After the loss last week that brought their run of five consecutive victories to an end, Cardiff City’s Under 23 Development team returned to winning ways at Leckwith this lunchtime with a triumph over Watford.
I say Under 23 side mind but, in truth, City pushed that description to the limit in their selection. When the Under 23 format was brought in to replace the Under 21 one for the 2012/13 season I believe it was, the rule was that you could field an over age goalkeeper and a maximum of three over age outfield players. I’m fairly sure that has remained the rule to this day.
So, by having Alex Smithies, Junior Hoilett, Lee Tomlin and Jonny Williams in the starting eleven, City went as far as they could within the rules and then when you also factor permitted players like Mark Harris and Max Watters who are both pretty regular members of the first team squad these days, in you can see that they fielded what would be considered a very strong line up by the standards of the competition.
Saying that mind, I’ve seen plenty of “reserve” team games down the years where sides with plenty of first team players have just not done the business in terms of playing well and getting a result for the side they were representing in that match. The reasons for this are usually fully understandable in that, say, the players concerned are making their way back from injury and so are reluctant to, and probably under orders not to, stretch themselves too much. Also, although this hasn’t applied for most of the last year, there must be motivational problems for those who are used to playing in plush stadiums in front of big crowds when they are turning out in front of the proverbial three men and a dog on what are often little more than training pitches.
Therefore, anyone expecting, say, a six or seven goal win against a Watford team which although containing a Bergkamp and a Pochetino (both offspring of the Dutch and Argentinian internationals I understand), was a collection of players who fell well within the Under 23 classification I believe, were always likely to be disappointed.
In saying that, City, who scored sixteen times in those five wins I mentioned and even managed to continue with their free scoring ways while losing 5-4 to Charlton a week ago, took their goal tally to twenty four in seven with a 4-0 win which was probably a little bit better than what I was expecting when I saw the two teams.
For most of the game, Watford offered dogged defensive resistance against what at times was continuous pressure, but their cause could not have been helped by conceding a goal quickly when their plan appeared to be to frustrate City for as long as they could.
With so many attack minded players in their team, City had a bit of an unbalanced look to them with Tomlin playing very deep in midfield almost alongside Sam Bowen as the usual three at the back formation was abandoned for what was a 4-4-2. Therefore Owen Pritchard and Dan Martin were more orthodox full backs than the wing backs we’ve become used to seeing lately and it was the former, who I assume served his suspension for his sending off last week by missing the Academy team’s 2-1 loss at Charlton on Saturday, who showed up more early on.
From one sortie forward on six minutes, Pritchard fed Watters who had a really good chance, but his shot was blocked and luck favoured City as the ball bounced towards Harris stood on the far post who touched the ball in from no more than a yard or two out as Watford appealed for an offside flag that never came.
To be honest, I found the next forty minutes or so fairly boring as City dominated without ever looking very threatening. Things livened up though in the minute or two before half time as Tomlin clipped the crossbar with a lovely free kick from right on the edge of the penalty area and then Watters, receiving the ball inside his own half shortly afterwards, broke forward and took advantage of a good run by Harris which took a defender away to break into the penalty area. However, a couple of visiting players had been able to keep up with the striker and it looked as though he’d run up a blind alley until he cut back on himself, turned and then hit a left footed shot across keeper Baptiste and into the corner of the net.
The word clubs use to describe someone like Watters in the last decade or so is “project” – the striker signed from Crawley certainly has rough edges and I’m sure he’s spending a lot of time with the club’s coaches, but it seems to me that the goalscoring instinct is very much there already with him.
City continued to show the cutting edge displayed in the closing stages of the first period when the game restarted and, within a minute, Baptiste had produced a fine save to deny Harris’ side footed effort from twenty yards after City’s best move so far.
Tomlin was becoming more influential and it was from his free kick, which might just have gone in anyway, that Watters touched in his fourth goal in two games for us at this level as Watford again appealed for offside, but the replays of the goal showed that was a valid one.
