In my opinion, a myth grew out of Cardiff City’s 2-1 win at Molineux over Wolves back in August. The story goes that we “bullied” our way to that victory by kicking lumps out of the home players for ninety minutes and the game only ended as it did because an indulgent ref let us get away with what might not have been murder, but you know what I mean.
I’ll say here and now that some of our players (e.g. Lee Peltier) weren’t too particular about whether he played man or ball sometimes and we certainly weren’t shirking tackles. So, yes, we were physical and we’ve been physical all season, but you cannot get to where we have spent most of the season just by being a bunch of cloggers.
We received little or no credit for some of the very good football we played at times when beating the team who will surely be crowned Champions this season. Back in August, we were playing good football, but, because it was direct in nature and not overly concerned about what the possession stats looked like after ninety minutes, there has been a reluctance to accept that we can play some good stuff at times.
There was also composure in our play at Molineux, not in a let’s build up methodically and keep the ball at all costs manner, but in a way which said we are confident in what we are doing because we are pretty good at it. We deserved to win that day because we played a streetwise game which, admittedly, sailed close to the wind occasionally on the disciplinary front, but it was also effective.
We were able to move the ball at pace and with a decent degree of accuracy with the belief that we could succeed if we stuck to our script and showed no fear.
Sadly, I saw little of that early season certainty last night as Wolves gained what I thought was a deserved revenge for their early season loss to us on their own pitch.
I’ve not checked this, but I think the crowd of 29,317 might well have been the third largest home league attendance I’ve ever been in for a City game – there was the 35,000 plus for Hereford in 1976 and just over 30,000 against QPR in 1969, but I think they may be the only bigger gates we’ve had in home league games I’ve watched since 1963.
Certainly, based on what I heard coming out of the ground and what I’ve read on messageboards, it seems the large majority of City fans are judging our 1-0 loss as an unlucky one – I’m afraid I cannot agree with that point of view.
I mentioned the composure that we had at Molineux earlier, but, in a game which had so much riding on it, I was struck by the almost total lack of composure shown by those in blue.
Of course, it would be easy to just point the finger of blame for the lack of composure squarely at Gary Madine and Junior Hoilett for their penalty misses in a truly bizarre period of added time when the story should have been about how we had turned a 1-0 loss into a 1-1 draw for a second consecutive game with a goal past the ninety minute mark – perhaps I’m wrong, but if Madine scores his penalty, I don’t see us going straight up the pitch and getting the second one to give us a chance of what would have been a sensational win.
I’ll return to the penalties in more detail later, but what all of that late drama did do was push the paucity of effective attacking play from us in the second half in particular to one side. Wolves had a defensive wobble or two in the first half, notably when, in complete contrast to what we saw most of the time when we were in possession, Hoilett played a lovely ball through for Joe Bennett who seemed to not quite make up his mind whether to pass or shoot and ended up not really doing either.
The closest City came in the first half though was when surprise starter Janic Wildschut hit a shot which drew a good diving save from John Ruddy, but it was telling that this came from a free kick, because, more and more as the game went on, dead ball situations represented the only way we could inconvenience Wolves.
A second half snap shot by Aron Gunnarsson, which Ruddy had given up on as it flashed about a yard wide, apart, all City had to offer for about the last hour of the match was a series of long throws, free kicks and corners launched with decreasing optimism and increasing desperation into the visitors penalty area and for the ninety minutes of “proper” time at least, Wolves dealt with the one dimensional aerial assault competently and with barely any alarms.
Maybe it’s me being over critical, but, for most of the game, City seemed to be in one of those occasional spells they have where they seem incapable of enjoying any controlled possession as the ball either flies straight back to the opposition after a tackle, interception or clearance or is hooked forward over someone’s shoulders in the the hope the ball will land at a team mate’s feet – in short, a total lack of composure.
Faced with such a limited attacking threat, Wolves were comfortable and, although they rather lost their way in an attacking sense after a bright start which saw Sean Morrison turn a centre just over his own crossbar in the first minute and Neil Etheridge make a couple of good diving saves from crisply hit shots, they always looked the more likely scorers of what was going to be a so important first goal to me.
Wolves may have carried more of a threat than us, but, certainly while it remained 0-0 it was a pretty muted one as, whatever else was going wrong for them, City at least showed their normal levels of resilience which make them such a tough team to break down.
