who I rate very highly. Since I wrote, did you see that winner against Swansea? Talk about ‘taken with aplomb’… oh yes.
Oh and as regards you saying you don’t remember us losing a goal last season to ‘playing out from the back’, I seem to recall giving you several examples back around the start of this season. One I vividly recall was the hapless Jack Simpson, playing a disastrous short pass from his byline to Romaine Sawyers who was sleeping at the edge of the penalty area and Hungbo pounced to intercept and give Huddersfield the lead. Alas, the situation had cried out for a long Simpson pass to Isaak Davies on the halfway line: he had just come on as a sub and was full of running. But ‘Pepitis’ won the day. It is a nonsense, even when you have teams like Man City who can mainly carry it off. And far from it being a sign of TOTAL football, I have to say I often find it ANTI football.
Take last night: I fell asleep watching Manchester City keep trying to walk the wall into the net against a reasonably porous Brentford defence whose only similarity to that of the Atletico Madrid defence, was the choice of shirt colours.
Brentford woke me up just before halftime with a goal of beauty from a goalkeeper assist. That is the way to deal with players who are far your superiors technically, but somehow hellbent on taking the thrust out of the game by passing passing passing… till the opponents fall asleep (as well as the spectators)… such as in this 60 pass yawnfest.
https://youtu.be/dPWeUgkawqc?si=IpsEfcKyOnlQWzuI
Oh yes Paul… while I remember… I do not want goalkeepers to have a kick ‘like a mule’. I do not doubt that the overrated Alsopp could kick it ten yards farther than Alnwick: but I want a kick like an EXOCET… guided on to its target. And here Alnwick is superb, invariably hitting a long pass to give our attacker a fighting chance of winning it in an aerial duel. What a contrast this was to Mark Etheridge who ‘found touch’ more often than Clive Rowlands in 1963.
Anyway, Paul, I will sign off agreeing to differ and remembering Samuel Clemens’s famous quip along the lines of ‘it is difference of opinion that explains horse racing’…!!
Salutations, Dai.
Oops… I have just read what I posted a few hours ago…
Apols for the typo ‘walk the wall into the net’.
Although, thinking about it, it wasn’t a typo at all, since the letters b and w are miles apart on a Qwerty keyboard.
Clearly Salvador Dalí lives on in my subconscious. Gee, I would pay serious money to see what he’d have made of that image…!!
DW
I could have worded what I said about not conceding a goal when playing out from the back better Dai, because the point I was making related to when Allsop was playing – Alnwick was the goalkeeper when we conceded that Huddersfield goal, although I seem to remember that he was blameless himself.