A few minutes later, there was significant action up the other end of the pitch for the first time when a Watford attacker went down under a challenge from Hoilett – replays of the incident showed that the first contact by the City player may have been outside the area, but it was a close thing and the referee was probably right to point to the spot.
The commentator mentioned Smithies’ fine penalty saving record in the build up to the kick and the keeper lived up to his billing by diving to his right to hold on to Cukur’s attempt as Watford received further confirmation that it just wasn’t their day.
That feeling only grew a minute or two later as Williams kept his head in a goalmouth scramble to make it four and complete the scoring.
Harris headed just wide and was foiled again by Baptiste in the time that remained, while Smithies again denied Cukur in a one on one with the Watford striker as the game wound down to a quiet conclusion.
Tomlin made way for Ryan Kavanagh around the hour mark, but all of the other senior squad players stayed on for the full ninety minutes. In truth however, I’d be surprised to see any of them starting on Saturday when Watford’s senior team are the visitors – Watters’ eye for goal might be enough to have secured a place on the bench for him though.
Cardiff City are still unbeaten under Mick McCarthy, it’s now eleven matches without defeat, but, tonight, for the second successive away match, we were scrappy, uninspired and somewhat off the pace. However, just as at Middlesbrough, we scrapped our way to a draw – this time a goalless one at a Huddersfield team with just one win so far this year.
I didn’t think we were quite as poor as we were at Middlesbrough, but the irony was that we were more fortunate – we had to be when you consider that the home team missed a penalty and former City striker Frazier Campbell missed the best chance of the game shortly afterwards.
One superb effort by Will Vaulks apart, City were, for a second consecutive away game, punchless up front – the BBC’s stats say that we had eight goal attempts with three of them on target, but I’m struggling to remember even a half of them.
I realise that it’s a harsh judgement when City have done so well lately, but, if we are really considered to be serious Play Off candidates now, then we need to be doing better than drawing on the grounds of out of form sides that are too close to the bottom of the table for comfort.
The counter argument to that is that, as Mick McCarthy has just said in his post match interview, if you can’t win, make sure you don’t lose and seeing that we came closer to losing this game than we did to winning it, then a point might be regarded as a good outcome.
Mick McCarthy’s selection for what was his one thousandth game as a manager was made that bit harder because of an injury which kept Perry Ng out and, with our manager adamant in his opinion that he doesn’t regard Leandro Bacuna as a right back, it wasn’t a surprise that the two goal man from midweek wasn’t the player who McCarthy turned to for a replacement for Ng.
Instead, Tom Sang, who had played in an FA Cup game last season under Neil Harris, came in for a league debut and gave an assured and competent showing which marked him out as a City plus point on the night.
There were three other changes, with Joe Ralls coming in for Marlon Pack, Harry Wilson for Bacuna and Josh Murphy for Sheyi Ojo.
A pretty dull first half had little to enliven it, City started quickly and Sean Morrison came fairly close to adding to his recent goal haul when home goalkeeper Ryan Schofield got down well to foil the City skipper.
Up the other end, City were grateful to Dillon Phillips for a diving save from a free kick by Leandro’s brother Juhnino Bacuna, but, although Huddersfield weaved some pretty patterns in midfield, they didn’t have any real goal threat.
Aden Flint, now more than a year without a goal, volleyed against the crossbar from eight yards after Harry Wilson’s shot was diverted into his path, but was ruled offside (it looked a marginal decision of the replays of the incident).
The only legitimate near miss for us in the first period came when Vaulks produced a vicious volleyed shot from twenty odd yards that, to quote a good Cardiff City podcast which has started up in recent weeks, had a bit of Swazz on it, but, in this case, the swerve went slightly the wrong way because it came towards the keeper, who was able to make a good diving save.
That really was the total of worthwhile goal attempts before half time, but Huddersfield were just edging it even though a level score line was about right.
The early stages of the second half offered little evidence that City could go on to win the game and, if anything, Huddersfield were more confident than they had been in the first half.
