535 minutes without a home goal in 04/05.

Posted on April 1, 2011 by The other Bob Wilson

I daresay that our first season back in the second tier of the domestic games in eighteen years came as a pleasant surprise for most City supporters. For young fans, their first experience of what, for all of it’s name changes in recent years, is still really the Second Division was probably nowhere near as painful as they suspected it might be, while the older generation, worn down by season after season of struggle at that level in the seventies and eighties, were overjoyed at how easily City were not just surviving but prospering in what is Europe’s fourth best supported league.

The 2003/04 season, or the first half of it at least, offered the first chance for City fans to talk about the prospect of playing top flight football the following year without being thought of as barking mad for thirty three years. Okay, the campaign might have fizzled out a bit towards the end, but a squad containing fine players at this level such as Kavanagh, Gabbidon, Earnshaw, Vidmar and Thorne as well as youngsters with the promise of a James Collins had a lot going for it – indeed in the, televised, final game of that season it was said during commentary that Gabbidon and Collins were the rocks on which a strong Cardiff Play Off challenge could be built in 2004/05.

However, during the summer of 2004, a couple of things became obvious – first, manager Lennie Lawrence did not rate Collins as highly as most others did (more on that later) and, second, there were  a few tell tale signs that things were not as hunky dory financially as Sam Hammam, with all of his talk of Premiership sides being our “feeder clubs” and of not selling our “crown jewels”, was letting on. As a result, City fans saw the first of what was to become a succession of high profile departures when Earnie was sold to West Brom three weeks into the season – predictably, our owner was promising all sorts of expensive new recruits to come in on the back of the Earnshaw money, but the truth was that while he was saying this, the final steps were being put in place for the signing of the Langston loan note debt which has been like an albatross around the club’s neck for nearly seven years.

Cardiff City's 04-05 squad - I make it that fourteen of the players in this picture were no longer at the club when the 05 - 06 campaign got under way.

Whereas money had seemed to be no object during previous Sam Hammam summers, the close season of 2004 saw only two new arrivals and, while Tony Warner and Robert Page, were, almost certainly, on good wages, they both cost the club nothing in transfer fees. Warner was brought in from Millwall to become first choice keeper, while Welsh International centre back Page arrived from Sheffield United, but both were under intense pressure from supporters to succeed right from the off and they failed to do so.

Warner’s arrival demoted fan’s favourite Neil Alexander to third choice keeper at the club, but it was more the throwing of a plastic bottle at Cardiff fans during a notorious match with Millwall on the opening day of the 1999/2000 campaign that turned his new side’s fans against him and, with him making errors during a very poor pre-season programme for City, he found himself being booed by a section of his new club’s supporters before he had kicked a ball in competitive action! As for Page, he was not too popular, despite him being a self confessed life long City fan, because he was replacing Collins who, in the eyes of most supporters and quite a few seasoned media observers, had done a fine job when, finally, given his opportunity by manager Lennie Lawrence in the closing stages of the 03/04 campaign.

No matter how you try to dress it up, Warner and Page were very poor signings that asked serious questions of Lennie Lawrence’s management. Despite leading the club to promotion and then consolidating at the new level, Brighton born Lawrence had never really won over the City crowd since taking over from Alan Cork in early 2002 and his cause was not helped one bit as he was forced to leave out Warner for the first game of the season. With Page also showing that, at this stage of his career, he just wasn’t as good as James Collins, the pressure was on Lawrence right from the start and with Earnie leaving and his team making an awful start, the calls for a change of manager grew by the game until things came to a head after Derby became the latest team to come to Ninian Park and leave with the points on 18 September.

Robert Page, a proven performer at Championship up to then, but not a patch on James Coillins in 2004/05.

Remarkably given how things were looking in mid September, a 2-2 draw at Crewe and a come from behind 2-1 win at home to Coventry in their first two matches meant that City had the chance of going to the top of the table if they could beat Plymouth in a Friday night televised game at Ninian Park, but the weaknesses that were apparent during pre season had not gone away and a 1-0 defeat marked the start of of a run of seven matches without a win during which home form fell away badly. At least City were able to find the net in away defeats at Ipswich and Wigan and they did get a 0-0 at Forest, but it was misery all of the way at Ninian Park with the Plymouth defeat being followed by 1-0 and 3-0 losses to Stoke and Watford with the latter being just about the most decisive home mauling we have had in our eight seasons at this level since 2003.

