DeBruyne masterclass consigns spirited Wales to rare Belgian defeat.

Posted on September 23, 2022 by The other Bob Wilson

The latest round of the seemingly never ending Wales v Belgium rivalry saw the World’s current number two side beat the ream ranked nineteen 2-1. Wales, minus their four most experienced outfield players (Gareth Bale did come on for the last half an hour or so, but Ben Davies, Joe Allen and Aaron Ramsey were all missing with injuries with Harry Wilson being another notable absentee),were, frankly, played off the park for forty five minutes and would have been very grateful to have only been two down, but a goal early in the second half made for a much more competitive last forty five minutes.

I think I’m right in saying that Belgium now have three wins to our two in a series of nine matches that began with a 2-0 defeat at Cardiff City Stadium in what must have been a qualifying game for the 2014 World Cup which saw Wales play most of the game with ten men after James Collins was sent off.

There’s also been four draws between the teams in that time, so, although Wales will always be underdogs when they face the Belgians in the foreseeable future, you have to come to the conclusion after so much evidence in the last decade or so that these are two pretty evenly matched teams.

However, as mentioned earlier, you would never have thought that in the first half. Belgium beat Poland 6-1 at home in an earlier game in this group and it looked like they could be on their way to matching that or even improving on it.

Wales were chasing shadows as a Kevin DeBruyne inspired home side poured forward continuously, but through a mixture of luck, some poor Belgian misses and good last ditch defending, notably by Rhys Norrington-Davies who was being used in Ben Davies’ position in the back three, Wales got to the break only two down.

Belgium took the lead on eleven minutes as they moved fluently down their right to enable Michy Batshuayi to roll a pass into DeBruyne’s path which the Manchester City man side footed in from just outside the penalty area. It was a typically stylish finish by DeBruyne, but I think Wayne Hennessey might have been disappointed not to have turned the ball away or aside given that he got both hands to the ball.

DeBruyne also hit a post with one of a series of Belgian goal attempts, many of which were too close to Hennessey’s goal for comfort while Wales didn’t do themselves any favours with some careless passing and they were guilty of allowing the Belgians too much time and room on occasions.

On thirty seven minutes, it was 2-0 as Wales were opened up down their left again and DeBruyne had plenty of time to pick out the unmarked Batshuayi who tapped in from about four yards out on the far post.

After the break though, Wales were a different proposition as Brennan Johnson grew into the game with his confidence enhanced by his part in their forty ninth minute goal. Again, the goal came from the same area of the pitch as the first two did as Johnson got clear of a couple of defenders to flight a fine cross to the far post where Keiffer Moore headed in powerfully from eight yards.

There would be little chance of Wales being able to step up the pressure after their goal back though because for the next quarter of an hour or so, Belgium, without being as dangerous as they had been, simply kept the ball for what seemed like minutes on end.

Wales were able to come into it more in the last quarter of the game however when, as they always tend to do, Belgium showed that they aren’t as impressive going backwards as they are going forward.

It was Moore who went off to be replaced by Bale, but I’m sure the away side would have welcomed the tall striker still being on the pitch when a perfect far post cross flew across the face of. the home goal into an area where Moore would have been waiting to nod in his second.

Johnson also got himself into a good position when Connor Roberts headed down to him, but his first time effort from around the penalty spot flew disappointingly wide.

Neco Williams forced Thibaut Courtois into a diving save as Belgium’s serene progress to victory was interrupted, but the home side never lost the appetite to work hard to regain possession very quickly after it had been lost which they demonstrated from the first minute and so they were able to hold on for what no one in the Welsh camp could deny was a deserved win.

That victory margin could have been larger if VAR had not been there to show referee Ali Payabiyik how wrong he’d got his decision to award the home side a penalty after  another sub Joe Morrell had performed a very good tackle on DeBruyne to clearly send the ball out for a corner.