Not that any of this suggested the deadlock was going to be broken, but the home side stirred themselves and City had a ten minute spell where they could easily have lost the game.
The first of what three heart in mouth moments for City fans came when Curtis Nelson brought down Aaron Ross in the area for what I thought at first was a contentious decision, but further viewing showed that ref Tim Robinson had got his decision right – it was a clear penalty.
However former Arsenal striker Yaya Sanogo dragged his shot wide on his first start for the Terriers to maintain a couple of records for the season, one for each team.
For Huddersfield, it was the third time out of three they had missed the target from the penalty spot, while for City three of the penalties they’ve faced have been saved (Alex Smithies from Sam Vokes at Stoke and Dillon Phillips two saves within a couple of minutes against Preston recently) and now we have this miss (Phillips went the right way for it) which means we’ve still not had a penalty scored against us this season.
Sluggish City were soon in trouble again as they were caught out at the back and home left wing back, Avila was left with a clear run in on goal, but a poor touch as he entered the penalty area gave Phillips to just to spread himself and divert the shot when it came wide for a corner.
Talking of dead ball situations, City were not their usual dominant selves when it came to aerial challenges at either end of the pitch – a porous home defence with the second worst goals against record in the division were consistently able to get their head to free kicks, corners and long throws and Sanago was able to consistently win headers from long balls by the home keeper and defence all evening.
Huddersfield’s aerial success was emphasised when Naby Sarr was unchallenged to head into the path of Campbell who was also in splendid isolation as he volleyed over from just outside the six yard box.
All of these incidents came in the final quarter of the game and, just as at Middlesbrough, my thoughts were that I wanted the final whistle to go straight away because a draw was the best we were going to get from the game.
I’ve mentioned before that our two in central midfield policy had generally worked pretty well in recent games, especially when you consider that we were often up against an extra man in that area, but it was a tough night for Ralls and Vaulks as Huddersfield were often able to create an overload in the middle of the park by dragging the two City men into wide areas.
This was a game where the two attackers in support of Keiffer Moore plan did not work. I’ve this theory that this is a template in existence for City manager whereby Murphy has to come off after an hour or so no matter how he is playing, but this was a night on which such a template, if it exists, would have been designed – a cold night, away from home with our erratic big money signing producing next to nothing.
As at Middlesbrough, Wilson stayed on the pitch for a fair while longer than Murphy, which was fair enough given that he was slightly more of a threat, but, in truth, this was another of those first half of the season showings by the Liverpool loanee which asked questions of both the ability of his team mates to bring him into the game and also his inability to take a game by the scruff of the neck in the manner you might expect someone of his ability to do at this level.
When Wilson was withdrawn in the eighty sixth minute, it was to bring on Marlon Pack which suggested one of two things -either Mick McCarthy was settling for a draw with a defensive looking change or he was doing something about the disparity in central midfield numbers which had been hurting City all night.
It may just have been a coincidence, but, in the event, Pack’s introduction saw City stir themselves in an attacking sense as they enjoyed the better of the remaining seven minutes or so, despite Ojo, Murphy’s replacement, remaining something of a periphery figure. Sang had a shot deflected not too far wide and Morrison might have scored if he’d been able to get more purchase on an overhead kick which did not trouble Schofield too much, but the keeper had more problems dealing with a cross that was high enough to draw the comment that it had snow on it went it came down and was grateful to more vigilant defending from his team mates as the ball was hooked away from Ojo before he could bring it under control.
Mention of substitutions, reminds me that, after the blow of losing Joe Bennett to a cruciate knee ligament injury which normally means nine months, at least, out of the game, his replacement Joel Bagan, who had started the game well, had to be replaced on thirty eight minutes after the youngster suffered a dislocated shoulder.