In saying that, Wolves were still able to hit the post through Leo Bonatini and once they had taken the lead with a superb Ruben Neves free kick, they had the chances to add to their tally, notably when sub Costa did all of the hard work and then fired wastefully wide with only Etheridge to beat.
As I alluded to earlier, I feel that the way Wolves lost the admirable defensive discipline they had shown until the fourth official held up his board to tell us there was five minutes to play, rather gave City fans something to cling on to when, in reality, there was little in our display to engender hope about our trip to Villa Park on Tuesday.
Before the match, there had been some comment about the fact that Premier League ref Mike Dean was taking charge of proceedings. Mr Dean was described as having the sort of ego that is completely at home in the league he does most of his work in and that we would be talking about him at the end of the game, rather than the football.
Well, if we had managed to score twice in added time to turn defeat into famous victory, then I daresay the post match talk, certainly from Wolves supporters, would have been all about him, but I thought, for most of the match, he did a very good job – indeed, like all good refs, you barely noticed him.
Actually, if that previous paragraph hints at Mike Dean making blunders with those penalty awards, that wasn’t my intention – the first penalty, for a foul on sub Anthony Pilkington, looked a stonewaller from where I was sat and the only bone of contention about the second one was whether Gunnarsson had been fouled inside or outside the area and the near side linesman, who had an excellent view of the incident, was soon waving his flag to signal a penalty, so the decision was already made for Mr Dean with that one once he had decided a foul had been committed.
Just as against Sheffield United on Monday, City had the chance to turn an unconvincing display that looked set to end in a narrow defeat into a great point which would be a real boost for morale.
With the recent absence of Joe Ralls, I have wondered once or twice who would be our penalty taker given the chance. Well, as far I’m aware, Madine had a good record from the penalty spot at Bolton, so, it wasn’t a total surprise to see him step forward. I must say though that his short run up did little for my confidence and, sure enough, Ruddy dived to his left to make what looked to be a great diving save, albeit from what some of those with a better view than me were calling a poorly struck effort.
It was no surprise that Madine wasn’t a contender to take the second one, but I must admit that Hoilett was something of a surprise choice to me – like many other messageboard contributors, I thought Pilkington, who I believe has a one hundred per cent scoring record from the six or seven penalties he’s taken for us, was the obvious candidate.
An inch or two lower and the man who never gives the ball away according to the song would have been a hero on a night when it seemed to me that his team was giving the ball away all of the time, but instead, his shot bounced down and out off the underside of the crossbar – very fine margins yes, but, in the end, I’m afraid technique and composure went missing from two of our forwards at the very time those commodities were most needed.
Wolves survived a fraught few seconds as the ball bounced around close to their goal line, but the whistle soon sounded and their supporters could celebrate the fact that, barring a total collapse which I just don’t see happening, they will be playing Premier League football next season.
Can the same now be said of Cardiff City? Fulham will close to within two points of us if they win at Sheffield Wednesday today, while, with us having to go there in our next match, Villa will start fancying their chances again if they can win at Norwich. Defeat on Tuesday would mean Fulham would only have to win an easy looking home game with Reading to go above us – we’d still have that game in hand, but all of the momentum we had would have been lost.
It’s generally agreed that we played badly at Sheffield United and, although it looks like I may be in a minority, I didn’t think we played much better last night, but I’d say this Cardiff manager and team are a cussed bunch and there would be a real determination to prove those who were writing them off wrong. We do have a certain je ne sais croie about us and it would be somehow typical of this bunch if they regrouped and made a real burst for the line just as they were being discounted.
Even after the final whistle, the drama hadn’t ended as a row ensued between the two managers regarding Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo’s failure to shake Neil Warnock’s hand at the end of the game.
Given that Nuno had done the same at Middlesbrough a week ago, upsetting their manager Tony Pulis in the process, after Wolves’ win there and the character of our manager, there were always going to be repercussions this time, but, for me at least, it all seemed like a bit of an irrelevant sideshow.
So, after turning it on in our first match with a big home crowd (Leeds) and being somewhat flat in front of 32,000 in the FA Cup tie with Manchester City, City followed the latter path when a third huge home crowd of the season turned up and are now in need of not just a result, but also a performance, at Villa – rediscover their composure and City can get the result they want against opponents for whom nothing but a win will do.
I’m still trying to come to terms with the penalty failures but as usual I agree with your assessment Paul.