But the referee, who I thought was poor throughout, took a long time reviewing the incident and I began to wonder if he was going to do a Michael Oliver and go against the advice he was getting from VAR. Instead, he finally accepted his error before, bafflingly, restarting the game with a goal kick – Bale also picked up a booking for protesting about the penalty award, so natural justice says that it should be rescinded, but I’m not sure that it can be now.

So, with Poland losing 2-0 at home to the Netherlands, Wales go into their final group game in Cardiff on Sunday knowing a win against the Poles will keep them in the Europa League group A rankings. This would be some achievement, but we’ve been competitive in every game we’ve played and the whole campaign has been an indicator of the progress Welsh football has made since they started playing Belgium so often.

Kevin DeBruyne said this week that he was bored of playing Wales, but he could well be facing us again in the next Nations League if we can win on Sunday –  those world rankings say that we can do it and it really is a sign of the progress we’ve made that we are now ranked above teams like Poland who have been consistent qualifiers for the major tournaments for decades.

I should also mention that City’s women’s team triumphed on Sunday to the tune of 5-0 at Abergavenny with Danielle Green (2), Danielle Broadhurst, Siobhan Walsh and Rhianne Oakley scoring.

Finally, just to report that, despite hundreds, if not thousands, of column inches being devoted to the subject, there is no real news to report on City’s so called search for a replacement for Steve Morison. The words “so called” show my cynicism I’m afraid, because precedent tells me that the present incumbent Mark Hudson will get the job if he does moderately well in his caretaker role because, like Steve Morison a year ago, he has the advantage of being cheap.

No offence meant here to Hudson who was a fine player for us and seems a decent bloke. It’s also a bit unfair to say this when little is known really of his managerial/coaching abilities, but if it is Hudson who gets the job, then it has an underwhelming feel to it and, probably more seriously, it has the vibe of mistakes being repeated – what’s that saying about making the same wrong decision time after time and expecting a different outcome?

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Steve Morison sacked – who saw that coming?

Posted on September 18, 2022 by The other Bob Wilson

Until today, there’s been a common link with every instance of a City manager leaving bar one in my time supporting the club – you’ve seen it coming. The one exception to that rule was when Phil Neal left us in October 1996 to become Steve Coppell’s assistant at Manchester City, only for Coppell to resign about three weeks later.

It was a surprise to see Neal go, but not an unpleasant one- he’d done little in his eight months in charge to get supporters enthused, but I can’t remember there being many calls for him to be sacked, so his departure came out of the blue.

Usually when a manager goes, there’s a groundswell of opinion against him and Board cottons on to the fact that there would be no great reaction against them if they gave the man in charge the bullet – in fact, the fans are grateful to them for doing so more often than not.

All too rarely in the case of Cardiff City, clubs from higher divisions become interested in a manager because he’s doing such a good job for us. I wouldn’t say that was the case with Phil Neal, but it definitely was when First Division Sunderland came in for Len Ashurst in 1984 and Frank Burrows’ first spell with us ended in 1989 when he agreed to become Assistant Manager at Portsmouth.

There’s one other category – although the club could claim that Malky Mackay was sacked because of poor results just after Christmas 2013, it was also true that his relationship with Vincent Tan had broken down months earlier and Mackay had been on borrowed time after that.

So, no shock when Mackay left, nor once news had broken of Ashurst and Burrows being wanted by clubs from higher divisions and none either for any of the multitude of sackings I’ve seen down the years – until today.

I’m sure I’m not the only City fan who thought it was a joke when the news broke at lunchtime today that Steve Morison had been sacked and my messageboard reaction when I realised he had gone was to say it was the most ludicrous sacking in the club’s history –  I’ll try and explain why presently.

First though, although I think the decision a truly daft one, I can never say I was a big Morison fan. I’ll always be grateful to him for keeping us up last year and for taking us away from hoofball – in fact, such was his commitment to that cause, even I, as a dedicated anti long ball merchant, thought he’d gone too far down that road and wanted some more height in the team to counter set piece weaknesses at either end of the pitch.

