On a day when the six teams below them won, Cardiff City gave an uncharacteristically ragged performance in drawing 2-2 at Burton Albion this afternoon.
I thought it was a strange game in a couple of respects. Firstly, three of the goals were heavily reliant on inadvertent deflections which acted as “assists”, while the one well worked goal might well have been disallowed if VAR was in use.
A score of 2-2 is suggestive of an open and entertaining affair, but this was a match which was flattered by it’s scoreline because, although there was quite an exciting last few minutes as both sides chased the three points, there were a total of only five on target efforts throughout.
Moving on to the second reason I found it an odd game, the conditions weren’t ideal in that the pitch struck me as the worst one we’ve played on this season. I couldn’t see what it was like on the opposite side of the pitch, but the side on which the cameras were placed looked like a car had been driven along the wing as it was quite badly cut up. The rest of the pitch didn’t look too bad, but, although it seemed quite a still afternoon, there were times when the ball appeared to bobble about more than you’d expect it to.
In saying that, the vagaries of the pitch do not fully explain why the players of both teams were often guilty of conceding possession when they appeared to have the ball fully under control and under no great pressure – furthermore, the kicking of both keepers was poor throughout (Nathan Trott’s long kicking has declined significantly in recent matches).
For some reason, it appeared as if the conditions were too testing for the techniques of many of the players on the pitch as poor first touches abounded and concentration sometimes seemed to wander.
City gave Joel Bagan a rest as Ronan Kpakio replaced him at left back and Callum Robinson came in to lead the line as Omari Kellyman, one of the few who was able to maintain his normal skill set even if he was guilty of surrendering possession carelessly at times, dropping into the number ten role at the expense of Joel Colwill.
The Kpakio/Chris Willock combination on the left never really got off the ground as their unfamiliarity with each other’s game showed. In saying that, neither of them were helped by a City start which had me thinking that I should be yelling “wakey, wakey!” at the TV screen.
City just couldn’t settle as Burton pressed them back with a series of long throw ins by Alex Hartridge troubling them. Such was Burton’s dominance early on it was no surprise to see them take the lead on eleven minutes as Hartridge’s throw caused confusion, but it would not have resulted in a goal were it not for Kellyman’s swing at the ball as he was getting up from being knocked over which served to tee up Jake Beesley who finished really well with a hooked shot from ten yards past Trott.
Sensing they could perhaps build up a winning lead before City shook themselves out of their lethargy, the home team pressed forward, but they were unable to create that chance to double their lead.
Gradually, City began to get their bearings somewhat and, although never playing well by this season’s standards, they went on to have the better of the last twenty minutes of the first half.
The fact that our front players hadn’t really got their act together was shown by how it was defenders who came closest to finding an equaliser for us before the break. Perry Ng was involved in two of the three incidents when we may have scored. The first came when he went down under a challenge by Dylan Williams for what looked on first viewing to be a stone wall penalty, but referee Martin Coy, who let an awful lot of dodgy tackles go unpunished, waved play on (for me, subsequent replays of the incident only muddied the water to the extent that I still can’t make my mind up as to whether the ref got it right or not).
Shortly afterwards, Ng delivered a wicked low cross which goalkeeper Brad Collins dived to down around the post only for Mr Coy to give a goal kick. Then it was the turn of Calum Chambers as his twenty five yard volley was tipped away by Collins for the only on target effort of the game which did not result of a goal.
With Kpakio having been booked in the opening exchanges, it was no great surprise to see Bagan’s rest last no more than forty five minutes as he was brought on for the teenager. The substitution added to BBM’s Midas touch reputation as we came up with an equaliser less than a minute after the restart, but Bagan had nothing to do with it as it was a goal created down our right. Before that though, we needed one of those careless losses of possession by the home side as the ball was presented to Ollie Tanner who found Ng and his low cross was swept into the net on the half volley by Alex Robertson from around the penalty spot. However, with Robinson stood directly in front of Collins in what looked like an offside position, it was a goal which might have been ruled out by VAR if we had been cursed by its presence.
For a while after that, City looked more like their usual selves as there were occasional passages of play of a quality which Burton were incapable of matching, but, they were only fleeting and so tended to add to my sense of frustration.
Nevertheless, City were now looking the more likely winners and just past the hour mark, they appeared to be on their way to the three points thanks to a second Robertson goal. Before that though, it needed one of those unforced errors which the game was never able to shake off. Collins dived to turn Willock’s shot around the post, but, rightly, Chambers’ first half effort remained the match’s only on target non scoring effort because this one was going a foot or more wide.
City took the resultant corner short and when the cross came in a home defender could only play the ball into the path of Robertson, who had taken the corner, and he drove his amgled shot through Collins’ legs from ten yards.
Having got in front, you’d expect a top of the table side to go on to beat a team which finds themselves in the bottom four tonight, but we never looked convincing as, far more than normal, we were losing possession in dangerous positions rtoo. close to our goal.
Eight minutes from time Will Fish, who otherwise was one of our better players, gave away a cheap free kick at the corner of our penalty area and Burton took maximum advantage with a goal that owed a great deal to luck as George Evans’ shot took a deflection off the wall which sent the ball high into the air to drop perfectly for Kyran Lofthouse who had the easy task of netting from close range.
Seven minutes of added time should have produced a winner when Chambers, not at his best today, missed what looked like a straightforward long ball to leave Beesley well clear of the last defender with a forty yard run in on goal. However Burton’s in form striker didn’t have the pace, or probably the stamina, to take full advantage and ended up passing to sub Tyrese Shade who shot wide as City defenders frantically raced back to cover.
There was still time for sub Cian Ashford to knock a low ball across the home goal into an area where the absent Yousef Salech would probably find himself, but there was no blue shirt close enough to apply the finishing touch for what would have been a simple goal and so we ended up with a point which, to be fair, was all we deserved as a defeat would have been harsh on Burton.
A mixed set of results for the age group teams this weekend. The under 21s could have few complaints about their 2-0 loss to Coventry at Leckwith last night – they were a little unlucky to be behind at half time after conceding in just three minutes, but when Coventry scored a second early in the second period, City had little in the way of a response.
Incidentally, a big thank you to City website match commentator John Donovan for his kind words about this blog although I was going to take him to task for calling me The old Bob Wilson, but as I’m going to be leaving my sixties behind for ever in the coming week, I suppose he had a point!
To balance things up, the under 18s had a big win this lunchtime at the same venue as goals by Moreno, Sykes, Phelan, Prickett and Norris gave them a 5-0 win over Colchester.
Locally, Treorchy Boys and Girls were beaten 3-1 at home by Pentyrch Rangers Seniors in the Highadmit Division One East on a weekend where most of the games in the south Wales area fell victim to the wet weather.
Footnote:
Having slept on it, reading what I said about the Burton game this morning makes me wonder whether I’m being overly critical of the team. After all, we’re top of the league with about a third of the season to play and we’re unbeaten in nine games. However, what I wrote reflects how I felt in the immediate aftermath of the game and, on balance, I stick by what I say – we slipped some way below the standards we’ve set for ourselves in the last three months or so yesterday. Credit to Burton for their part in that, but we’ve not played that well in any of our three away draws in 2026 and yesterday we were worse than we were at Wycombe and Leyton Orient.
