City shadow team restores some pride as Premier League Leeds gain late FA Cup draw.

Posted on January 9, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

It’s typical of how things are at Cardiff City these days that a goal in added time prevented them from giving the whole club a huge lift with a “giant killing” win in the Third Round of the FA Cup this afternoon, but, truthfully, it would have been something of a case of daylight robbery if we’d hung on to beat Leeds.

Still, it’s pleasing that, in a cup weekend that has had some memorable televised live games, we were involved in what must have been a good watch for any neutrals and, despite a team selection which suggested otherwise, this was also a tie at which the usual criticisms about Cardiff City’s commitment to cup competitions could not be directed.

It’s always galling not to win when you’ve been 2-0 up, but, let’s face it, having watched our previous three games, I was expecting it would take us until about March for us to score a couple more goals. Instead, we got them in just over thirty minutes and we did so by showing intelligent movement and, for the second goal at least, an aptitude for a killer pass.

Nevertheless, a goal attempts figure of 26-5 in favour of the Premier League side shows that those two good goals apart, there was still not a great deal on offer from City in terms of an end product although all of the individual performances from our front four attacking players offered hope for the months ahead.

It should be mentioned as well that I wouldn’t have thought any more than two or three of the starting eleven Mark Hudson picked would be in what he regards as his strongest team – I’d say much the same applied to Jesse Marsch and his Leeds selection.

City started with Jak Alnwick in goal, a back four of Tom Sang, Curtis Nelson who was captaining the team, Jack Simpson and Joel Bagan with Andy Rinomhota and Romaine Sawyers sitting in front of them. The attacking four were Jaden Philogene and Mark Harris out wide and Sheyi Ojo playing behind lone striker Isaak Davies, who was making the first start of his injury ravaged season.

Quite how much the illness which had hit the City camp during last week affected team selection is not clear, but there were a fair sprinkling of first team regulars on the bench, so my guess is that it was the side Hudson wanted to pick, or very close to it anyway.

The reaction to the selection from supporters on and off line was overwhelmingly negative from what I heard and read and I’ll admit that I was expecting nothing more than a pretty limp defeat myself.

Indeed, that’s what we looked set for during the first twenty minutes or so. It was hardly as if Leeds were battering us, but they were sharper and far better than us in possession.

There was one chink of light though, right from the start of the game, the Leeds centrebacks looked very Ill at ease in the face of Davies’ combination of pace and sheer nuisance value. This continued throughout the first half and although he, understandably, tired in the second half, I’d rate his performance for that first forty five minutes as good as we’ve seen from a City forward this season in terms of never giving an opposition defence a moment’s peace.

It was runs from behind the striker in a manner that I can barely remember seeing this season though which unlocked the Leeds defence for the two goals.

Sang picked out Harris’ run in behind the unhappy Pascal Struijk with the first and although Joel Robles was out quickly to block the shot, Harris was able to tee up Davies whose shot was blocked again into the path of Philogene who calmly side footed in from eight yards.

Sang’s pass was a good one, but Rinomhota’s clipped ball over Diego Llorente seven minutes later was a better one and Ojo, having made a clever run in behind the defender, gave it the finish it deserved with a great first touch and then hooking the ball in from around the penalty spit.

So, the team that finds it so hard to score at home had got two quality goals with barely more than half an hour played and were well in charge for the fifteen minues that remained of the opening half.

Leeds were booed off by the six and a half thousand visiting fans at half time and a repeat of the famous 2002 Third Round win, along with a continuance of our domination of this fixture since then, looked on the cards.

There was little in the opening fifteen minutes of the second half to suggest a Leeds fight back either – Davies had run his race by now and the threat to the Leeds goal was negligible for the whole of the second period, but City were still looking comfortable at the back.

The whole game turned on the introduction of three Leeds subs including our loan player from last season, Cody Drameh. From the moment they were introduced, Leeds’ intensity levels increased dramatically and the pace they were playing at was ratcheted up. City had put an awful lot into their first half and were Ill equipped physically to cope with this increased energy from the visitors.

The Leeds fans sensed a way back into the game and almost straight away, Struijk headed inches wide from a corner when he really should have scored.

Having almost been caught out once from a set piece, it was disappointing that within two or three minutes, the visitors were able to work a short corner and another of the subs, Rodrigo, headed in Sam Greenwood’s cross from close range.

Faced with twenty five minutes plus added time to hang on to their lead (they were never going to increase it now), City could only offer stern defence with Rinomhota, voted man of the match by Ally McCoist as part of ITV’s coverage, doing sterling work on that score.

