I’d be surprised if anyone was thinking it, but just in case they were, it was proved today that the 3-4-3 or whatever you want to call it system that the first team have played since Mick McCarthy’s arrival as manager is not the reason why they can be so dull to watch.
This afternoon, Cardiff City’s Under 23 team made it five wins from five to take over at the top of the Professional Development League south section from Bristol City, who won 2-1 at Ipswich, but City’s 2-0 win over Millwall means they now have a slightly better goal difference. Moreover, they did so playing attractive and free flowing football that featured some lovely, one touch attacking play and it was all done with that same 3-4-3 formation!
There were a lot of similarities between today’s game at Leckwith (the windy conditions at this more exposed venue only made the control City showed all the more impressive), and last week’s win by the same score against Sheffield United across the road at Cardiff City Stadium. City had to be vigilant defensively for long periods, but to repeat myself from last week’s report, there is an air of the 12/13 Championship winning senior team with these youngsters in that they give the opposition so little to get encouraged about and you feel comfortable watching them defend a single goal advantage.
The goals came in either half and were similar in nature with strikers being played into scoring positions by slide rule passes and then finished calmly and confidently across the keeper by the scorer from about fifteen yards.
The prolific Chanka Zimba got the first as he fastened on to Keiron Evans’ defence splitting pass to beat Millwall keeper Gilmore and then he turned provider to find Isaak Davies who took a touch before putting away his first goal of the season.
Evans came close to scoring before Zimba had done so when great combination play by Davies and wing back Tamil D’Almeida sent the latter tearing down the right touchline and his low cross was met by Evans some ten yards out only for him to be denied what would have been a memorable goal by Gilmore’s fine diving save. Keenan Patten brought the best out of the keeper again with a shot from distance and Evans got away a free kick which was saved in more routine style as City enjoyed complete control in the first forty five minutes, although O’Neil did bring what seemed to be a very good save out of George Ratcliffe (a corner was given at least, but Ratcliffe seemed to be saying to the ref that he hadn’t touched it) as a reminder to the home team not to get complacent – which was something they never showed any signs of doing.
Sheffield United and Millwall both began by matching up City’s formation and paid the penalty by being completely outplayed by our two central midfielders (that must be the first time I’ve typed anything like that in about a decade!), Eli King and Patten.
In both cases, our opponents knew they had to change or they were going to concede more than the one goal they’d done so far. Sheffield made their change around the half hour mark and Millwall’s came at half time, but it was the same one – switch from a back three and wing backs to a flat back four and use the extra man in midfield, thereby giving them a three to two advantage in that area.
On both occasions, the move would probably be regarded as something of a success by the coaching staff concerned, but it didn’t enable their team to gain any points or even score a goal. What it did do though was ensure their team had more of the ball and a territorial advantage, but, as mentioned earlier, such was our organisation and defending, we never looked anything less than comfortable.
As the commentator on the club website correctly stated, the fan in you wants to see Steve Morrison respond with something that would give King and Patten some help as a way to reestablishing their earlier control, but, with this level, the operative word is development and so Patten and King get to gain some understanding of what it’s like in men’s football when you’re outnumbered in the middle of the park.
Still, just as last week, it was a bit of a shame to see the superiority our two had established over their opponents lost because the other team had to do to do something to try to counteract them.
There is no slight intended here on King, who is playing really well so far this season, when I say that Patten was so good for forty five minutes today when we had most of the ball and then impressive in a less spectacular way when we didn’t – on this form, Patten should be joining his old mucker Sam Bowen in the first team, squad.
Behind the two local boys in the middle of the park was another Academy prospect in Taylor Jones who stepped seamlessly in to replace Mark McGuiness from last week, there was also the assured Oliver Denham who looks a fine player at this level and after having a very slight dig at captain James Connolly last week for the number of fouls he gave away, I can’t remember him being pulled up once by the ref today, despite him being the sort of player who tackles and intercepts a lot – today he was outstanding in both of those facets of the game.
On the right, D’Almeida is making a better fist of the wing back role than I thought he would, while Jai Semenyo on the other flank is an absolute natural in the position – he may not have been quite as impressive as last week, but he did show that he can play on both sides of the pitch when he switched to the right when D’Almeida made way for Tom Davies on his return from injury.
