Any Cardiff City fans entertaining the fanciful notion that the run of two wins could be extended into the sort of numbers that would leave relegation fears trailing in the distance were awoken from their dreams by a sobering 2-0 loss to Norwich at Carrow Road today.
Despite this, it didn’t turn into too bad a day for City because eight of the bottom nine teams lost – the exception being Rotherham who travel to Swansea on Monday. With us still out of the bottom three with one less match to play, I’d say our chances of staying up are marginally better now than they were as we were kicking off this afternoon.
Having picked a very attacking line up for last weekend’s home game with Reading, it was hardly surprising that Sabri Lamouchi made more defensive choices this time. Out went the wingers operating as wing backs as Mahlon Romeo returned on the right with Jaden Philogene moving forward to play in the Callum Robinson type role supporting lone striker Connor Wickham as last week’s strike pair of Sory Kaba and Kion Etete dropped to the bench. With Robinson out until the international break and maybe longer with his hamstring injury, Cardiff’s more cautious approach was best summed up by the inclusion of Joe Ralls in a team that looked like it would be left to Wickham and Philogene to forage together up front.
Getting bodies behind the ball may have been the plan, but a dozy and careless first quarter from the home team meant that City made the early running and, for a while, the confidence of successive wins was in evidence as Norwich found themselves on the back foot.
For twenty minutes or so, it all looked very encouraging, but, in reality, all that happened was that City gave everyone a chance to again see the failings that have been most responsible for turning this season into such a struggle.
The half time stats showed that both sides had managed six goal attempts, but too many of City’s efforts had been wrong options as players chose to shoot instead of trying to play in better placed team mates. Only one of the six attempts forced home keeper Angus Gunn into a save and it looked to me as if Romeo’s side footed effort from twenty yards was going wide anyway.
This was one of a few three on three opportunities wasted by City and this time, Wickham was waiting unmarked for a pass. I don’t know how City stand compared to other Championship clubs when it comes to total goal attempts over the season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if our figure is higher than many might expect, because too many in our squad fancy pot shots from twenty five to forty yards out (our owner must be delighted with them!) – distances where the odds are well against you scoring.
This Norwich side is clearly not as good as their teams that have won Championship titles in recent years. They may end up in the Premier League next season, but, if they do, it will be through the Play Offs – they’re currently seventh and this third straight home win suggests they’ve emerged from the awful run of form at Carrow Road that was holding them back.
So, this is not a vintage Norwich team, but, once they’d woken up and got their bearings, they attacked in a manner which is beyond us. It wasn’t awe inspiring stuff, but the passing and movement from them was fluent enough to cause us problems to the extent that, with our scoring record, the game was as good as over at half time.
For a while, City coped adequately enough with the game’s change of momentum, but they were undone by two goals within four minutes just past the half hour mark. Having mentioned how the odds are against you when shooting from twenty five yards plus, Gabriel Sara became the latest in a long, long line of players to show why others are always going to be trying long range blasters as his low twenty five yarder flew home past Ryan Allsop.
From a City perspective, Romaine Sawyers might have got out quicker to close the scorer down and, although he was not helped by a slight deflection on the shot, Allsop again had me thinking that he is a split second slower than most keepers at this level in getting down to low shots like this one.
Norwich’s second goal was all too easy as they moved the ball from right to left and then Onel Hernandez beat Romeo on the outside before pulling back a low cross which was swept home by Arsenal loanee Marquinhos.
Lamouchi reacted to these setbacks by changing formation and introducing three substitutes at half time. Ng moved to right back as part of a 4-4-2 as Romeo made way for Etete, Andy Rinomhota replaced Ralls and Wickham, our best option to lead the line on today’s evidence, came off for Kaba.
The changes didn’t work, not least because Kaba and Etete were totally ineffective – the latter does show that some of the raw ingredients are there to make a decent line leader at this level, but Norwich centrebacks Grant Hanley and Ben Gibson cannot have had many more comfortable halves of football than the second forty five today.
Kaba did win the free kick on the edge of the area which enabled Perry Ng to get in his third good set piece attempt in three matches as Gunn was forced into his most difficult save of the game (in truth, it was a pretty nondescript save for a keeper at this level) and Philogene’s shot hit the outside of the post in added time, but there was much more goalmouth action up the other end as Adam Idah seized on a Cedric Kipre mistake to round Allsop, but, under pressure from Mark McGuinness, he then shot over, Hernandez hit the post, Allsop saved well from sub Teemu Pukki and the Finn later lobbed narrowly over.
As for the other teams that may be in relegation trouble, QPR and Birmingham were both beaten at home, so no new manager bounce for the former after the appointment of our ex player Gareth Ainsworth and the latter have the possibility of a points deduction after they were charged by the EFL regarding possible breaches of the rules regarding a planned takeover deal. The bottom three of Blackpool, Huddersfield and Wigan all lost away games with the last named seeing their 1-0 interval lead at Preston turn into a 2-1 defeat. Stoke were beaten by Millwall at home and Hull, who are not in any serious trouble, went down at Bristol City who are on a long unbeaten run and will be relishing the opportunity of inflicting yet another derby defeat on us next weekend.
The Cardiff City hero today was undoubtedly Tanatswa Nyakuwha who scored a hat trick as City’s under 18s completed a season’s double over Swansea with a 4-1 away win – Japhet Matondo equalised after we’d gone a goal down and then Nyakuwha took over. Furthermore, City’s under 16s kept the good news coming by winning their parallel game with the jacks 5-2.
In the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division, Tom Pentre’s promotion hopes took a knock when they were beaten by the only goal of the game at a Canton Liberals team that looks to have the best chance out of any one of overhauling table topping Cardiff Corries. Bottom of the table AFC Porth will therefore be pretty grateful that their visit to the Corries ended in no more than a 5-0 beating. In the First Division, Treherbert Boys and Girls Club stretched their lead at the top of the table to eight points, but they have played a lot more games than most of the teams chasing them – today’s 2-1 win at Treforest makes it unlikely that the home team will be able to catch the table toppers now though.
Also, 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.
Finally, I’m saddened to record the passing of long time friend of this blog, Colin Phillips (who posted as Seabird on the Cardiff City Mad website) this week – I posted the following on the Board a few days ago;-
“I learned overnight that Colin (who had posted for years on here under the name Seabird) passed away on Tuesday. I knew he had not enjoyed the best of health in recent years and no longer went to matches, but his interest in City remained as strong as ever.
I only ever met Colin face to face once I believe, but social media can help you recognise the good uns in this world as well as the not so good uns – for all sorts of reasons, Colin was definitely in the former camp.
He was a generous, probably over generous, supporter of my blog down the years and a fairly regular contributor to its feedback section – I’ll miss his wise words and his Twitter contributions which made clear that we had a common love of animals.
I know at least one of his daughters is a regular at Cardiff City Stadium and I offer her and the rest of Colin’s family my condolences at this sad time.
RIP”