However, Leeds were now frequently getting in down the flanks where both City full backs had been booked quite early on and the goal attempts and misses were racking up. When Leeds cut through City’s right flank again, Junior Firpo’s shot from the cut back was palmed aside by Bagan for a clear penalty which earned the youngster a straight red card. However, Rodrigo’s spot kick, although well struck, was too close to Alnwick who dived to his left to turn the ball away.

For a short while, it felt like this fine save would be the fillip to speed City to victory, but the reality of their situation soon became clear as sub Ollie Tanner was left alone upfield in what became a very deep lying 5-3-1 formation when first teamers Ryan Wintle, Joe Ralls, Callum O’Dowda and Perry Ng were introduced for attackers and midfielders.

Amid great tension, Leeds brought on two teenage striking substitutes, Mateo Joseph and Sonny Perkins, who both missed excellent chances to equalise.

Now, I know the fans of nearly every side in the world say “typical (insert name of their club)” when things like late equalisers are scored against them, but I’ll always maintain that Cardiff City supporters have more reason than most to think that way.

So, although the Leeds goal attempts were piling up without testing Alnwick too much and we were now past the ninety minute mark, I had no confidence that we were going to hang on. So it was, that Perkins flicked in the leveller from close in to ensure that the teams will meet again at Elland Road in ten days or so to see who has the dubious pleasure of travelling to Accrington Stanley or Boreham Wood in Round Four.

I wouldn’t completely dismiss City’s chances in the replay on this evidence, but, to return to a recent theme, it would be typical us to go to Leeds and win and then get beaten at Boreham Wood!

Other matches this weekend saw City’s Under 18’s beaten 3-2 at QPR with Kyle Kenniford (pen) and Cody Twose the scorers, while Ton Pentre were winners by the same score over Cardiff Airport in the Premier Division of the Highadmit South Wales Alliance and Division One leaders Treherbert Boys and Girls Club went down 2-1 at Sully.

Off the field, there was a pre game meeting where club Chairman Mehmet Dalman gave details of the current position regarding the embargoes the club finds themselves subject to and the ongoing sage that is the Emiliano Sala dispute regarding which club he belonged to at the time of his tragic death – it will be the fourth anniversary of his death later this month. Details of the main points to emerge from the meeting can be read here.

Anyway, on to happier times, a further reminder that my book on our 1975/76 promotion is on sale now in paperback form or as an e book – it’s called Tony Evans Walks on Water and can be bought from Amazon at

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Now I know what it feels like to watch your side play with a lack of hope.

Posted on January 2, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

In a strange game at Elwood Park this lunchtime in which the size of the crisis at Cardiff City Stadium become even clearer, City were deservedly beaten by a one goal margin by a Blackburn Rovers side whose third place standing in the current table is as much evidence as you need that, the runaway top two apart, it’s a very, very ordinary Championship this season.

I mentioned a one goal margin, but you don’t need to be a genius to work out what the score was from that. It goes without saying of course that it was1-0. The goal had more than an element of luck to it and City had a go once they fell behind early in the second half, but all that did is offer even more evidence of how powder puff we are in front of goal.

For a second successive game, City used five subs, but I didn’t have a clue what they were trying to do by the end. I’m always prefacing anything I say about Mark Hudson with things like I want him to do well because he was such a good player for us, but, watching these last four games especially, he’s taking us backwards – we’re as clueless as we’ve ever been in attack and so we seem to have become reduced to playing for 0-0s

I’m certainly not denying Hudson’s facing a huge task. He’s having to deal with what I  believe is a flawed off field management structure because the man at the top does not favour the introduction of something like a Director of Football/CEO with a footballing background (Chairman Mehmet Dalman has said he’s in favour of City making such an appointment).

Furthermore, there is a transfer embargo at the club for the next three windows as things stand and while there was clearly a large element of coincidence and bad luck from their viewpoint regarding the tragic event responsible for the sanctions against the club, the Emiliano Sala transfer itself hardly seems to have been handled in a professional manner by the club.

Hudson, and every recent manager going back to Neil Harris, have had to operate within the confines caused by the disastrous recruitment of the summer of 2019. Recruitment which the manager at the time is blamed for by people like me, but we’re told that Neil Warnock was part of a four man transfer committee where you’d guess the other three members could, and should, have made their reservations clear if they were not happy with what the manager was planning.

Vincent Tan always quotes the Andreas Cornelius transfer when he wants to be critical of transfer policy at the club (he also mentioned Josh Murphy when he was interviewed after he watched our defeat by Hull a couple of months ago). However, although there has been the odd exception, transfer recruitment has largely been very poor in the twelve years Vincent Tan has been associated with the club.