Regarding our composure, without our two best footballing midfielders and Paterson and Wildshutt being tasked with stopping their wingbacks from overlapping it was a mismatch in midfield. Neves and Saiss are far superior footballers to Bryson and a not match fit Gunnarsson. Without Paterson’s support, Zohore was isolated and we rarely won the fifty fifty or second ball situations.
When we purchased Madine I commented that we had purchased a journeyman footballer, my opinion hasn’t changed.
I agree in hindsight Pilks was the obvious choice as penalty taker but in the heat of battle bad choices are made.
Let’s hope we can get Ralls and Grujic fit ASAP, especially as it appears we will be without Paterson. Chin up lads, it’s still ours to loose.
Paul and others, Thanks for your perceptive, as usual, review of proceedings of last night’s dust up. The better side won and the”luck” that you wrote about after our trip to Yorkshire deserted us, but perhaps we were due to receive some of the “bad”version. However, you can hardly call it “bad” if we spurn not one but two attempts to score from twelve yards. Like you, I wondered why Pilks did not have a go, but whatever, it may well have been rough justice on Wolves had we equalised with moments to go.
I too, feel we showed a lack of composure and in fact used this very word in my last response. Our determination to lump the ball forward is disappointing. It may be that we believe that bypassing our midfield will create more chances, but our opposition soon become wise to these tactics and invariably we find ourselves having to defend somewhat more quickly than perhaps we would wish. And on that very point, I felt our captain ( after a very awkward week personally ) had a poor game. His distribution from head and feet were poor, and he conceded the free kick from which the excellent Neves scored.
And not a particularly warming performance from NW. His foul mouthing of others does nothing to enhance the image of what we are trying to portray as a family club, and I wish he would temper his rants to the dressing room, without video of course. That Santo went tearing off to celebrate the victory with his hero goalkeeper without a handshake was ignorant ( he did this against ‘Boro also ) but NW to refuse the apology was rather childish and sadly did not improve an already suspect reputation.
So its Villa next and hopefully, less drama.
Thanks for the write up Paul
Firstly, you’re correct about the home league attendance being the third highest since 1963. Of course, my being an even older gentleman means it’s the sixth highest for me as I was at the Arsenal game in 1960 (32,775), Spurs in 1961 (45,463) and Spurs again in 1962 (33,606).
As for last night, I tend to agree that Wolves probably deserved their win although I’ve a feeling that, like us, they set up with the main aim being not to lose. Their pressing game was very effective and with Paterson and Wildschut seemingly instructed to double up as extra wing backs it was no surprise that we were largely crowded out in midfield. I do wonder whether shuffling our pack to allow Gunnarsson back in is sensible. Certainly I prefer to see Paterson (hope he’s not out for long) playing further forward in almost a no 10 role. Our set pieces were very unproductive last night although credit to Wolves who had clearly done their homework in dealing with them. I did wonder though whether without Manga we lacked that one extra threat in the penalty area that a lot of teams have found hard to deal with this season. As for those penalties – just hope we don’t miss out on promotion by just one point or they’ll come to haunt us for years to come !
Thanks, Paul, another excellent report.
I would agree with you that Wolves were the better side on the night and it would have been pushing our luck to come up with another late equaliser as we did on Monday.
I was surprised at the inclusion of Wildschutt but I wasn’t aware of Grujic’s injury. They formation we played seemed to work first half with the threat of the Wolves full-backs nullified but it left us a touch light as an attacking force, would Mr. Warnock have been happy with a point? As it was Paterson wasn’t able to get into that area of their area where he has been so effective in recent games.
To miss two penalties was careless rather than unlucky and I was left with the same feeling as I experienced after the Manchester City game, one of something approaching shame, especially after the post-match antics of the management.
The next few days will be a test of our managers man-management skills. In my opinion Villa are nowhere near unbeatable, except for the first 5-10 minutes at our place they were pretty poor but we were in good form then and even though our results have been good lately some of the performances haven’t been like those of early season.
We still have a decent buffer of points over Fulham but we really could do with a win for Sheffield Wednesday today.
Oh Paul boyo…your thoughts on last night just oozed the class that Neil (conspicuously) and Nuno (to a lesser degree) lacked at the final whistle.
We were beaten by a better team. No complaints.
