You get to Thursday in a week where we’re not playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday and start looking forward to the weekend’s game. The sense of anticipation builds into the Friday and then you find out that Bobby Madley (the man who does videos mocking disabled people) is going to be refereeing the game and all of that enthusiasm ebbs away.
Leaving that video to one side (everyone deserves a second chance and he paid a high price for his mistake etc), anyone who saw Madley’s disgraceful performance in the Newport County v Morecambe League Two Play Off Final in 20/21 would have to doubt his suitability for such an important game. I’m sure his favouring of Morecambe that day was down to nothing more than incompetence, but that’s no consolation to the club just down the road from Cardiff which is getting far too close to the bottom of League Two for comfort – if Newport were to go down this season, it would clearly be wrong to blame it solely on Bobby Madley, but his handling of that match would have been one of many contributory factors towards it – the man should not be refereeing at that level.
Well, today City were the Newport to Coventry’s Morecambe in a game where Madley was one of its two central figures. The other one was Coventry’s centre forward Victor Gyokeres who scored the only goal, gave Cedric Kipre one of his more uncomfortable afternoons of an impressive season, missed an absolute sitter early on and was lucky to stay on following an elbowing incident with Perry Ng.
At the time, I thought the yellow card he was shown by Madley was sufficient punishment, but, having now seen a replay where Gyokeres looks around to see exactly where Ng is when the ball is coming towards him, I’m wondering whether he should have been shown a red.
Gyokeres’ goal was a tap in at the end of a neat Coventry build up which culminated in Jamie Allen getting in a shot that Ryan Allsop could only palm into the path of the striker stood some eight yards out.
There appeared to be nothing wrong with the goal on first viewing, but, again, replays of the incident raised questions because it look like Gyokeres might have been offside. The linesman on the Ninian Stand side was hopeless throughout the ninety minutes and seemed to only work out how to signal offsides in the second half when he was ruling on City attacks. Therefore, it was no surprise when the flag was not raised in the build up to the goal – although, if I’m being honest, I think he probably did get that decision right.
The hopeless linesman was also involved in the game’s main talking point – a disallowed Callum Robinson goal early in the second half. The linesman didn’t flag when Robinson calmly side stepped former City keeper Ben Wilson and rolled the ball in after Joe Ralls had headed a half cleared corner back towards the Coventry goal.
My first instinct was to think Robinson may have been offside, but then those replays again led to more questions as they clearly showed Coventry defender Kyle McFadzean making contact with the ball as he tried to clear it. So, at this stage we had no flag from the linesman and the ref seemingly happy with the goal as the City players celebrated an equaliser.
However, Madley then decided to go over to consult the linesman before coming to a decision to disallow the goal. Maybe the fourth official made Madley aware of the possibility of an offside, but, in his post match comments, Mark Hudson said that he spoken to the ref about it and, in essence, he was told that as it was a deflection off the defender, he wasn’t playing Robinson onside.
If that is the current interpretation of the offside law, then that’s news to me, although, to be fair, I’ve long since given up on trying to understand the current offside interpretations – if that really is how the modern day offside law is implemented though, it’s an absurd situation.
Even if that is the law now, there are two possible reasons why it should not apply in this case. First, Hudson was adamant that at no time was Robinson offside. I’m not 100 per cent convinced of that myself, but I am certain that the Coventry defender tried to play the ball and so I cannot see how anyone can claim that it was a deflection – he tried to play the ball and miscontrolled it.
So, I’d say there’s no doubt whatsoever that Bobby Madley was his usual inept self this afternoon. Furthermore, he robbed us of a point (Mark Robbins the Coventry manager was honest enough to admit his team “got away” with one when it came to the disallowing of City’s goal), but would it have been a deserved point if the goal had stood?
I’d say you could make a case for saying it was, but I’m unconvinced. For me, this was a return to the bad old days of last season where we lost no end of games 1-0 at home and they all seemed to involve the away side scoring quite early on and then seeing things out with few alarms as we demonstrated our lack of creativity and flair.
That disallowed goal apart, Coventry, who are a lot better than a bottom of the table team on this evidence, were comfortable against attacks which became more direct and desperate as time went on and one legitimate on target effort (which I can’t recall at the moment) from fifteen goal attempts tells its own story.
Having looked dangerous and confident counter attackers last week at Wigan, we have struggled all season long to score goals at home – five goals in seven games (eight if you count Portsmouth in the League Cup) and we’re still waiting to score more than once in a match at Cardiff City Stadium.
Coventry on the other hand had that bad miss by Gyokeres as early as the third minute when Allsop came charging out for a through ball, missed and the Swedish striker was left with the goal guarded only by a couple of defenders in front of him, but, from eighteen yards, he shot high and wide.
Allsop did well to turn over a Allen header late on and there were other near things for a City defence that was not as secure as usual on their own pitch.
Yes, I’d say that on balance Coventry deserved their win – they were grateful for a poor set of officials, but the right side won today. Now, having looked secure in his caretaker role this morning, Hudson faces two away games where I’d say one point would be a decent return – defeats against QPR and Swansea will surely mean that Vincent Tan and co will have to actually start doing more than going through the motions when it comes to looking for a permanent successor to Steve Morison.
It was double defeats for Cardiff today as the under 18s went down 2-1 at Leckwith this lunchtime to QPR with Tanatswa Nyakuwha scoring our goal.
There was a mixed set of results for the teams this blog follows in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance. In the Premier Division, AFC Porth gained their first point of the season with a 3-3 draw at home to fellow strugglers Garw, while Ton Pentre suggested that they might be ready to take a first step back towards their former heights when they beat a Llanrumney United side that had been top of the table 2-0 at Ynys Park. In Division One, Treherbert Boys and Girls Club had a disappointing 4-2 home loss to second placed Caerphilly Athletic and are slipping down the table somewhat after their good start to life in a higher division.
I must also congratulate Merthyr Tydfil for their 2-1 win over Folkestone Invicta this afternoon to secure a place in the First Round proper of the FA Cup – the draw is on Monday with Merthyr, apparently, hoping for a Welsh derby against Newport or Wrexham.
Finally, as has been the habit at the start of a new season in recent years, can I ask readers if they’re willing to make a donation towards the running costs of the blog. I say running costs towards the blog, but, that’s not really true this time because this year any donations will go towards costs incurred in the production and publication of the book I aim to have out for sale by October.
As mentioned this time last year, I decided to do another review of a season to follow on from Real Madrid and all that which was about 1970/71. This one is about the 1975/76 season and will be called Tony Evans walks on water. I finished writing the book over the weekend and now it’s a question of tidying it up, proof reading, inserting a few photos and designing a cover before sending it off for printing.
As always, the blog will still be free to read for anyone who chooses not to make a donation towards its running costs and, apart from the one in the top right hand corner which is to do with Google Ads, you will never have to bother about installing an ad blocker to read this site because there will never be any.
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