Of the front players, Zimba continues his transformation from peripheral second team player last season to possible first teamer this and I was so pleased to see Davies score and give a reminder of the talent which so impressed our manager when he first came here.
There wasn’t a goal today for Keiron Evans, but he is the creative hub of the team and now, having got into the first team, I’d say he is the most likely candidate to go the way of Bowen as someone whose appearances at this level will become less and less – although not quite the same type of player, Cian Ashford looks a ready made replacement to me in the event of that happening. .
In a way, it’s a bad thing that our second string are doing so well because it only brings the struggles of the first team into sharper focus. Yes, the difference in standards has to borne in mind of course,and I’m certainly not claiming the Under 23 side could be selected en bloc in the first team and prosper, but in recent weeks, the contrast between how easy 3-4-3 is made to look by the youngsters and the problems our senior professionals especially have been having with it has been marked.
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Since we got relegated we’ve had one game a season where the wheels have spectacularly come off for the team. In 19/20 it was the New Year’s Day 6-1 massacre at Queens Park Rangers, where they were six up after about an hour and then took pity on us and then last April there was the 5-0 hammering at Hillsborough by a Sheffield Wednesday side destined to finish bottom of the league – a look at Wednesday’s record for last season shows you it was a result they never came remotely close to repeating against anyone else.
Despite this, it was no fluke win by Wednesday, they were three up in no time and had done all of their scoring by around the hour mark – they were five goals better than us, perhaps more.
However, the most pertinent thing was that those defeats were very much one offs in those seasons – last season for example, our next worst defeat was 0-2. One horror show a season is not enough for a team to lose the reputation they’ve gained for being good defensively, it’s when it’s backed up by two or three other big losses that this happens.
So, a casual observer of Cardiff City in recent years may well think that being routed 5-1 at Elwood Park today by Blackburn Rovers is nothing to get too concerned about, it’s completely untypical of the team and they’ll come through it to end up in their usual fifth to tenth finishing spot.
If you’re reading this, then I doubt it very much if you fall into the casual observer category and you’ll know better than that – what had been a pretty concerning start to the campaign has got a lot worse and it seems daft now to think that we could have gone top of the league if we had beaten the wurzels four weeks ago today!
The QPR loss happened about halfway through 19/20 and there was little left of 20/21 when we played at Hillsborough, the difference this time is that we’ve not even played ten games yet – we’re defending badly enough for similar such thumpings in the coming weeks and months.
There was so much wrong with today’s performance, but, clearly, when a team concedes a lot goals, it’s the defence that will come under the closest scrutiny and, although this is going to sound a bit like being wise after the event, I wasn’t that surprised to see us look so shaky.
While the goals against record before today may not suggest it, we’ve been poor at the back this season – there’s been one clean sheet kept in eleven matches in all competitions and many of the goals we’ve given away have seen at least one of our three “untouchables” of Morrison, Nelson and Flint at fault somewhere along the line, yet our manager was saying they’ve been “excellent” at yesterday’s media briefing!
I think it’s fair to say that, whatever one thought of his appointment at the time, many City fans admitted to liking Mick McCarthy because he was straight when asked a question, his answers were honest and right from the heart. Having seen his media style closer up now for almost nine months, I’d say our manager is a little less straightforward than he first appears.
Yes, you’ll get the honesty when he is critical of his team and you very rarely hear him blaming officials – if there is any of the latter, he’ll often add to it something along the lines of “but that doesn’t excuse what we got wrong”. That’s the sort of stuff that will make the headlines from a McCarthy media appearance and it all adds to the public perception of the man, but there’s also a lot of very bland manager speak in there as well, hence the my three central defenders have been excellent baloney we got yesterday.
Was that our manager being the blunt, plain speaking Yorkshireman that is the bedrock of how he is thought of? Hardly, but I wonder if he feels the same way about the trio concerned tonight!
Actually, I thought we started quite well today with Morrison having a header cleared off the line as we enjoyed a measure of midfield control, but once the Blackburn plan became more apparent (to draw us on to them and hit us on the break) our domination of the ball (the BBC stats showed us having sixty one per cent possession) became more understandable.