As for the disappointments: only Etheridge and Bamba really performed to their normal level for me…the other team members were somewhere below their best. Peltier never convinces me when up against really good opponents; oh for Morrison to be the imposing centre back captain Warnock THINKS he is; and SuperCal was strangely subdued when confined to his favourite RHS of the pitch (was that rib injury incurred earlier in the game than we think?) or was it as Richard shrewdly suggests, that Callum really should be played as a number 10…?
I will cut Morrison a bit of slack though on the free kick that led to the goal. As the SKY commentary team opined, the Wolves player was not even touched. The fact that Morro had gone to ground, went against him and got him that booking.
But hey…they deserved to win. “Chwarae teg boys”, as Max Boyce would say.
When we played Boro at home I felt that the performance shown wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) be judged on its own merit but rather how we managed the two games after it too: a tough game against Ipswich away and severnside derby at home. We managed to win all three and so the dirge display in the battle of anti-football was seen as part of a successful run of games. Last night should also be judged in context of a three game spell (Sheffield united away and villa away) as with three points against Villa and we have likely ended their race and kept vital distance between ourselves and Fulham, moving us closer to my now 11 point target and with far easier games in front of us. In contrast, if we lose or draw against Villa and put in a third tired performance of the week then it’s likely that Fulham overtake us and we will need a massive display of character to go up, be that automatic or play-offs. The crowd staying with the team to the end may yet keep our season alive.
If we do end up losing to villa then we can feel slightly more honest about last night as an individual game. If in our first game against Wolves we showed strength, composure generally and pace and confidence in attack then last night I can’t remember any of that. Wolves got the first tackle in and we seemed too wary of playing to our undeserved reputation, while Zohore had one of his off days and Gunnarson looked like he was desperate for a rest. Far too much will be said about the penalties but what of the performance before that? We might have come away with a draw due to good defensive display but very limited ahead of that.
A comment on wolves, a good team who clearly deserve to go up (compare them warming up at the start of the second half to our less commited attempt) but their fans are on the uglier side of football and it seems they have a manager who fits into that. I do look forward to the day he gets sacked. Sadly, perhaps the funniest song of the night being “sing when you’re winning” which would be near constant for them this year.
When I got home last night my wife had rolled back the TV recording and stopped it just after Madine had missed the penalty. On the screen were me in my hat alongside my grandson, both of us showing obvious signs of disbelief and disappointment. No doubt Madine will be adversely criticised for not scoring, and — as we see above — damned with faint praise as a mere journeyman centre forward. This may be so but I should like to say something on his behalf..
I think his confidence has been undermined not just by injury but also by the fact that he seems to have been relegated to second string in the pecking order. To be left on the bench until the 70th minute, as happened again last night, means he had been kept there 70 minutes too long, given by the display of the man who seems currently to be first in the pecking order.
I don’t know if ducks actually “peck” but “duck” seems an appropriate word to describe Kenneth Zohore, given his predilection literally to duck out of potentially painful situations. In French the word “duck” is “canard”, and there is also the phrase “un canard publicitaire” meaning a publicity stunt. In English “canard” means something which is claimed to be true but which, in the immortal words of Ira Gershwin “Ain’t necessarily so”. In this category I would include what many people think of Zohore, and this goes back to his short burst of scoring wonder goals last season and the phrase which Mr Warnock heaped upon him at the time. To me it seems that the Cardiff manager had been endeavouring to boost the player’s confidence, and it worked, even though defenders such as Curtis Davies have questioned his footballing credentials.But this still does not explain why Zohore is still first in the pecking order at Cardiff.
I have very old fashioned views I admit, but a genuine striker should be a rip-roaring goal scoring dangerman, To use the words recently mentioned by our very talented Blogmeister, I look for the striker be part of “the forlorn hope”, but in the original Dutch sense of a warrior leading at the outset from the front at risk to life and limb. A centre forward should be able, at least, to challenge for high balls; to stay on his feet rather than be easy to push over; to be willing to race into the goal area with a level of determination; to “put himself about” at all times. Flashes of pace and power and ground-level hold-up play are not on their own sufficient to put a striker in first place in the pecking order, given the manner in which Cardiff play. Zohore often reminds me of the old joke used by NCOs in the British Army: “Fall out for a smoke. Those who don’t smoke, go through the motions”. To mention another French phrase, not for reasons of pedantry but nevertheless for which I apologise, he is too often something of “un canard boiteux”, a lame duck.
