Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

An injury hit Cardiff City side snatched a draw at the death against visitors Bristol City this lunchtime, the outcome was only half decent in the position they’re in, but drawn games always seem more satisfying when you’re the team that equalises late on.

The wurzels, who would have gone into the top six with a win, led for around half an hour and seemed to be on their way to three points for a victory similar to the one we managed at Ashton Gate last season when a single goal from a set piece decided a tight, even, derby.

There was a surprise before kick off when the City side was announced. Sadly, Joe Ralls missing a game after playing twice in four days no longer comes as a shock, but Calum Chambers’ unavailability did and it meant that City weren’t far short of being down to the bare bones in midfield as Andy Rinomhota became one of two sitting midfielders alongside Sivert Mannsverk, while Ruben Colwell was used further forward. The recall of Perry Ng was predictable in the circumstances, less so was the inclusion of Joel Bagan at centreback alongside Dimi Goutas – Callum O’Dowda was left back.

The talking point up front was the inclusion of Will Alvez on the left for his first start and Anwar El-Ghazi was on the right behind Callum Robinson as Cian Ashford dropped to the bench.

The first thing to say about the game is that it was an improvement on Portsmouth, but I’d be lying if I said I believed that upturn in form meant we should have gained all three points – the BBC’s post match stats had us winning the goal attempts contest 13-11 and the on target attempts one 6-4, so we shaded those competitions and I’d say we did the same in the main event, but not to the extent that we should have won.

Those figures are suggestive of a contest that provided a decent level of entertainment and it’s fair to say that it did in the end, but almost all of the worthwhile action came after the break – the first period was the usual turgid fare for the opening forty fiver minutes of a Cardiff home match these days with the talking points limited to a number that you could count on the fingers of one hand.

There was a promising early raid down the left by City which ended with an O’Dowda shot that keeper Max O’Leary hung on to easily and a clever, quick free kick by Bagan presented El-Ghazi with the chance to work himself a shooting position twenty five yards out, the shot when it came was powerful and well struck, but straight at O’Leary.

For most of the half, the visitors were even more shot shy than City, but Mark Sykes brought Jak Alnwick into action with another shot that required a routine save and, with City getting more sloppy as the half wore on, there was a feeling that the wurzels were taking a degree of control.

Overall though it was cautious stuff as the two sides cancelled each other out despite using different formations as our usual 4-2-3-1 was faced by a 3-4-3.

Frankly, it seemed like a match between two teams more interested in not losing, rather than trying to win which was pretty disappointing as they both had big incentives for chasing the win.

It was still a bit of a shock to see Bristol manager Liam Manning making a couple of half time changes as Sam Bell and Yu Hirakawa were introduced for Scott Twine and Mark Sykes. The substitutions saw Bristol match us with a 4-2-3-1 and you may have thought it would add to the sense of stalemate, but, instead, it opened the game up.

The early stages suggested that the tactical changes would work to the visitor’s disadvantage as City tried to emulate the Swansea derby win with a strong ten minutes after half time. O’Leary had to make a save, albeit another easy one, from Robinson shortly after the restart and there were encouraging signs down the left as O’Dowda and Alvez combined well to engineer a couple of crosses to El Ghazi which could, and maybe should, have provided goals – the first one, from Mannsverk, was nodded over from close range by the Dutch international, but he did better with the second one as his header dropped towards Robinson only for our top scorer to volley wide from ten yards.

Although the play was now generally towards the Canton End City were attacking, it was Alnwick who had to make the best save of the game as Hirikawa cut in and tried to beat him on the near post only for the keeper to get down quickly to turn it aside.

Colwill’s piledriver from twenty five yards had O’Leary diving late as it curved in a long way, but not quite enough as it fizzed a yard or so wide. However, soon afterwards, the visitors took the lead in this fixture for the first time since early in the 23/24 season when Hirikawa’s wicked free kick was headed in on the far post by Bristol captain Jason Knight.

I’m getting tired of saying it was a poor goal to concede when we let one in, but it was another set piece and it’s not a good look to have virtually all of your team standing there with their arms in the air appealing for offside as the ball hits the net. In mitigation, it was great delivery and it was very close to being offside – having seen replays of the goal, there were definitely some Bristol players stood in an offside position when the ball was played, but it seems to me that Knight wasn’t one of them.

