Last week, I wrote somewhere, it may have been here, that we’d not beaten anyone yet, but beating Coventry was a statement that moved us beyond that sort of thinking.
Well, today we got the sort of win that will send shockwaves through the Championship- we’ve been getting results lately, but we’re not supposed to be going to places like the Sunderland of the second half of last season and the start of this season and winning. Indeed, if you listen to Thursday’s Second Tier podcast, you’ll hear the smug one who always seem so pleased with himself (you’ll know who I mean if you’ve ever listened to it for more than five minutes) select Sunderland v Cardiff as his banker win of the Championship weekend – to clarify things, he didn’t pick us to win!
Mind you, even as a very pleased City fan, I must admit that there was an element of daylight robbery about our 1-0 win. We spent almost all of the ninety minutes on the back foot and I’ll concede that we needed some luck to come out of the game with a clean sheet, but it is possible to be both lucky and good and there were some heroic defensive performances today in a performance that gave the lie to our record of twelve conceded in seven league games before today.
Figures like those suggest a defence with issues, a side battling against the drop (it’s a much worse goals conceded per game record than last season), but, individually, it was a fine effort by the goalkeeper and the whole of the back four and the discipline and organisation shown by the whole team was worthy of a top half of the table outfit.
I’ve just seen Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray’s post game interview and it was hard to disagree with anything he said really. According to Mowbray, it was important that he did not get too down on his team because of the result, because, in truth, they played pretty well. He acknowledged that, as his side’s reputation grows, teams are increasingly going to come to the Stadium of Light and stick banks of four or five behind the ball and his side are going to have to find ways of improving home results if not necessarily performances.
Mowbray was quite generous about us in terms of how we were able to carry out our game plan and remarked that, by coming to attack Sunderland in their previous home match, Southampton rather played into his team’s own hands – Sunderland’s 5-0 win that day was maybe the best display I’ve seen from a side in this season’s Championship so far.
City should make no apologies for what was a pretty defensive approach, but I don’t think it was wholly defensive- although the wide attackers (Yakou Meite and Karlan Grant) were, as usual, expected to be back doubling up on Sunderland’s wingers when they attacked, they are both essentially attacking players themselves .So, it was very much a front three with Ryan Wintle the central midfielder designated to be the one to try to turn it into a four – Wintle has been better than I would have expected him to be in that role in the last two games, but it seems odd that more natural number ten types like Callum Robinson (mysteriously not used at all today off the bench) or Rubin Colwill are not being used.
No mention of Aaron Ramsey there because after being rested on Tuesday against Coventry, Erol Bulut said in his pre game press conference that Rambo was fit and available for Sunderland, but he was missing again today – according to our manager, he was suffering from something that had left him with a fever.
I’ve seen it said that this might have been a good game for Rambo to miss given how much of a defensive effort it was going to be and that seems a fair point to me, but we’re going to need him for our next league game against Rotherham when the onus will be very much on us to make the running – I’m assuming that, even if he is available, Ramsey won’t feature against Blackburn in Wednesday’s League Cup match.
Ramsey’s illness meant that City were unchanged from Coventry apart from on the right wing where Meite was preferred to Ollie Tanner. Sunderland, having added a couple of 3-1 away victories, at QPR and Blackburn, to the routing of Southampton had a crowd of over 41,000 to back them, whereas there were around 500 supporting City.
Sunderland scored twice in the first ten minutes against Southampton, so City must have been gearing themselves up for a fast home start, but it never came and the opening fifteen minutes or so had little or no attacking play worthy of the description. However, there was evidence of Sunderland’s impressive work out of possession where I was reminded of the old Pep Guardiola maxim of always try to win the ball back within five seconds of losing it – the home team were often able to achieve this although there were times when I thought referee Steve Martin was reluctant to penalise them for fouls and they were helped by the poor first touch on occasions of the likes of Meite and Ugbo.
After more or less having parity for a spell, the theme of the game was set from about the fifteen minute mark onwards as play took place almost exclusively in City’s half with the ball heading towards their goal.
It was strange, for most of the last seventy five minutes and more, I was thinking “Sunderland are going to score in a minute” and yet, for all of the pressure and our seeming inability to do much to relieve it, there weren’t as many near misses and heart stopping moments as you’d expect.
Doubtless this had something to do with how resolutely City stuck to the plan of keeping their shape above all else and in particular how they managed to keep left winger Jack Clarke, who I saw described as the form player in the Championship recently,relatively quiet.
When City’s defensive lines were breached though, they had their last ditch defending to see them through like when Dimitrios Goutas, playing his best game in a City shirt so far, just about managed to divert Alex Pritchard’s close range shot around the post after right winger Abdoullah Ba had got clear of Jamilu Collins for the only time in the game.
