One for those who think football’s not football when there’s no crowd.

During those long months when there wasn’t any football being played
anywhere, there were discussions as to what sort of game we would see when the authorities deemed it safe to start competitive sports again.

For me, it was always pretty obvious that all sports would take place for
some time without the public being allowed to enter the stadia which host the events. Although I’m struggling to think of any at the moment, I daresay there are some sports that could get by quite nicely without an audience, but football isn’t really one of them.

Certainly, in the messageboard discussions I saw, there were quite a few
contributors who said they’d have no interest in watching a football game
without spectators in the ground -whether such people have stuck to their guns in the last fortnight or so, I’m not sure, but I was never going to be one of those who was going to give City a miss when fixtures resumed.

That said, I could understand to a degree where the critics of football
summer 2020 style were coming from. There would always be a question as to whether intensity levels would drop without spectators in the ground willing, cajoling, abusing, insulting and generally contributing to the occasion. All of those different things can have positive and negative effects on those out on the pitch (even officials) and they do definitely add to the drama of the occasion and can have an influence on the outcome.

The thrill an hour goalless draw I’ve just watched between Cardiff City and
Charlton Athletic was exactly the sort of thing those who did not want to know about the new football must have had in mind when they came to that conclusion – I can’t even say it was much ado about nothing, there wasn’t any near as much adoing as that!

Would a crowd have made a difference to how the match panned out? I think it probably would have, but sometimes there are games that are beyond saving by twenty thousand or so spectators.

The selections by both sides gave an impression that this was a game which
was considered low priority when set against some that both sides will play in the coming weeks. City had taken points off two of the sides at their end of the table and Charlton had won a huge three points at Hull and then edged a win against a QPR side that looks to have accepted their mid table fate – they were the games that they’d have deemed winnable before a ball was kicked.

On Saturday City travel to face Bristol City knowing that a win would
probably mean the end of the wurzels’ top six hopes, while Charlton have a home derby with Millwall and the fact that match is being played on Friday evening offers a further clue as to why they chose to make seven changes to their team.

City made three with Will Vaulks, Junior Hoilett and Callum Paterson making way for Marlon Pack, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Robert Glatzel – you would assume that wins over two top six sides would normally guarantee the same starting providing everyone was fit, but these are not normal circumstances.

Players have had longer than the normal close season break away from the
game and there has not been anything like the amount of pre season work that you’d usually see, so it seems perfectly understandable to me that managers are going to make as much use of their squads as possible as the fixtures are now going to come thick and fast following the week’s break between the first and second ones.

One of the reasons I’ve been impressed by City in their first two matches
back was that they have had an intensity which you haven’t seen from quite a few sides post lockdown.

For example, the Premier League matches I’ve seen so far have nearly always followed the same pattern with cagey, boring first halves, which are nearly always goalless, followed by second periods which are not much better, but there’s usually a goal or two in them as players tire – thinking realistically about it, it’s impossible for teams and players to show normal intensity levels in each match they play in what remains of this season.

As the match meandered along tonight, the thought that both sides would
gladly have taken a 0-0 draw before kick off kept on flicking into my mind.
That might sound a bit odd from City’s point of view, but if you look at the
nine matches we had left as three blocks of three games, seven points from the first of them would be regarded as a marvellous return – we’re on sixty one points now and the way teams are going to be taking points off each other as they hunt down that final Play Off spot has me thinking that three more wins may be sufficient for us.

I honestly can’t write a great deal about the match. The only notable
incident of the first half came when Robert Glatzel and Charlton’s Sam Field
had a clash of heads with the lengthy treatment they both received ensuring the half lasted fifty two minutes -Field went off straight away, while Glatzel carried on for a few minutes wearing a blue bandage covering the nasty cut he received before giving up and making way for Paterson.

Charlton were slightly the more impressive side for me in that forty five
minutes because they looked a bit stronger and more organised than us, but, in a slightly better second period, we shaded things -although an 8-3 lead in goal attempts flattered us and gave the impression the match was more of a spectacle than it was.A more accurate reflection of the fare on offer can be gained from the fact that only one of those eleven goal attempts was on target – that incident and the only other worthwhile chance we created both had the man who had taken up much of the pre match chat at the heart of them.

Albert Adomah’s loan contract with us lasted until 30 June as is the norm
with such deals to the end of a season, but in this situation that creates an
obvious problem. Wolves it seems had no issue about extending Dion Sanderson’s deal to cover the rest of the season, but Nottingham Forest have decided to end Adomah’s stay here and it’s hard to see any other reason for this decision than they did not want a play off rival possibly pipping them for a top six place because of anything one of their own players had done.

I can understand that to an extent and Neil Harris’ anger at what has
happened is directed more at the Football League it would appear because they have just left things in limbo really by leaving it to the clubs concerned to sort things out.

It was a surprise to me that Adomah played the whole game in such
circumstances, but he could have been the hero at the end when a lovely pass slid into space by Joe Ralls set him up for a shot which Charlton keeper Dillon Phillips got down sharply to and turned away into an area which was just out of reach of the following up Paterson.

Adomah then crossed well from the right to substitute Hoilett who was in
plenty of space on the far post, but, obviously thinking he had less time than
he actually did, the Canadian hurriedly blazed his shot high and wide.

Apart from that, Andre Green was a little lucky not to concede a penalty
when referee Steve Martin decided his foul on Sanderson I think it was took
place outside the area (Ralls wasted the dead ball by electing to shoot from an unlikely angle) and Curtis Nelson nodded a Hoilett free kick wide just before the final whistle – there really wasn’t anything else from City that vaguely suggested a goal.

What was apparent though was that City are definitely looking to use a more patient, passing style with Alex Smithies often playing the ball short to build up from the back and some of the patterns they weaved in front of the Charlton defence were of a type I was certainly not expecting to see from a City team this season.

Okay, so this approach didn’t work this time, but it did at Preston and,
although the last couple of matches have taken place in conditions which could be described as typical football weather, it makes more sense to try and retain the ball more (we had 60 per cent possession tonight) when games are being played in the middle of summer.

I’ll finish by mentioning that Nelson was responsible for snuffing out
Charlton’s best opportunity with a great block to deny Jake Forster-Caskey in the second half and then he got an important touch to clear a dangerously inswinging corner from the restart – in a game with so little to commend it, that was enough for him to be my City man of the match.