Fairly or unfairly, the two missed penalties were agonising to see, I’ve already mentioned Madime who was quite obviously too desperate to score — and as a general rule there’s nothing wrong with that — but Hoilett can hit a ball more cleanly than any other of the Cardiff forwards, and should be able to take penalty kicks as successfully as his free kicks. Unfortunately last night, he didn’t connect as cleanly as he could have. Tiredness and stress might be to blame, of course, but I don’t think he was eager to be given the responsibility, especially as I seem to remember that he had been knocked to the ground just as Gunnarson was winning our second penalty.
In spite of everything, I believe that Cardiff City, although manifestly second best, were not that far behind the much vaunted Wolves. I’m optimistic that on Tuesday against Aston Villa, they will redeem themselves and go from strength to strength in our remaining games. I hope that if the TV camera catches my grandson and myself on those occasions we’ll be smiling with happiness.
Thanks Paul for expert analysis again.
Still can’t believe how it ended and been ruminating all day on the penalty saga. However, although a point- in the end – would have been satisfactory, we were definitely second best to a very good Wolves team.
As other comments suggest, we appeared laboured due to change of formation and a few players not at usual levels. Wolves were very comfortable on the ball abd, not surprisingly, their talented midfield players showed up our deficiencies in that department.
Good performances from Sol and Etheridge but too many others not firing on all cylinders.
Let’s hope we can regain our focus on Tuesday and get all 11 players – whoever selected – performing on top of their game.
Thanks Paul spot on report.
I too thought we were second best, thought we weren’t that great against Burton , lost the midfield at Sheffield United, and dreadful last night.
Reflecting on my walk home last night convinced me we’re so lucky to be where we are ,and we will be in the play offs.
I am surprised at the unanimity in the MAYA that we deserved to lose this game –an indication of our respect for Paul as a pundit perhaps.
No-one is going to dispute that Wolves have more skilful players and play more conventionally attractive football.
Our strengths are that we defend very well (fewest goals conceded in the Championship) and are able to create scoring chances without outplaying the opposition.Most of our wins have come from these qualities with occasional golden moments from our front three.
I thought we deserved a point from the game , or perhaps more accurately, Wolves did not deserve all three, because under pressure their defence lost all composure in conceding two penalties within two minutes.
If we are to hang on to second place we need to substantially improve our performances as looking at the fixtures I cannot see F ulham drop more than three points.
Play-offs here we come I fear!
I felt that overall Wolves deserved to win the game, they were quicker and more decisive than us. Excellent free kick put away by Neves, not sure if they should have had a free kick. Mike Dean , I must confess had a good game as a referee, best one all season.
Midfield disappointed by Gunnerson contribution, since he has come back, I feel we are a bit disjointed in that area. Zahore I felt was okay, but was getting pulled down a lot by the Wolves players.
Finally the penalties in added time, I have never experienced this before at the stadium, I was in the Grandstand and the emotions and non believe from us all we were gutted, but hang on we missed the first one, and then Mike Dean gave us a second chance, our hearts are beating , we are bound to put the second one in. No Juliet took it, not sure why I thought he was knackered. He hit the post, unlucky perhaps, But if you stand in front of those goals it has been proved if you hit the ball hard down the middle it will go in ( i watched a programme some time ago on the tele a scientific approach to taking penalties). We all thought that Pilks would take the second one. Not sure what the plan was between Warnock and the Captain Morrison who would take the penalties. Thoughts went back to the Mclean penalty miss against Ipswich at Ninian Park, when Roy Keane was in charge as their Manager for his first game, I think we lost 3-1. And then memories of the League Cup Final against Liverpool Miller and Gestede, forget Gerrard unbelievable misses.
Well Fulham won again, Aston Villa lost. Fulham to triumph Who knows watch this space, Thanks Paul and friends, Geoff
Paul,
I think all our regular MAYA fellowship always exhibit the classy good manners that both Neil and Nuno could do with trying to emulate.
So if I query a couple of comments from this batch, I hope that the two people I am selecting here, do not think it even remotely personal…!! I value both of their regular contributions very much indeed.
My eye first fell on BJA’s comments, and this sentence of his…
‘…
Our determination to lump the ball forward is disappointing.
…’
Eh? I must have had my eyes on wrong, for the first 90 minutes…!! I did not see any “lumping” the ball forward at all. Au contraire…I saw attempts made to play the ball through midfield largely snuffled out by the superior midfield of the opposition.
