Another away game where we barely had a chance worth the name.

When two teams near the the top of a table play each other, a variety of things can happen. Clearly, the Sky commentator was expecting a football classic between two teams that popped the ball about as they found it easy to create chances.

In my experience, matches between evenly matched sides in the same division tend to end with the sides canceling each other other out in a draw or a single goal win.

Cardiff went to Bolton today this lunchtime and did not impress their fan base.

It seems,that we’ve been good enough to be top of the league for most of what has been just about a quarter of a season.

For ninety minutes, we never looked like conceding today, apart from a moment in added time when Nathan Trott finally had something to do with a cross into a dangerous area.

That should have been that. City had their warning, but didn’t heed it. Instead, Tanetswa Nayakuhwa, who, ironically, was giving one of his better substitute City performances, opted for the sort of brainless cross field pass I used to specialize in when I was 14 , but I would have have had the football wherewithal even then not to have played such a dangerous pass towards the opposition ‘s most potent attacker.. However, Nyakhuwa attempted a forty yard low, cross field ball which, of course, fell into the path of Bolton’s most in form player Amario Cozier-Duberry and a few seconds later , the ball was in the net courtesy of a finish completely at odds with the sort of play we’d seen before then. It was a fine finish from about twenty yards

There was one positive and surprising selection for Cardiff as Alex Robertson was fit enough for his first league performance of the season. Robertson’s attitude in the pre season matches he played left a bit to be desired. However, I thought he was one of our better performers, today and, on an afternoon where so many were guilty of cheaply conceding possession, Robertson was one of noyot many who valued possession.

Unfortunately, for a squad that has a good level of individual ability, City haa a shocking ball retention record and the indictment presented by the match stats say it all

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c77zrgp8pl8t#MatchStats

So. Again, another short report because there’s so little to say about the game. I nmight not have thought it at the time, l but David Turnbull’s header we wide about about 25 minututes was about as ascloce as we came to scoring today and, belieeve me, it was was ‘t very close at all. As is too often the case, defenders were our best passers of the ball with Turnbull, again , not really doing the businesss in the middle of the park and Rubin Colwill g9iveing what I’d say was his sloppiest passing performance of the season so far.

This was like Port Vale and Stockport in that City did not really look like they were tryinmg to win the game. A 0-0 draw would have been a saitsactory outcome I suppose, bu7t we seem happy to settle for such a score very early into proceedings.

Away from the first team, the under 18s were beaten 3-0 by Bournemouth and the under 21s drew 2-2 at QPR with Dak Mafico and Troy Perrett scoring.

It seems there was just the one game played in local football this weekend with Treorchy won 5-3 at Llanrumney United in Division One (East) of the Highadmit South Wales Alliance.

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Trott, and Fish, to the rescue as unconvincing Cardiff return to top of the league.

After his Leyton Orient side had been unluckily beaten 4-3 at Cardiff City Stadium a fortnight ago, Richie Wellens said you won’t see another opponent come to the ground and win the possession battle (54 to 46) while having 26 attempts on the Cardiff goal.

Mr Wellens was not proven wrong in the first league game after that seven goal thriller because City had 56 per cent possession to 44, but today’s opponents, Reading, matched the 26 shots Orient had.

Cardiff were doing so well prior to the first international break and then appeared to lose their way between the first and second break when they had five home matches to play and just four away ones. 

Three wins and a draw from the away games was perfectly acceptable, as indeed were the performances at  Burnley and Wigan, but Bradford, Burton and Newport all won in Cardiff and Orient should have done.

It certainly felt at the time that City had lost their way as October replaced September and, yet as we go into the spell between the October and November international breaks, we see that one win has taken us to the top of the league again!

Make no mistake about it, I’d say that only at Wigan have we played remotely like a top of a table side in recent weeks. It’s a concern that all too familiar doubts are resurfacing at home, but, on the other hand, we’ve turned losing positions in three home games this season into wins.

Of course, being a level lower than we’ve been used to being in the last couple of decades makes it easier to recover deficits, but, I saw nothing but defeat looming when we trailed 3-2 around the hour mark against Orient and it was the same again at half time today when it was Cardiff 0 Reading 1.

I mentioned after the Orient match that I don’t getBBM’s almost obsessive desire to change his centreback combination from one game to the next. I think the start he’s made here has earned him a fair bit of latitude , so I’m not going to call for his sacking or anything like that, but, I would welcome some sort of explanation as to why his tinkering extends to our centrebacks.

Today, having decided to go with Gabe Osho and Calum Chambers at the back, There was a further change at half time when the former was replaced by Will Fish.

Sadly, Osho was continuing a trend begun on his debut against Bradford when he gave away a daft penalty, then, against Orient, his poor back pass conceded us a goal while today he gave Reading an easy chance to score the game’s first goal and then conceded a really soft corner under no pressure.

The reaction when we signed Osho was that we’d bought someone who was too good for League One and when you consider that he’d played in the Premier League and Ligue A  without making the sort of mistakes that he’s making every week for us it seems, something!g needed to done.

Bringing Fish on made sense, he improved our defending and made a brilliant block on the line to maintain out 2-1 lead. However, soon after he came on, Fish completely lost Jack Marriott and we were, yet again , indebted to Nathan Trott for getting us out of trouble. Fish was playing week in, week out earlier in the season and he had a consistency to his game which, hardly surprising ly , is not as clear now as it was.

That said, I thought the other three members of our back four all improved after Fish replace ed Osho.

Reading had the chances to be well clear at the break. Lewis Wing had a free kick deflected on to the cross bar, Trott denied Doyle and then the keeper was slightly at fault when Wing’s effort from thirty five yards flew into the net in a central position with Trott unsighted by Calum Chambers.

All City could offer in response was a scramble in front of goal which saw Yousef Salech and Joel Colwill denied from close range by desperate defending and goal keeping and they left the pitch to the sound of boos at half time.

City needed a quick response and got it with a first goal for the club by Omari Kellyman. At first viewing , it looked like the result of weak goalkeeping, but replays showed a deflection which made life awkward for Jack Steven’s.

Kpakio, City’s best outfield player provided the assist and when Kellyman’s replacement Isaak Davies combined with the young full back, Kpakio’s cross was turned in from eight yards by Salech to win the points.

City had improved, but Reading must have been wondering how they lost, particularly when Fish denied Paddy Lane and Trott saved from Charlie Savage.

An exciting afternoon then, but you can’t help thinking we cannot keep on winning like this.

The under 18s do keep on winning though- today by 3-1 over Watford at Leckwith, thanks to goals by Jack Sykes and Harry Watts (no news on who scored the other one).

In local football, Ynysygerwen beat Treherbert Boys and Girls Club 3-0 to keep them at the bottom of the Ardal Leagues South West.

In the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Championship Ton Pentre, won 1-0 at Bettws to stay top and in Division One East, Treorchy Boys and Girls Club played out a 0-0 draw with Splott FC.

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