It took a quarter of a century, but Cardiff City finally got to a hat trick of Boxing Day victories in the new Millennium this afternoon with a tight, but deserved, 1-0 win over Exeter City in front of a crowd of over 22,000 at Cardiff City Stadium.
Reaction to the game has been pretty negative on the message board I’ve visited which seems somewhat harsh to me. I mentioned above that it was a tight match with a lot less of the thrills and spills that have been the norm for home matches this season, but a look at Exeter’s record, particularly away from home, should have told people what sort of match it was going to be.
Exeter tend to lose their away games (it’s nine out of eleven in the league with six straight losses now I believe), but they’ve conceded just thirteen on their travels and their figure of twenty let in overall was one less than we’d conceded.
Our visitors today did what it says on the tin, they were resilient, disciplined and well organised defensively, but offered little going forward and so their habit of strongly contested away games which they lose by the barest of margins continues.
We’d conceded eight goals in our last three home matches amid talk of dodgy defending, but, admittedly against opponents that didn’t offer as much of a threat as Huddersfield, Doncaster and Chelsea, there wasn’t much you could criticise Perry Ng, Calum Chambers, Dylan Lawlor and Joel Bagan for as they helped make it a quiet afternoon for Matt Turner who claimed his first league clean sheet.
Ryan Wintle and Alex Robertson were paired together again in central midfield with man of the match contender Amari Kellyman continuing to prove himself a more than capable deputy for Rubin Colwill in the number ten position and it was Cian Ashford and Isaak Davies out wide providing support for Yousef Salech.
City made what was to be a misleadingly positive start to the game as Exeter’s impressive young goalkeeper Joe Whitworth tipped a Robertson free kick from about thirty yards around the post. Whitworth then blocked a Chambers header from a corner without knowing too much about it as City searched for, but failed to get, the early goal that may have made it a very different type of afternoon to how it worked out.
Having weathered that early pressure, Exeter settled into the game and were probably enjoying their best period of the match when City next threatened as Davies beat his marker to get away a shot which forced another good save from Whitworth.
Apparently, the half time stats showed Exeter winning something like twelve tackles to our two. This was a big element in helping them force City back as the half wore on. Jack Aithchison forced Turner into his one serious save of the afternoon, but our most anxious moments came from a goalmouth scramble that began with us being caught out for at least the fourth time this season by a corner rolled to the edge of the penalty area for someone to run on to and shoot. Fortunately, this time the Exeter player involved decided to take a touch before attempting his shot, but even so, there was still a fair amount of play pinballing about in our penalty area before the danger was averted.
City came out looking more business like after the break and had wrested the initiative off their opponents when they struck with the decisive goal in the fifty third minute.
In many ways, it looked quite a simple goal, but there were so many times when it all could have gone wrong if the two individuals involved had not responded in such a skilful manner.
Dylan Lawlor was the architect of the goal with a run out of defence with the ball and he then had the vision to spot Alex Robertson’s run from deep and deliver the perfect pass for the midfielder to run onto. There was still much for Robertson to do, but his first touch was exemplary and he then had the calmness to switch the ball onto his left foot and place it beyond the advancing Whitworth into the net from about fifteen yards. On first viewing, there seemed some doubt as to whether Robertson was offside, but, having now seen a replay of the goal, it’s clear he is onside – Robertson timed his run to perfection.
Taking the lead gave City a degree of control, but Exeter’s continuing defensive efficiency meant that this was not reflected by many signs of them doubling their advantage.
Salech headed over from the one real chance he had to show his aerial prowess and he must still be wondering how he didn’t score after Ashford and Robertson combined delightfully to see the former dummy a defender before rolling his shot against an upright. No matter though, it seemed all Salech had to do was make contact with the ball to make it 2-0 and he did this as he instinctively stabbed it towards the goal only for Whitworth to make his best save of the afternoon by diverting the ball over.
City brought on Chris Willock, Joel Colwill, David Turnbull, Ronan Kpakio and Will Fish as they kept Exeter at arm’s length for most of the second half.
Indeed, it wasn’t until added time that there were any serious alarms for the home team as sub Reece Cole’s snapshot flew narrowly over and a mistimed punch by Turner some fifteen seconds before the final whistle caused some Cardiff consternation before the ref brought proceedings to a close.
It was a rare afternoon where all of the teams at the top won and it was looking quite concerning at half time for City as Lincoln, Bradford and Bolton were all ahead. It had all changed by the time the games reached the ninety minute mark as there had been equalisers in all three matches involving our closest challengers. We were on the brink of moving five points clear at the top , but all three teams were able to score in added time (Bradford against a nine man Wigan) to record wins which left the position at the top of the table very much as you were.
