Well, there was a strong wind blowing for the whole game, they did give it a go in the last twenty minutes and I thought that, after his struggles in the derby against Swansea, Mark McGuinness had a pretty good game.
Right, that’s the mitigating factor and the faint plus points out of the way – what’s left to say about Cardiff City’s 1-0 home defeat this afternoon by Sunderland?
I could answer that question two ways. The first one is to say it was rubbish and leave at that. The second way is to acknowledge that I’m more or less duty bound on here to go into a bit more detail than that, so I’ll say we were rubbish and I’ll try to explain below why I think that.
Much as I don’t feel like doing it at the moment, I’ll go for the second option and I think I’ll do something a bit different and list the things I think were wrong today and, by implication, are wrong most days because, if we play like that in our last six matches, we’ll go down and we’ll deserve to go down.
So, here’s my list of things that made this such a woeful performance along with a few more general thoughts about where we find ourselves now.
- In our last three home games we’ve started in a shockingly bad manner. We got away with it against a timid West Brom side whose limitations have been highlighted this weekend in a couple of matches against relegation candidates, but whereas we did liven up for a while after about half an hour against the jacks, we barely got out of first gear today until about three quarters of the game had been played.
- Following on from this, we are just three games into a month where we have to play eight times and we look knackered already. Much was made about how listless we were at the start of the jacks game. It was said by some that it was down to the occasion, but, watching us today and in the second half on Friday, it looked like a case of the spirit being willing, but the bodies too weak to do the physical work that is a must week in, week out in the modern day Championship.
- The question has to be asked, what sort of training is the squad getting at this late stage of the season? If they are being worked hard to make them fitter, then it’s not working and if the plan is to take it easy to preserve fitness, then you have to wonder as to what was happening under previous managers.
- Sabri Lamouchi tore into the players after the game and, to an extent, I agree with him, but, it wasn’t just those out on the pitch who had a stinker today. We started the game with the usual back three, Jaden Philogene shunted back to right wing back, Mahlon Romeo out on the left and, unbelievably, Sheyi Ojo in the number ten role. Rubin Colwill was missing from today’s squad and I can only hope it was through injury, because starting Ojo in front of Colwill to play in that position in particular is ridiculous. Ojo has been given plenty of starts in that position and has never done anything to suggest he can make a success of playing there.
- Having got the selection out of the way, there’s still plenty to say about our manager’s decision making today. Sunderland have a group of mostly young talented ball players in attacking positions whose effectiveness can be gauged by the fact that they are the Championship’s fourth highest scoring team. Although we handled them very well in the reverse fixture earlier in the season, I’ve seen enough of them on the television to know that they could make things very messy for us if we were as listless and ineffective as we’ve been for much of this season. Today, in a manner somewhat similar to Swansea, they found it easy to play both around and through us and it was only the fact that the talented Jack Clarke had something of an off day and the impressive Amad Diallo miscontrolled after Sunderland had opened us up so easily that it took so long for us to fall behind. Lamouchi’s response to all of this was muddled and hardly likely to instill confidence in players and fans as he switched Romeo back to the right, Ojo to left wing back and Philogene to number ten.
- Still City laboured with Ojo especially facing a thankless task now and Philogene a long way short of his recent form, but, even so, it was a surprise to see him taken off after just thirty three minutes along with the hapless Ojo. While a manager acting so decisively when his team is struggling is to be applauded in some cases, bringing on a limited midfielder, when it comes to attacking play at least, and a centre back to play left wing back in a home game at 0-0 in place of two players who strengths are as attackers, looked a panicky move doomed to failure. I say that because in a team which was set up in a manner to get the ball to the two big men up top, you were only intensifying the responsibility on a couple of forwards who just weren’t at the races today.
- At Blackpool, Sory Kaba and Connor Wickham bullied their smallermarkers James Husband and Curtis Nelson and, for twenty five minutes in the first half at least. completely dominated them. So, to be fair to our manager, he must have hoped for more of the same today because, for all of Sunderland’s technical players going forward, none of them were exactly robust physical specimens. Furthermore, a spate of injuries to centrebacks meant that full back Trai Hume had to move inside to accompany Danny Baath who was deemed to be not good enough for the Championship by Stoke City last season.