However, right from day one, Morison (a self confessed “Mr. Angry” as a player) seemed overly abrasive in his dealings with the media, he was also too quick to criticise young players in public while under performing seniors escaped censure from him. The worst example of this was how he answered questions about his decision to sub Isaak Davies half an hour or so after he brought him on at Bournemouth- that was just rank bad management in my book.

Similarly, I think it can be said now that Morison’s approach towards Rubin Colwill did not work – the player that came on and won a game at Forest around this time last year under a different manager has been held back by his predecessor who came over as being wholly unsympathetic towards a talented youngster despite his protestations to the contrary..

There are other examples I believe of Morison hindering, rather than helping, younger players, but to return to the point I want to make about the timing of this sacking, whatever my gripes and those of other supporters regarding some aspects of his work, Morison was handed a double vote of confidence in the spring and summer.

Firstly, he was awarded a contract until June of next year once our Championship status had been secured and then he was given a virtual free hand to rebuild the playing staff when so many senior players’ contracts were running out. Not only that, he was seemingly backed by the owner and the Board when it came to introducing a more progressive style of play with more emphasis on ball retention and less reliance on power and resilience.

So it was, that Morison was allowed to bring in an amazing seventeen new players on what we were led to believe was a shoestring budget, but, after being given around half a million pounds to spend on a young “project” striker, a further £1.5 million was found to spend on Callum Robinson on the last day of the transfer window less than three weeks ago.

Now, all of this strikes me as an enormous display of faith in someone who was an inexperienced, young manager – did anyone truly believe when Morison was taking questions from the media about what he thought Robinson could bring to his squad that he would be sacked a little over a fortnight later?

Of course, after an encouraging first few games, things were not going as hoped in Morison’s Brave New World. I found, and still find, the performances in our four away defeats to be concerning and there has been a distinct lack of chance creation and natural finishing ability so far, as evidenced by just seven goals scored in eleven competitive games, with three of them coming in the first half at Middlesbrough five days ago. Again I ask would anyone have thought Steve Morison would have been sacked on the weekend when Perry Ng put us 3-0 up on Tuesday?

Last night, there were a few calls for the manager to go as there always is these days when a team have won three, but lost five, of their first ten league games. However, I’d say that the large majority recognised that patience was required because a big rebuilding job was being undertaken – however here we appear to be in an almost unique position where the fans are calling for patience and it’s the owner and Board that have the jerking knees!

On the face of it, it’s ridiculous sacking a manager so soon after what the City owner and Board were prepared to grant Steve Morison at the start of this month – Vincent Tan and co have form for naivety and poor footballing judgement, but this is in a different league to anything we’ve seen from them before.

Yet, it’s so foolish that you start to think there has to be something other than just dissatisfaction at eleven points from ten games and eighteenth place in play here. While I find it hard to believe that Morison has gone because this lot have a replacement already lined up who will enthuse the fans and galvanise the club, the notion that something has happened “behind the scenes” to bring about today’s dramatic news does not seem completely far fetched.

For now, Mark Hudson will take over as caretaker manager, so, if the Board and owner run true to form, we can expect him to be given the job for the rest of the season if we manage to avoid defeat against Burnley in the first game after the international break.

Hopefully the next few days will bring news which makes today’s decision look more sensible, because, as things stand, our reputation within the game must be a lot lower than it normally is – would you apply for the manager’s job at Cardiff at the moment?

Having just written the above, I find that Paul Abbandonato of Wales Online has written a piece which I must admit has left me wondering whether Cardiff City are worth bothering with any more under its current ownership.  Mr. Abbandonato can usually be relied upon to provide a pretty accurate account of the thinking of those in power at Cardiff City Stadium and I’ve no reason to disbelieve him here. I despair, I really do despair – all aboard for the cheapest managerial option again and probably a return to hoofball with a squad of players wholly unsuited to playing that way.

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