While most other clubs in the Championship have proper recruiting departments and football savvy CEOs these days, Cardiff seem content to muddle on as they’ve always done under this owner. To be fair, I have to mention that we’ve been promoted to the Premier League twice under Vincent Tan’s, but even this has only led to City creating the record of being the only club to have failed to avoid relegation in their first two seasons of Premier League football.

City have handled Premier League football, and the parachute payments that relegated clubs receive, so poorly and all of these things only make the job of managing the club currently all the more testing.

Clearly, Vincent Tan has not been happy with the managers at the club since Warnock left because he keeps on sacking them, but, then again, what can you expect when the appointments are generally viewed as being cheap options?

All of what I’ve been saying shows how much the odds have been stacked against Hudson and you have to say that it was always pushing things to expect that you could just pluck the quality of manager needed to make a good job of running Cardiff out of the club’s coaching staff – that’s what we did with Steve Morison and what we have done with Mark Hudson.

Unfortunately, it’s looking increasingly likely that Hudson is not capable of turning things around. His post game comments today read like the thoughts of an exasperated man and I can understand why as we’ve looked as toothless as we have done all season in our last three matches.

Now, all sides have spells in a season where they find it difficult to score, but, at the risk of sounding flippant, ours has been going on since late July! Nevertheless, it’s been particularly bad against QPR, Coventry and Blackburn – that’s what I meant when I said that we were only getting worse under Hudson.

Today’s game was played on what was an unusual poor pitch for a modern day match, so, some allowances need to be made for that because the current professionals aren’t used to such things, but I wonder what any gnarled old player from forty or fifty years ago would have made of such a pitch in mid season January – it would have been like a bowling green compared to what they were used to!

Being serious, the pitch probably played a part in some of the opportunities City made a mess of today, but, increasingly, you have to believe that it’s problems between the ears that are playing a bigger part now than a lack of ability as the lack of goals becomes a bigger issue with every passing game.

Callum O’Dowda was our best player again for me, but what if he had really attacked Ryan Wintle’s superb cross in the opening minutes? Callum Robinson had what was our best on target effort by a mile in our last three games following a swift and incisive break, but it was still a routine  save for Thomas Kaminski to make when Mark Harris was unmarked inside Robinson. Harris was to the fore when Blackburn gave the ball away in a dangerous position and he fed Gavin Whyte who was foiled by a covering tackle by Jake Garrett, but he wouldn’t have been able to make it without Whyte’s dodgy first touch. Tom Sang also had a chance to get away a shot from a good position as the ball dropped invitingly for him, but, as Andy Hinchcliffe righty said on Sky’s commentary, he waited far too long and his shot was easily blocked when it eventually came.

Continuing the theme, Harris shot weakly in the second half with Isaak Davies in a better position and Andy Rinomhota ducked out of a header from six yards when he was unmarked from a Rubin Colwill corner – Colwill’s quality deliveries from corners was a slight plus point and Perry Ng was not far away from meeting another one.

Not all, but most of these opportunities were made harder by poor decision making or faulty technique, but the lack of confidence is there in how extra touches by defenders and midfielders slow movement of the ball down – this is one of the factors in the lack of chances being created, but then, when they are, the forward players are too eager to get shots away so they are never as effective as they are when hit calmly and with confidence.

At the other end of the pitch, Hudson opted for a back three which were often troubled by direct balls into the channels in a first half when Blackburn looked like they coped with the conditions better and wanted it more.

I thought we were somewhat lucky to get to half time at 0-0 and we started the second period in really limp fashion as we lost fifty/fifties all over the pitch as typified by Harris being robbed too easily on half way in the build up to the goal. Blackburn took advantage when Ben Brereton-Diaz  rolled a pass into Bradley Dack’s path and the man who has had so much bad luck with injuries in recent years hit a first time shot from eighteen yards that took a huge deflection off Jack Simpson (fortunate to still be on the pitch after a nasty first half foul) and rolled past the wrong footed Ryan Allsop.

Sam Gallagher made a mess of a headed chance to quickly double the lead and Bremerton-Diaz twice worked Allsop, but as plenty of sides who have visited Cardiff City Stadium in the last two seasons have discovered, 1-0 is often more than enough to comfortably see us off.

Just to mention as well about the title I’ve given this piece. I thought hard about using it because I didn’t want to be too critical, but I’m afraid it is how I feel and it’s a double edged sword really because I’m surely not the only City fan watching us with a lack of hope these days and, certainly in the last three games, you feel the side are playing with a lack of hope.

Anyway, on to happier times, a further reminder that my book on our 1975/76 promotion is on sale now in paperback form or as an e book – it’s called Tony Evans Walks on Water and can be bought from Amazon at

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