Blackburn are not the first team to be happy for us to have possession of the ball as long as it doesn’t lead to us having too many set pieces opportunities because, although we passed it fairly well by our standards today, there was little sign that we had the guile to create anything in open play.
This goes to the heart of my continuous, and monotonous, criticism of City – we lack creativity and do not pass the ball well enough.
However that is to ignore something else that is central to why we are something of a basket case of a team currently. As soon as Blackburn began to bear their teeth, it became clear that, just as at Coventry, we couldn’t live with our opponent’s pace. So, we were losing sprints to Blackburn players all over the place, but they were also making our movement of the ball look ponderous.
Our lack of pace had something to do with shocking goals of a similar nature that we conceded at Peterborough and Coventry, but it couldn’t be blamed too much for the first one we conceded today. True, the fact that Marlon Pack and Will Vaulks were nowhere near home midfielder John Buckley as he played a fairly straightforward pass forward to Sam Gallagher was partially down to a lack of pace in midfield, but when you’ve got three central defenders covering the sort of area Buckley’s pass was aimed at, it shouldn’t have been too much of a problem.
Now, Mick McCarthy maintained after the game that Gallagher was offside – that thought never entered my mind as I watched the horror unfold or, as far as I’m aware, those of the two commentators I was listening to, but even if our manager is right, that’s no excuse for Flint being no way to be seen as Gallagher waltzed through a yawning gap between Nelson and Morrison and shot beyond Dillon Phillips – it was abysmal defending.
Blackburn had the bit between their teeth now and we endured a very tough second quarter of the game which saw us concede two more.
Before that though, rugged Blackburn centreback Daniel Ayala (I often wonder why he never ended up with us for some of his career, he seems such a natural for us, but there’s still time I suppose) headed a corner on to a post, before Blackburn’s pace did for us again a few minutes later. Tyrhys Dolan skinned the lumbering Flint (for what it’s worth I think he was our best central defender today, but, given the competition, it’s hardly a compliment) out on Blackburn’s right, Nelson was drawn out to meet Dolan, but was helpless to stop a cross that reached Chilean international striker via Nottingham, Ben Brereton-Diaz who volleyed in with no defender near him.
City looked like they would stumble their way to the dressing room at half time only two goals down, but there was a third one to come for which the word “farcical could have been invented. City were by now in a state of panic every time a Blackburn player ran at them, but the isolated Brereton-Diaz had few options as he started off down Blackburn’s left about thirty five yards from goal and flicked a poor pass which should have meant that the danger was over, but Vaulks and Morrison played an inadvertent and, admittedly, unlucky one two between them which left the striker bearing down on goal once he had burst clear of Morrison’s half hearted challenge. The comedy was far from over though, as Brereton-Diaz slipped and was only able to poke a half hit trundling effort at the frantically onrushing Phillips who went to ground in an uncontrolled manner which left him unable to deal with the dribbler of a shot that was coming at him. The ball rolled towards the empty net, but there was nothing the keeper could do about it now and it was left to Nelson to just about keep it out, only for the clearance to hit Brereton-Diaz and roll in from point blank range.
This was the latest in a small number of goals I’ve laughed at despite the fact they were scored against us – it was either that or cry.
For the second consecutive away game, Mick McCarthy made a couple of half time changes with Mark Harris and the returning Ryan Giles coming on for Perry Ng and Vaulks (the first named could feel somewhat aggrieved at his withdrawal, the second named, less so).
Although I still can’t quite figure out what formation we were playing, the changes did lead to some improvement after the break. For a start, Giles’ presence on the pitch ensured our strikers had some good crosses to work off and Harris brought about home keeper Thomas Kaminski’s best save of the match with a header from one of them, while Morrison glanced in a Giles corner.(it had to be a set piece of course) to record yet another second half goal.
By then though, we were four down as Gallagher outjumped an isolated Joel Bagan to nod across to Dolan who burst forward in a way a City midfielder never does, to beat Phillips.
