A Jekyll and Hyde like second half showing against Lincoln at Sincil Bank today meant that Cardiff City’s five game winning run in the league came to an end, not only that, it consigned us to a 2-1 defeat which enabled the home side to climb into second place in the table, three points behind us, but we do have a game in hand on them.
After sixty five minutes, it looked like there could only be one winner and it wasn’t Lincoln, but then a break in play as the home side brought on a couple of subs and switched to a back three completely changed the nature of the game. It was as if somebody had flipped a switch and we just stopped playing. Our passing, which had been slick and precise for twenty minutes became clumsy and careless and, despite three substitutions in an attempt to liven up what become a spluttering team, we had nothing at all up front to worry a Lincoln team which held on to the lead they regained within a few minutes of us going into the Mister Hyde stage of our second half display.
I suppose that given that I thought Lincoln had just about deserved their 1-0 half team (albeit courtesy of a fortunate goal) and both sides had a twenty odd minute good spell in the second, you could say Lincoln deserved their win – for me it was one of those matches where a draw would have been fair, albeit, I’d say Lincoln were slightly ahead on points.
However, our fade out from the sixty five minute mark onwards is a bit of a mystery as we tend to finish stronger than most teams we play and, apparently, Lincoln’s record in the last fifteen minutes of matches is one of the worst ones in League One.
I can only come up with one possible reason for our speedy decline from a high where BBM was of the opinion that it was the best we’d played for a while to the pretty abject low where we could barely string two passes together. It seems to me that when a side which has played a midweek game plays on the following weekend against one that hasn’t, the sort of reaction we saw from City late on today becomes a possibility- especially if that midweek game was a Quarter Final Cup tie against the World club champions!
City gave their all against Chelsea and that game came after a period where we’d played three times in a week in League One. So, all things considered, I don’t think it’ s too much of a shock that we suffered late on, but it was that the transformation happened so quickly which was surprising.
It also needs to be said that credit has to be given to Lincoln. In some ways, watching them today was quite similar to watching Stevenage ten days or so ago except that they had a bit more quality than the side we beat 1-0 and they had a bit more energy about them compared to Alex Revell’s team.
Lincoln have the lowest average possession percentage in league One and they only had a third share of the ball today. However, on virtually every attacking stat (e.g. touches in the opposition penalty area, goal attempts, attempts on target and corners) they beat us.
There were a couple of surprises in our squad when it was announced this afternoon. First, BBM explained after the match that Nathan Trott was still suffering from the effects of a hand injury he suffered against Chelsea and had not been able to complete the last training session before today’s match. Therefore, Matt Turner came in for only his second league appearance which meant that, once again, we had no keeper on the bench. The second shock was the return of Ollie Tanner as one of the substitutes, although he was not one of the four we used during the second half.
City lined up with Turner behind a back four of Perry Ng, Will Fish, Dylan Lawlor and Joel Bagan with Alex Robertson and Ryan Wintle in central midfield, Cian Ashford and Chris Willock out wide and Omari Kellyman operating behind striker Yousef Salech.
I must admit to having a differing opinion to BBM about the first half. He said after the game that we’d completely controlled the first forty five minutes, whereas I mentioned above that I thought Lincoln just edged it. BBM knows more about the game than me clearly and we had that two thirds domination of the ball in both halves of the game. However, I based my opinion on the fact that apart from one spell of twenty seconds or so, we did not come anywhere near scoring in the forty five minutes.
Lincoln were hardly peppering our goal to be fair, but Turner had fairly routine saves to make early on and two more good ones in quick succession shortly after we’d fallen a goal behind.
The goal came on forty minutes as Lincoln tried to work a one two on the edge of our penalty area only for a stumbling Robertson to poke the ball beyond the helpless Turner as he was in the process of falling in his attempt to cover.
It was particularly unfortunate for the midfielder who I would put with Ng and Kellyman as candidates for our best player on the day especially because he’d come within inches of scoring a few minutes earlier.
However, Robertson shouldn’t have needed to be having his shot after what at first looked like the miss of the century! Salech was the culprit (or was he?), but he started things off by getting his head to a cross and the ball flew to Ashford, who headed on to Kellyman whose close range shot was half blocked and rolled slowly towards the unguarded goal. It looked like Salech had the formality of putting the ball in from a yard out and I was already celebrating a goal when the next thing I saw was the ball rebounding off the crossbar. At first, it looked like Salech had blasted the ball at goal instead of just tapping it in, but replays showed that a Lincoln player (who deserved the man of the match award for a superb piece of covering) had reached it first and kicked the ball on to Salech’s thigh from where it hit the woodwork. A few seconds later, the ball was worked to Robertson who tried to place a shot into the top corner from the edge of the penalty error – it beat keeper Wickens, but missed the target by millimeters, not the inches I mentioned earlier.
Given our lack of an attacking threat so far, I expected a tight second half as we probed patiently to try to eventually create that one chance which might get us a point. I was wrong about that and I also certainly didn’t see the substation we made at half time coming as Ronan Kpakio came on to replace Joel Bagan at left back (BBM said after the game that the substation wasn’t down to an injury, so I can only assume that might have been down to tiredness 4as well).
It was on the other flank though that attention was focused a couple of minutes into the half though as Ng played delightful one two’s with Kellyman and then Salech before calmly lifting the ball over Wickens and into the net.
It was a superb goal which, as BBM said, was symbolic of how we are trying to play. Previous City teams from the Championship we’ve had couldn’t have scored such a goal and neither could Lincoln, but they stayed in the game as we turned it on for twenty minutes before imposing themselves again using aspects of the game they’re good at.
For a while though, it was just a case of staying in the game for Lincoln as they were in danger of being run ragged by a City team who were moving the ball with what was at times bewildering speed and accuracy.
Robertson tested Wickens from twenty yards and Ashford fired the rebound across goal as City turned the screw and Wintle forced the keeper into an urgent save, but in the aftermath of this incident, there was the break in play which coincided with the complete change in momentum in the game.
Early signs of the shift in emphasis came with Lincoln forcing a few corners and from one of them, Tom Bayliss swung in a wicked delivery to the far post which veteran centreback Sonny Bradley headed in from very close range thereby continuing a worrying trend which has seen opposing players getting first contact on set pieces way too often in recent games. It looked like Ng was charged with marking Bradley, but the Lincoln man is six inches the taller which rather brings home that City are not the tallest of teams and apart from the two centrebacks and Salech it’s hard to see others in the side who could be called commanding in the air.
That was about it as far as City were concerned – Isaak Davies, Callum Robinson and David Turnbull were introduced to no avail and Lincoln were the only side who were going to score in the closing stages.
The manner of City’s defeat was disappointing, but, just as at Blackpool, there were facets of their play which I’m not sure any other team in this division could match, but, also just like Blackpool, the level of our performance varied wildly over the ninety minutes.
I’ll finish on City by having a whinge. If our wingers are to be allowed to take throw ins, can some work be done in training to ensure that they know how to take them legally? I can remember being amused how much trouble former City player James Waite had taking them when he played full back in a youth game I watched, but this season Chris Willock has been pulled up for a foul throw on at least two occasions, I’m pretty sure Ollie Tanner has erred as well and today it was the turn of Cian Ashford – finally, about fifty years too late, I’ve come across a part of the game that I can do better than the professionals!
In local football, there was a second successive 1-1 draw for bottom of the table Treherbert Boys and Girls Club in the Ardals League South West, this one against AFC Llwydcoed at home.