Looking back, what becomes clear is that it was a time of great change at the club with Earnie’s departure being only one of several that left the team looking nothing like the one that had assembled for pre season training only a few months earlier. The game with Watford was to see the last start in a City shirt for two Welsh internationals as John Robinson, so impressive in 03/04, but so ordinary in 04/05, left to move closer to his Sussex roots to tend his sick mother and injury and lack of form meant that, one substitute’s appearance in the return game with Watford apart, Page could not displace Collins once he was, belatedly, recalled and so he moved on to Coventry early in 2006.

With Andy Campbell continuing his post Play Off Final decline and Vidmar at the veteran stage, there were places up for grabs throughout the team. New signing from West Ham Jobi McAnuff filled one of the gaps as he arrived for about a tenth of what we got for Earnie, but, initially at least, it was to their own youngsters that the club looked in a bid to turn things around with striker Stuart Fleetwood making a first league start against Derby and the likes of Byron Anthony and Nicky Fish being given opportunities alongside Joe Ledley and Cameron Jerome who were promoted from the club’s recently formed Academy.

Anyway, the main talking point to emerge from the game with Derby actually occurred after it had been played as Sam Hammam gave a typically colourful defence of Lennie Lawrence  to the media at a time when many were saying that the manager’s days were numbered. Hammam talked at great length about his respect for his manager and, to be fair, backed him up to the extent that full back Darren Williams and midfield player Gary O’Neil were loaned from Sunderland and Portsmouth respectively in time for the next match at Dave Jones’ Wolves.

As for the game itself, well what had been a promising start by Fleetwood was ended when he went off with an injury in the first half and, although City tried hard and the performance was better than the one against Watford four days earlier, that’s not saying much really. Derby still won at a canter thanks to a superb long range strike by German international Marco Reich in the first half and a close in effort by veteran Ian Taylor after the break. As far as that second goal goes, when people criticise the superb Danny Gabbidon for all of the mistakes he made while with us because he was too casual, I always ask them to name some goals he cost us because of this. Without fail, they cannot come up with any, but, for me, Derby’s second that day was down in the main to his sloppy crossfield pass being intercepted – so that’s one anyway!

With the debate on the manager put on the back burner (Lawrence left as soon as the season ended) and inspired by the excellent O’Neil, City did improve after that – Wolves were beaten and only one of the next nine matches were lost, but, after Leeds, somehow, escaped with a 0-0 draw to make it five consecutive goalless home matches it was only well into the second half of a 2-0 win against rock bottom Rotherham on 16 October that Peter Thorne headed our first home goal since Lee Bullock’s match winner against Coventry on 10 August!

 

18 September 2004

Cardiff City 0 Derby County 2

City Margetson; Weston, Gabbidon, Vidmar, Barker; McAnuff, Bullock, Kavanagh, Parry (Campbell); Thorne, Fleetwood (Lee); Subs (not used) Alexander, Boland, Collins

Derby Camp; Kenna, Konjic, Johnson, Vincent; Reich (1) (Junior), Huddlestone, Idiakez, Taylor (1); Tudgay, Smith (Bolder); Subs (not used) Grant, Holmes, Peschisolido

HT 0-1

Att. 12,008

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Men against babies.

Posted on March 27, 2011 by The other Bob Wilson

“Pitiful” is the word that best sums up Wales’ first half performance against England yesterday. For me it was as bad as anything seen under John Toshack – in fact, given that we were playing a side that should get even the poorest of Welsh teams to at least show some fight, it was probably worse. I had been hopeful of a good showing beforehand. Even before Gareth Bale dropped out I never contemplated a win for Wales, but I did think a combination of the new manager effect, a full house and a game against England would draw a performance from the team which offered the hope of better days for the future. Instead of that though we got an abject capitulation as any confidence and spirit the side had (and there wasn’t much evidence of that in the little time when the score was 0-0) evaporated as soon as Frank Lampard’s penalty hit the net.

I’ve seen heavier defeats for Welsh sides against England, but I can’t remember anything as dismal and depressing as yesterday’s meek surrender. For me this is not a great England team – their efforts in the last two World Cup Final tournaments and the fact that they didn’t even reach the latter stages of Euro 2008 show that their team of the last five years or so is not as strong as many of those sides I have seen play Wales down the years and yet, in the first half in particular, Wales approached their task as if they were up against the 1970 Brazilian World Cup winning team in their pomp!