I did however see lots of lumping* in injury time. And what happened? It proved tremendously exciting, and it finally rattled Wolves. We got two penalties and should have converted both**.
The lesson? Easy. We should have been “lumping” a lot earlier.
We have seen the way to beat Manchester City. Get the ball down there fast, and great sweeper goalie that Edison is, there is always space to exploit behind their last line of defenders.
One comment I am not querying, is this from Jeff Blight…
‘…
When we purchased Madine I commented that we had purchased a journeyman footballer, my opinion hasn’t changed.
…’
I don’t query it, because I too made the same observation…having been a not infrequent reader of Owls Online, and seen what Wednesday fans thought of him, and indeed queried our MAYA Master’s zeroing-in on a quirky Bolton stat that said something roughly like that it had been ten thousand years since Bolton had won a game in which Madine had not scored…?
But the fact he is a journeyman should not in itself disqualify him from being a big success. It all depends how you use a journeyman.
And it seems to me that you don’t use him as a lone target man up front. You need a thoroughbred to pull off that role effectively. Class acts from history, like Tommy Lawton and the young John Charles, Wyn Davies …and more recently Mark Hughes and Batistuta.
But what you do, is play him alongside Zohore up front, as part of a 4-4-2…with a diamond behind him. SuperCal at the head of the diamond, and Gunnarsson at the base. Perm any two from eight as to who make up the sides of the diamond.
And if you get overrun in midfield? Easy-peasy. You by-pass it. And LUMP it. Golly, BJA…you have persuaded me that it is a sexy footballing word after all, and one I should happily adopt…and not run from. Sincere thanks, BJA.
And my second query? Here I alight at Mike Hope’s always thoughtful contribution.
My eyebrows were raised slightly by his initial sentence…
‘…
I am surprised at the unanimity in the MAYA that we deserved to lose this game –an indication of our respect for Paul as a pundit perhaps.
…’
I was a tad surprised by it, not because Mike goes on to take the perfectly reasonable position that City deserved a point, but because he seems to suggest that our respect for our MAYA Master might make us fall into line with his conclusions in his match reports.
Eh?
No, squire…NEVER. We are freethinkers. We MAYA brethren are a breed apart.
This happy breed of men, this little world; this precious blog set in a sea of soulless, cerebrally empty fellow blogs; which serves it in the office of a wall or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier blogs; this blessed MAYA brethren, this blog, this Paul ….these Bluebirds…!!
(With apols to the greatest lone striker of them all…Will the Quill.)
* what a wonderful loaded word that is…!! It conjures up “lumpenproletariat”…the non-revolutionary section of the Working Class. And it is effective and accurate, is it not, in its subtext? For we fans of lumping want nothing to do with its polar opposite, viz. tiki-taka. For that was one revolution too far.
** one has to laugh at the Gary Madine penalty. Twice as he prepares to take the kick, he obviously and pointedly glances twice to the goalkeeper’s right. Which is fine, so long as you then do the clever thing and put it in that very area of the goal.
But any goalkeeper with just basic Pyschology 101 under his belt, will immediately figure “why is this guy trying to ensure I believe it will go to my right? I’ll bet he will hit it to my left”.
And Mr. Ruddy bet correctly.
The lesson? Better not make eye contact with the goalie at all. Decide where you are going to hit it, and then leather it.
Morning everyone, I’m just going to make a few general comments about some of the points arising from your replies. The person who gave me the team as we queued to get into the ground was of the opinion that it was something of a negative selection and I believe he was proved right. I didn’t listen to all of the phone in on Radio Wales last night, but I did hear Nathan Blake and Danny Gabbidon discussing whether City set themselves up not to lose. Richard and Jeff got it right as far as I’m concerned because they commented specifically on Callum Paterson’s absence from the number ten type position where he has been so effective in recent games. In particular, Patterson’s deployment almost as a right wing back against Wolves meant that Neil Etheridge was forced into looking for Zohore’s head when he was kicking upfield and, we’ve seen so many times before that this means that the ball has a tendency to come back at us – Paterson is a lot better than Zohore as a target for long clearances and when Paterson is up there we can, hopefully, see more of what he is best at from Zohore as he tries to feed on balls won by Paterson – up until Friday, we were playing the 4-4-2 Dai wants to see when our goalkeeper was kicking upfield.