Having said earlier that we were down to the bare bones in the middle of the park, it wasn’t quite that bad because the fit again Aaron Ramsey was ready to come on in place of Rinomhota when Bristol scored. 

The introduction of the veteran made little difference initially as Bristol became more cautious and were tending to snuff out City attacks very early. Omer Riza introduced Chris Willock and Yousef Salech for Robinson and El-Ghazi to little avail as we became nervy and too frantic as the thought of a third straight league loss loomed larger.

The closest we came to an equaliser as time ticked down to the ninety minute mark was when a Ramsey corner flicked off wurzels sub Nahki Wells at some pace, but it went straight into the grateful hands of O’Leary.

It seemed a bit later than it should have been to introduce Ashford for Mannsverk with just under ten minutes left, but it paid dividends when a lovely ball inside the right back by Ramsey set Ashford running towards the bye line and his low cross picked out Salech who was left with the simple task of scoring from about four yards out – it’s nice to have someone who gets into those positions though because we certainly don’t have enough of them.

Both sides had a chance to win the game after that as Ramsey played an even better pass to leave Willock in exactly the same sort of position as Ashford had been, but this time nothing came of it and Bagan was to get in a great block off a goal bound Wells shot with seconds remaining.

Mention of Bagan takes me on to a theme I’d like to develop to finish on the game – with one exception, all of the better outfield performances from City came from younger players.

I’ll begin with the exception though. Aaron Ramsey had played a few nice passes before he picked one out through the massed ranks of the wurzel’s defence – we struggled to open up their defence when it was far less populated than in the ninetieth minute, yet he found one pass that did the job and then another one that maybe should have resulted in a winner. While he can do things like that, you have to think that Ramsey has a big part to play in deciding whether we remain  in this division or not – just a couple of quibbles about him though, for such a technically gifted player he’s a pretty poor corner taker and that very late chance for Bristol came from him losing possession cheaply in his own half.

As for the youngsters, talk of who should be our player of the year tends to develop into an argument between O’Dowda and Rinomhota, but I’d like to put a word in for Bagan – currently I’d say he’s our best and most reliable defender, he is composed where others are far from that and his use of the ball is very good.

A word for Mannsverk too who was very good in the first half and his ability to run with the ball gives us something different. I like what I’m seeing of Will Alvez, he doesn’t give the ball away, there’s usually an end product from him and he has a maturity beyond his years to go with the required team ethic.

Rubin Colwill had a strange game, the wurzels found it very hard to dispossess him and I remember Max Bird bouncing off him such was the power of his running at one stage, but, for all of the many good things he did, there wasn’t a great deal of an end product – still, I would have thought that a few visiting players were pretty tired by the end given the amount of chasing they had to do after him.

I’m almost pleased to say that Salech doesn’t contribute a great deal n build up play because we’ve really needed someone who can get on the end of things and, to that end, it’s very encouraging that he already on three goals despite only having started one game.

Finally, we come to Ashford who, for all that he could be blamed for Portsmouth’s first goal in midweek, also created our goal when his quick feet provided the space for the cross that O’Dowda scored from. Ashford has shown in far less opportunities than other wide players that he has a cool head when put in potential scoring or goal creating positions. He did it again today and really shouldn’t be relegated to the almost afterthought of the final sub used with less than ten minutes to play.

I don’t mean to be critical of more senior players, but the contrast between what happened after those two passes by Ramsey is clear – Ashford affected the game more than El-Ghazi and  Willock did in far more time on the pitch than him and he and Alvez seem to be the best wing options we have at the moment.

You think back and the large majority of match turning moments this season have come from either Callum Robinson’s goals or something younger players have done – besides those I’ve mentioned today, Alex Robertson and Ollie Tanner have done their bit as well.

While I accept the obvious risk of becoming over reliant on youngsters in a struggling team, have the more experienced players got it in them as a collective to come up with enough of those match changing moments in our remaining matches?

Talking of youngsters, a blow today to our under 18s who will probably lose second spot in their league after their 4-2 defeat at Brentford this lunchtime, Robert Tankiewicz and Alyas Dabono were our goalscorers.