Even though this was a very drab affair for three quarters of the game, it still ended up as a night where the positives outweighed the negatives for Cardiff City. For a team with an unfortunate habit of making embarrassing exits from the League Cup in it’s early rounds, a 2-0 win over a middling League One side in a First Round tie definitely represented a case of job done.
This becomes even more the case when it’s considered that their opponents, Bristol Rovers fielded six of the team that beat Northampton on Saturday to get their league season off to a winning start. You might think I’m going a bit over the top there, but Rovers’ half a side of first teamers may well have started as favourites when you consider that City made eleven changes to the team that started against Sunderland on Saturday, but, by the end, there could be no doubting City’s supremacy- indeed, they could have won by more.
City lined up with Jak Alnwick as captain in goal, Mark McGuinness was fit to return to partnerJoel Bagan at centreback and Ronan Kpakio and Luey Giles made their first starts for the senior side at seventeen and eighteen years old respectively. In midfield, there was a very late change as David Turnbull injured himself in the pregame warm up and Eli King was called up to replace him. Andy Rinomhota and new signing Alex Robertson were the other central midfielders with the latter taking the number ten role, Raheem Conte was on the right wing and Rubin Colwill started on the left, with Wilfried Kanga starting at centre forward.
The plan this season is for City to become a much more possession based team and, just as on Saturday, they managed that part of the plan with over sixty per cent of the ball.
However, just as on Saturday, City did next to nothing with all of that possession and the first half meaningful action can be described in a couple of sentences.
Rovers had the best chance of the half when City sloppily lost possession, but Kpakio was able to get in a challenge that put Promise Omochere off to the extent that he fired over from what was a clear sight of goal from the edge of the penalty area. As far as City were concerned, Robertson had two decent looking efforts blocked with the second one falling to Colwill whose well struck effort flew straight at goalkeeper Josh Griffiths who held on to the ball at the second attempt.
For too much of the time though, there was the familiar complaint that City passed the ball too slowly and, in contrast to their pre season where there seemed to be a new desire to get plenty of men into the box when attacking, it was noticeable that when there was a promising looking break down the right in the opening seconds after the interval, Conte only had Kanga to aim for in the area when he was crossing.
With Rovers looking determined but carrying little attacking punch, the match seemed to be meandering to a goalless draw and a penalty shoot out, but it turned on the hour mark as both sides made three substitutions. Not surprisingly given their lack of game time so far, Robertson and Kanga went off – the first named had shown up pretty well, but, surely, he hasn’t been brought here to play as a number ten and the way he got back to defend pretty effectively only made the point that he should play further back more obvious. Kanga didn’t do much to suggest he’s the answer to our striking problems, but did need treatment on a painful looking injury early on and shouldn’t be written off already in the manner he has been by some. Conte was the third player to go off after what was a pretty frustrating night for him – so far, he looks a better full back than winger in his first team outings.
On in their place came Ollie Tanner, Kieron Evans and Michael Reindorf the striker signed from Norwich in the summer. Reindorf has scored six times for the under 21s I believe to earn his senior team chance and he made a big impression from the start as he went by a couple of opponents out on the right to cause the Rovers defence some anxiety. Drawing confidence from this, Reindorf put himself about while also showing some neat target man talents – on this evidence, he has to come into first team consideration over the coming months.
City finally had their first goal of the season on sixty eight minutes, but they were kept waiting a few seconds longer as McGuinness’ header from Tanner’s corner to the far post was hooked clear by a defender only for the ref to be told by the goal line technology that the ball had crossed the line.
Once ahead, City played well and, just as in the recent friendly match between the teams, it needed some good saves from Griffiths to keep the score down. The keeper foiled Rinomhota, Colwill and Tanner with diving saves as City began to exploit the extra room they had as Rovers chased an equaliser.
Whether it was that extra room or his move infield to a number ten role which caused it, Colwill became the game’s outstanding player in the closing twenty minutes. He’s always had a good understanding with Tanner and with Evans, who he’s played a lot of youth football with, providing a reminder that he is a talented footballer, there was a feeling that the attacking players were on the same wavelength when it had looked anything but that for an hour.
With Kpakio getting stronger as the game went on, Giles doing well despite being caught out once just before half time and Bagan confirming the good impression he made at centreback in pre season (Malachi Fagan-Walcott was another quietly impressive debutante as he replaced McGuinness for the last quarter of an hour), Alnwick was well protected until added time when he was forced to make a good save to deny Kofi Shaw, but City had made the game safe by then when King set Evans free down the left and his low cross was easily put away by Colwill from eight yards out.
King was a little awry with his passing in the first half, but that might have had something to do with his being thrown in at the deep end so to speak with his late introduction, while Rinomhota may not have a future at Cardiff, but I’m struck by how he always gives 100 per cent when called upon.
The encouraging thing for me was that all of the younger players involved made a decent case for first team consideration and, in some cases, it was a fair bit more than decent. The trouble is, Erol Bulut only started considering the likes of Conte, Giles, Cian Ashford and Joel Colwill for selection in league matches when there was nothing left to play for – at least some of these youngsters are good enough to do more than that, in fact, I’d say the seniors need an injection of the sort of vibrancy we saw in the closing stages tonight.