The more defensive use of Paterson lasted until he was forced to go off with what was, seemingly, a rib injury and I was surprised that it was Nathaniel Mendez-Laing who came on to replace him. I say this because it was a much more attacking substitution than I was expecting given the way we had been playing up until then – remember, the score was still 0-0 when Paterson left the field. Forget about 4-4-2, we were playing a kind of 4-2-4 after the substitution – maybe the plan was to keep things tight for an hour or so and then have a go in the game’s final quarter?
As for our “lumping” it, Dai might be surprised to learn that I tend to agree with him for a couple of reasons. First, as I mentioned in my piece, Wolves faced a side playing long ball type game, but the aerial assault only tended to come from corners, free kicks and long throw ins. This leads me on to my second point, the intention might have been to “lump it”, but our lack of basic ball skills and composure meant that the football was hardly ever under control long enough to play a long ball, short pass or any other way of trying to get from point A to point B in a constructive manner – that’s why, although I take Mike’s point about Wolves not deserving to win to some extent, I still believe the result was right.
Finally, good to hear from you Derrick- I agree that your team were better than us and thus deserved the win and thanks for what you say about us earning the right to promotion – certainly, it appears that whoever misses out on automatic promotion out of you (sure you’ll be fine now mind), us and Fulham are going to do so with a points total which would normally be more than enough for a top two finish.
Paul,
Thanks for being generous enough to agree with me in some measure on the best tactics to have employed re Wolves.
But that isn’t the only reason for my penning this comment tonight.
Here is why I am writing…
Living as I do in Lincolnshire, I cannot resist writing this today. And yes, I know I am blowing my own trumpet, but normally I have no trumpet to blow. However today is different. It has been a special day in the city of Lincoln.
Preamble over.
I reckon I am almost as good a judge of potential in football managers – and knowing an uninspired manager in ex PE teacher Russell Slade when I saw one – as I am in distinguishing between a winning song and a dud song, in my role as a judge in the BBC Song For Lincolnshire contests down most of the past seventeen years.
Here I am – see link below – two years ago, urging my beloved Cardiff City to hire an unknown pair of PE teachers who were then managing non-League Braintree Town in the Conference.
After failing to hire Danny, Cardiff hired Neil Warnock. Neil has done great things, not just on the field, but also off it. But he is my vintage, and cannot go on much longer.
And so, missing out on the Cowleys, meant Cardiff’s loss was to be Lincoln City’s gain. They swooped for the Cowley brothers…just after Lincoln had survived a season when they were themselves quite close to going back down to the Conference.
And great strides now been made.
Danny Cowley and his brother have just seen Lincoln victorious in today’s cup final at Wembley Stadium…they have taken the club and 30,000 supporters on the first ever visit of the club to Wembley in their long proud history of 134 years…(yes you read that right…!!)
And they have done more than that…they have not just revitalised the club and have increased the sale of season tickets 400% from last year to this…and counting. But, in addition, they have somehow inspired not only ALL the inhabitants of the city itself, but also the club’s fanbase in their fairly extensive footballing diaspora in central and southern Lincolnshire.
Danny and his brother could well become the new Clough/Taylor of British football. Mind you, they are still some way from filling those big shoes. But that said, they are already emulating the Lincoln City success story of another household name, the late Graham Taylor.
Just over forty five years ago, Graham took over at Lincoln and massively energised the club. Five years later, Elton John, who had just bought ownership of his beloved Watford FC, met Don Revie at a celebrity dinner, and asked him who he thought was the best young manager in the country, as he wanted to sign him up.
Revie unhesitatingly said he should hire Graham Taylor.
And the rest is history.
I say this to The Bluebirds. If Neil Warnock decides that at 69, he does not fancy another campaign, then they should move heaven and earth to get these two to go to South Wales. But it will cost Cardiff City an arm and a leg now. It would have been mere pennies when I tipped them two years ago. The Cowleys can now add the noughts to their salaries, and Lincoln City FC too will want hefty compensation.
Check out the following contributions from me (under my Dai Woosnam alias ??) on this blog page of two years ago. (The readers’ comments are beneath the main match report.) My Nostradamus type Cowley comments are the 14th, 18th, and 19th.
Take a glance at the noble 17th comment by our Blogmeister. Check out his last sentence where with his hallmark honesty, he admits he has never heard of Danny C. But then I guess very few people in Wales back then, would have.
http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/the-end-of-the-promotion-challenge-that-hardly-ever-felt-like-one/