- So, it was reasonable to think City would enjoy an aerial advantage today, but, one of the reasons why they weren’t able to make any impression during their oh so slow start was the complete ineffectiveness of Kaba and Wickham who, to use that word again, both looked knackered. Not just that, the ball was just not sticking with either of them when it was played up to them. Wickham especially gave the ball away persistently, while when City finally did test the Sunderland defence, Romaine Sawyers put in a cross that found Kaba unmarked six yards out. It was the sort of chance that Kaba has thrived on during his time here, but this time he headed tamely straight at keeper Anthony Patterson.
- Having already made two substitutions, Lamouchi decided to replace Wickham with the fit again Kion Etete at half time. The change worked to the extent that Etete immediately improved the work rate and mobility of the front two and he soon was forcing Patterson into his most difficult save of the afternoon, but, as the ball bounced out from the keeper into a central area where you would have thought a striker would gobble up the chance, Kaba was on his heels eight yards out questioning why he hadn’t been given a pass. Unfortunately, after his promising start, Etete became bogged down in the mess that was City’s performance and was sending shots out for throw ins by the end.
- So, while an aerial approach made sense here (or at least it did on paper), as someone who had whinged about how Cardiff City have played football for the past ten years or so it is dispiriting to say we reverted back to our old ways of hoofing crosses into the box to the big men and it’s doubly dispiriting to see that having opted to go back to dull, physical football, it turns out that we are really bad at it on today’s evidence.
- I mentioned that we had a big height advantage today and yet we did next to nothing with it even during the late pressure we put on the Sunderland goal as we ended the match with more energy than we began it. Unfortunately, the quality was not there with the ball in and, on the rare occasions when we did get a cross right, the finishing limitations that have been there all season held us back once again.
- Sabri Lamouchi talked about small details costing his team today. I think he’s clutching at straws a bit there, but, if he wants to talk small details, how on earth do you explain the fact that no one seemed to know who should be taking the first corner we gained? In the end, Ojo reluctantly came over to take it and worked a short corner routine with Philogene which went wrong as the big men waited in vain for a cross to come in. It got even more odd after that as centreback Perry Ng started taking corners while looking ill at ease with having the corner flag so close to him. Based on how he performed his task, it was something he had little previous experience of and I’d like to think we won’t see him taking them again.
- Next, we come to the goal which, from the replay I’ve seen, seems to go around the OUTSIDE of the wall! Alex Pritchard cannot have believed his luck as he stood over the ball to see the City’s wall was lining up in a position where he was able to play the ball around it on the outside and get it quite comfortably inside the near post. That was something which should never happen from a free kick taken from that position, but it did this time and Ryan Allsop’s touch on to the post rebounded straight to Dennis Cirkin who tapped into the empty net. Actually, forget small details, this was a case of City getting the major details wrong. If, as I maintain, the ball went around the wall, then that’s down to the goalkeeper, however, I have to acknowledge that the wall may have been lined up correctly and it just disintegrated (as I say, I don’t think it did), then that’s down to the wall, in particular the person who was on the right hand edge of it..
- Sabri Lamouchi bemoaned our poor home form. He’s right to do that, but he’s only been here two and a half months, how does he think City fans feel as a third straight season of pathetic home results comes to a close? Mind you, out of the plethora of 1-0 home losses we’ve suffered in that time, I reckon this one was the worst of the lot – we need to do far better than this and the manager cannot afford any more days as bad as this one was.
I’m grateful to blog reader Mark Adams who contacted me to point out that on Saturday Ton Pentre made it through to the Final of the South Wales Loosemore’s Senior Cup as they won a penalty shoot out after their Semi Final with Llanrumney United finished 0-0 after ninety minute.
Ton Pentre have had a rough time of it in the five years since I moved up here and are now in the Fourth tier of the Welsh Football pyramid, but they have to be favourites to beat ninth tier Pentyrch Rangers in the Final.
Reaching this Final, along with the possibility of a promotion out of the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division represents a turning of the tide for Ton Pentre and I hope that they can end the season with some tangible proof of that improvement.
Finally, there are still a few signed copies of my latest book “Tony Evans Walks on Water” available from the Trust Office (near Gate 5) on matchdays at the reduced price of £9 for Trust members.