The scoring was completed when more panicky defending led to a succession of loose balls being lost before Phillips came charging out brainlessly to bring down sub Khadra for a clear, yet unnecessary, penalty which Bremerton-Diaz put away to complete his hat trick.
Although there will probably be some who are critical of the younger players in the team, it’s men like Phillips, all of the back three, Vaulks and, to a lesser extent, Pack who should be criticised first and longest. It’s tough enough for young players trying to deal with the step up into senior football, but it’s doubly so when they are getting so little help from their elders and, alleged, betters.
Just a quick few words on Blackburn, they were good today and have made a promising start despite the loss of an unreplaced, in the transfer market at least, twenty plus goals a season striker. Despite this, I hear manager Tony Mowbray is not too popular with their fans. Earlier on, I said that Daniel Ayala seemed a natural fit for us and, at first glance, Mowbray would appear to be as well when it comes to the manager’s job. After all, he was a no nonsense centre half as a player and he has enjoyed success at this level in the past, but, if you look a bit closer, Mowbray teams have tended to be attack minded, easy on the eye with more than a fair sprinkling of star quality – clearly, that’s always been too much of a stumbling block to be overcome as far as City’s hierarchy are concerned.
At this point, I’d like to thank Jason Perry for something he said on Rob Phillips’ phone in tonight. I like Ewan Robert’s, but he, like a few in the media, has this notion that City fans are happy to put up with the boring, one dimensional dross we’ve had to watch for so long.
Just because there is no Swansea style “it’s our way or you’re out” attitude among City fans, that makes a few in the media believe that we have to put up with what we’re given so to speak, but Jason was very quick to point out the attitude of most supporters towards the likes of Kav, Steve McPhail, Jason Koumas and Whitts as proof that they enjoy and appreciate good, skillful, footballers and football..
I think Perry is right when he says City fans like a high tempo, pressing game which includes a decent level of quality football, but that’s an awful long way from what we’ve been getting for at least three years.
Whatever the truth, the way I feel tonight, City can get along without me on Tuesday, I’ve bought my season ticket, they’ve got my money and, based on the attitude of those who make the decisions at the club in recent months, that’s all they’re interested in.
For myself, City don’t seem worth making the effort for these days – crap football and a changed sense of priorities brought about by 150,000 of your fellow country men and women dying in a pandemic have seen to that.
Finally, the Under 18s were in action at Colchester this lunchtime in their first game since their 7-1 loss at Wigan. They had a tough time of things defensively again, falling 1-0 and then 3-1 behind, but goals from James Crole, Caleb Hughes and sub Rhys Schwank ensured that at least they made the long journey home with a point.
It’s the time of year again when I ask readers of Mauve and Yellow Army to make a contribution towards its running costs. Before I go into detail about this, I should, once again, offer my sincere thanks to all of you who have helped ensure the future of the blog over the past three years through a mixture of monthly payments via Patreon, monthly Standing Orders into my bank account and once a year payments via bank transfer, PayPal, cheque and cash.
The first time I made this request for assistance, it was prompted by a need for funds to pay for three yearly web hosting costs which, frankly, I was in no position to meet following my move of house a few months earlier. However, I’m pleased to say that, this time around, the web hosting bill was settled back in June with none of the problems there were back in 2018.
Therefore, any monies received this year will go towards other running costs and, although it’s too early yet to make any formal commitments despite so many of the pandemic restrictions in Wales being lifted recently, I am minded to do another review of a season from the past book to follow on from “Real Madrid and all that” which looked back on the 1970/71 campaign. At the moment 1975/76, the first promotion season I experienced, looks to be favourite for the book treatment, which would mean a lot more trips back and forth to Cardiff than my finances have become used to over the past year and a half – hopefully, the majority of them will not have to be made via Radyr Cheyne!
As always, the blog will still be free to read for anyone who chooses not to make a donation towards its running costs and, apart from the one in the top right hand corner which is to do with Google Ads, you will never have to bother about installing an ad blocker to read this site because there will never be any.
Finally, as mentioned earlier, donations can be made through Patreon, PayPal, by bank transfer, cheque, Standing Order/Direct Debit and cash, e-mail me at paul.evans8153@hotmail.com for further payment details.
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