When Clarke showed what he was capable of by coming inside Perry Ng and getting away a shot from the edge of the penalty area, Jak Alnwick was able to make the first in what was a series of saves that were good, if not brilliant. They were all saves Alnwick would have been disappointed not to make, but this was the display of a confident goalkeeper buoyed by the new two year contract he signed in the week and his team mates had reason to be thankful for his decisive decision making and handling in the minutes after they took their shock lead.
Up the other end, there was little or nothing, Grant, who was to go off at half time with a recurrence of the injury which affected him during the second half on Tuesday did well to gain himself a couple of yards of space before shooting well over the bar and there were some quite nice moves down our left which brought corners, but City we’re just pleased to get in at 0-0 at the break.
The opening stages of the second period saw an increase in the Sunderland pressure, Alnwick was soon forced into maybe his best save of the game from Pritchard as the game seemed to be being played solely in and around our penalty area..
Despite that almost overwhelming feeling that a goal was coming that I mentioned earlier, there was still that relative lack of frantic goalmouth action though and with Tanner settling in to give a surprisingly mature and intelligent defensive performance which included any number of good tackles on the dangerous Clarke, the frustration among the home players and crowd was slowly growing.
City finally got themselves a half chance when Tanner’s cross found Ugbo who couldn’t keep his shot down, but p, if anything, the introduction of Rubin Colwill and Kion Etete for Ugbo and Meite just passed the hour mark improved City.
There was still plenty of defensive work to do, but, for me at least, the thought that maybe we could get out of this with a 0-0 (at no time did I think we’d score!) was growing.
The Sunderland threat was still there with sub Patrick Roberts being denied by Alnwick and a follow up from Trey Hume being blocked by the inevitable Goutas.
Maybe I was being unfair to City when I said I never thought they’d score because I certainly got excited when Etete slalomed past four opponents only for a last ditch tackle, or was it a back pass, to deny him. For the first time in more than an hour, there were a few signs that we were riding out the storm and with the game in its last five minutes, pressure from Colwill forced Hume into an errant back pass which presented us with a corner. By now Ebou Adams was on for Ralls, so it was Wintle who took the set piece.
City’s win has, understandably, been called smash and grab and there was definitely an element of that to their goal as Mark McGuinness and Luke O’Nien I think it was got on with the usual wrestling match which ensues at corners these days. It could have been a penalty, it could have been a free kick to Sunderland, but, instead, the momentum of the conflict between the two players appeared to send the City centreback towards the ball and he was able to guide it beyond the previously unemployed Anthony Patterson – McGuinness was honest enough o admit after the game that the ball hit him on the head without him knowing much about it.
With five minutes added time to be played (I was expecting more, because we hardly showed any desre to get on with things throughout), City should really have scored at least once more, Colwill’s marvelous long pass set Tanner free and he picked out Wintle whose shot was turned aside by Patterson.
Colwill then robbed Hume to find Tanner in splendid isolation near the penalty spot, but the winger blotted his copybook by blazing over – it was the only negative from the youngster today though.
Alnwick caught a dangerous cross in the dying seconds and City were home with a memorable win – they won by the same score at Sunderland last season and carried more of a goal threat that day in doing so, but this was a much better Sunderland side than the one we beat on Bonfire night last year.
So, incredibly, we’re up to seventh with no sign of Aaron Ramsey – in fact, three of the five wins we’ve gained in our last six matches in all competitions have come without our returning hero being involved – a stat which reflects very well on both our manager and a group of players who seem to be united for the cause in a way that, perhaps, has not been the case in the last two seasons.
Elsewhere, City’s Women’s team began he home programme of their defence of the league title they won las season with a 0-0 draw against Aberystwyth.to leave them in fifth place on goal difference in what looks like being a more competitive division this time around because there’s no one with a 100 per cent winning record with just two games played by all sides – for our part, we seem to have lost some influential players from last season and so maybe expectations should be reined in a little accordingly.
Finally, the start of the season is the time I ask readers to show their support by making a voluntary donation towards the blog’s running costs and to help towards things like book projects that I’m working on. Back in 2018, the blog would not have survived without the contributions of some of its readers as I just did not have the financial means to pay the web hosting bill I received that summer.
Since then, my finances have improved and, with me now receiving the state pension to go with my works one, I can say that there is no longer any need for anyone to donate towards running costs – touching wood, the blog will never ever be in a position again where it’ll need help from readers to survive.
So, with nothing in the pipeline in terms of new projects this year, I can say to all readers, and especially those who do still donate towards the blog, there is no need to do so this year at a time when many need every last penny to make it through the cost of living crisis.
That is not to say you cannot still make a contribution if you want to – they can be made through cash, bank transfer, cheque and PayPal. Many of you who do contribute will already have my bank details, but anyone wishing to make their first contribution can contact me at paul.evans8153@hotmail.com for more information.
As always a big thank you to all those who have made donations in the past and especially to those who still do (particular thanks go to the Owl Centre for their continued very generous sponsorship), a happier Cardiff City season than last time around to all of you!