Now, to me, a dislocated shoulder brings back memories of that fine Welsh rugby winger Ieuan Evans who had a spell during his career where It seemed like the slightest knock to his shoulder would force it to pop put again and he’d miss weeks more rugby, but, hopefully, treatment of such injuries has improved in the last thirty or so years and Bagan’s injury will not prove to be too serious because we are really down to the bare bones now in the left back/left wing back position – Ciaron Brown came on for a league debut tonight and did well enough, but, for me, he is more of a centreback and it is not going to need too much more misfortune in that position for Mick McCarthy to be forced to use someone like Leandro Bacuna in that position, despite his own misgivings about the player’s suitability for such a role.
City now have the luxury of eight days without a game in which they can work on the training pitch and hopefully get one or two players fit again. However, by the time they play next, the task of finishing in the top six at the end of the season could look a lot more testing by then. Firstly, all of our rivals for fifth or sixth position (realistically, anything higher should be beyond is) are playing today with what are fixtures which give them a good chance of picking up a win – for example, Barnsley are a home to Birmingham, Bristol City entertain QPR, Millwall are home to Blackburn who are in a terrible run currently, Bournemouth are the latest team to try and make Preston’s dodgy home record look even worse, Reading are home to last but one Sheffield Wednesday and Stoke have bottom club Wycombe as visitors – Middlesbrough’s visit to Swansea looks a tough assignment for Neil Warnock’s team, but they did go to Norwich and get a draw quite recently.
Furthermore, Barnsley play their game in hand over us next Tuesday when Derby, so poor at Cardiff City Stadium a few days ago, are the visitors, so with the Yorkshire side in great form with six straight wins, there has to be a good chance that we’ll be six points behind them going into a testing week of fixtures in which we’ll face Watford, Stoke and Swansea before the international break – that’s why it looks to me very much like a case of two points dropped, rather than one gained, tomight.
Given what happened in his first ten matches in charge, the announcement yesterday that Mick McCarthy and his assistant Terry Connor had both signed two year contracts with the club hardly comes as a surprise.
Of course, the original plan was to give McCarthy until the end of the season and then take stock of the situation, but it was also mentioned at the time of his appointment that the task he had been charged with was to avoid relegation after that fate had begun to look possible as we lurched from defeat to defeat In Neil Harris’ final days at the club.
My initial reaction on learning of the appointment of Mick McCarthy was an angry one, but a reminder of his overall management record, not just the last five years or so of it, calmed me down somewhat although I still had concerns that he would represent a continuation of the style of football which we had seen under Messrs Slade, Warnock and Harris if he was appointed on a longer term basis.
Those doubts still exist to a degree, but, in all honesty, how can you argue against a record which saw City reach the magic fifty points (the traditional number seen as being sufficient to avoid relegation from the Championship) with thirteen games still to be played and twenty four points gained from a possible thirty?
It’ll be interesting to see what sort of team building takes place in the summer if this season ends with what has to be its most likely outcome – confirmation of another season in the Championship. During the early days of Mick McCarthy’s reign, I was thinking of what we’d need in central midfield in particular, but there were also questions to be asked in other areas of the pitch. However, stats such as twenty three goals scored and only seven conceded in ten matches rather tell the story that things are going very well at either end of the pitch.
Also, although there are not the readily available stats to confirm an impression that there are in other areas of the pitch, I must admit that our two man central midfield is doing better than I ever thought it would against opponents who often have an extra man in that area – our passing statistics could still do with improving, but, as throughout the rest of the team, Mick McCarthy has been able to improve matters with methods which appear quite simple, albeit with some shrewd tactical tweaks.
Clearly, our new manager will not be able to maintain the sort of results we’ve seen so far in the long term, but, by modern standards, he’s someone who stays at clubs (in the UK at least!) for a long time – he’s not going to have a fortune to spend here, but you’d like to think that he won’t have to operate with the sort of restrictions he had at Ipswich, so will Mick McCarthy be able to show that he is still a top end Championship manager?
Finally, it’s now just a few days to the fiftieth anniversary of our win over Real Madrid in the European Cup Winners Cup Quarter Final First Leg in March 1971. To commemorate that anniversary, I’ve written a book called Real Madrid and all that – details of which can be found below;-
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