Although I don’t have a high opinion of the current English team, the painful truth is that they were much, much too good for us. They had the match won in the first quarter of an hour and then effectively “declared” after that as they saw out the game in a manner which suggested to me that if, miracle of miracles, Wales actually began to inconvenience them a little, they could have stepped things up and scored again if they needed to. Those who tried to take comfort from an improved second half display by Wales need to bear this in mind – for me, England were perfectly happy to keep us at arm’s length after the break content in the knowledge that we had nothing that could trouble them.

A quarter of an hour in and the game's over as Wales concede a goal which would have looked poor on a park's pitch on a Sunday morning.

No doubt yesterday’s result will mean a further slide down the FIFA World rankings and, having talked about the poorest of Welsh sides a little earlier, I daresay that there will be many who would say that this unwanted award should go to the current side, but, even without the likes of Bale and Collison, this side should be better than they are showing, so are they failing to play to the level they should because they are poorly managed? I’m not so sure of that myself – I supported John Toshack longer than most other Wales fans, it was obvious though that there were problems with his relationship with many of the players and with Gary Speed having now followed his uninspiring debut game in Ireland with this dreadful defeat, it is tempting to point the finger of blame at the man in charge when looking for reasons as to why the team has done so poorly since their win over Scotland in 2009. However, there has to come a time when the players have to take responsibility for their part in proceedings as defeat follows defeat.

Yes, Gary Speed got it wrong yesterday in selecting Andy King to play in an unfamiliar position that nullified his greatest asset (i.e. his ability to make late runs beyond the strikers) and it’s not with the benefit of hindsight that I say that David Vaughan should have been in the starting line up. I thought the non selection of a player who has been very impressive as a regular pick for a Premiership team was a strange decision even before a ball was kicked and watching Joe Ledley and Andrew Crofts labouring away without ever looking like establishing anything vaguely resembling an element of control in the middle of the park only confirmed this. It’s no coincidence that Wales were able to finally put the England defence under some of pressure after Vaughan was, belatedly, introduced.

However, if Speed did show his managerial inexperience a bit then I’m afraid that, like Toshack before him, he was very poorly served by the players who now should be providing the experienced guiding hand to help those in their early twenties through games. I am talking in particular here about the two Collins’ in our back four. Although I reckon he’s had a poor club season this time around, James is an established Premiership standard defender now, but he has looked nothing like that in recent Wales games where his habit of making at least one major error per game makes him an accident waiting to happen – to be fair, his fall in the lead up to the penalty he gave away was down to a pitch which should have the FAW looking to play all games away from the Millennium Stadium from now on, but these sort of things are happening too often at this level to a player who should be providing an example to his team mates.

Danny Collins - does he really play in the Premiership?

As for Danny, well he threw a strop when Toshack didn’t pick him for some friendly game and did not come back into the fold until after Tosh had gone. Collins’ reaction makes it obvious that he thinks he is better than the other candidates for the left back role in the Welsh team, but, nine games into his International career, I am still waiting to see any evidence that suggests he is right in believing this. Yesterday’s was a pretty typical Danny Collins Wales display in that he was probably the worst player in the side. To be caught out like he was in the build up to England’s second goal was very disappointing, but for him to lose his man in an identical manner shortly afterwards was criminal – people ask how many of the current City side could cut it in the Premiership if we went up, well, Collins is someone who has played the majority of his football in the top flight, so I would say that, based on his example, the answer to that question has to be all of them!

I’d exempt Craig Bellamy, who turned in a six out of ten performance which probably made him our best player and at least looked like he cared about what was happening, from any criticism of the senior players, but it also has to be said that the likes of Gunter and Ledley should be becoming more influential now given the number of caps they have. As for Aaron Ramsey, I think he showed last week and yesterday that, while he is fit enough to look a class act at Championship level, he is still not back to match sharpness at the next step up and he probably won’t be until he has the benefit of six weeks pre-season training behind him. The way in which he took on too much himself when things were going wrong was pretty predictable, but it also showed his bravery as a footballer because he was still looking to get on the ball and play despite things often not working out for him in the manner they usually do.

Finally, the most galling thing for me about yesterday was that the team’s craven performance justified all of the platitudes, delivered in a condescending manner, directed at Wales by English pundits before the game. Who can blame the English based media for looking down on us when their team comes to our capital and wins as comfortably as they would do when playing in San Marino or Andorra (I was going to say Liechtenstein, but I seem to remember them giving England a far tougher game when they went there than we did yesterday!)? Wales were not England’s “little brother” yesterday (little brothers can be an annoyance), they were the baby brother that teenage boys barely look at while saying “yeah he’s nice isn’t he” before moving on to more important matters.

Posted in General football stuff, Wales | Tagged , , | 5 Comments