It’s been too long, but, finally a good game of football for a Cardiff/Wales fan to watch!

Posted on October 9, 2021 by The other Bob Wilson

I think it’s fair to say that Robert Page has been thought of as a pretty defensive manager of Wales since he took over from Ryan Giggs last year, but he went a long way towards getting people to revise those opinions with his attitude in tonight’s very important qualifier in Prague against the Czech Republic.

The desperately disappointing goalless draw with Estonia at Cardiff City Stadium last month had seen this labelled as a must win match and the way Rob Page reacted as a match that offered all of the entertainment that many recent games have lacked strongly suggested he thought it was.

Looking at it now though after a 2-2 draw which left me thinking that we should have won, if we accept that Belgium were always going to win the group, then a draw doesn’t look too bad an outcome. In fact, now that we have the benefit of taking four points from six against the Czechs, I’m pretty sure that we’ll finish second if we win in Estonia on Monday and then beat Belarus at home next month – with the Czechs only having two matches left to play, it means that can only get to fourteen points and we can match that before we get to play Belgium.*

Some may think that I’m putting too much emphasis on the importance of coming second in the group when our Nations League success offers us a possible route to qualification already. Maybe I am, but it may mean a home Semi Final in the Play Offs and, even if it doesn’t, it will continue a run of good finishes in our last four qualification groups with only the one when we were pipped by the Republic of Ireland in the quest for a 2018 World Cup Finals place being considered a disappointment.

As usual, Wales had important players missing, Gareth Bale was the one that made the headlines of course, but the non Covid illness related drop outs of Ben Davies and David Brooks certainly didn’t help. Still, we did have Aaron Ramsey fit and captaining the side and, although 20/21 has been a pretty miserable season so far for Keiffer Moore, the line that we look a lot more dangerous when he plays still holds true after tonight.

In saying that, Keiffer is clearly lacking a bit of confidence in front of goal at the moment and this showed as, for the first of what turned out to be three or four speedy counter attacks, Wales’ positivity in keeping players upfield when defending set pieces combined with the Czech’s committing so many men forward threatened to present us with a valuable lead.

Wales were left with a clear two on one as Dan James fastened on to Ramsey’s astute pass. Unfortunately though, the Leeds man slightly delayed and then over hit his pass to Moore which meant that Tomas Vaclik, the home keeper, was able to almost be on top of the City striker as he attempted his shot and so made a decent save, but you couldn’t help thinking that it was a chance that the 20/21 Keiffer would have put away last season.

The encouraging thing for Wales though was that there was little sign that this would be an isolated opportunity for them as we enjoyed the better of things for the majority of the first half and when Ethan Ampadu and Ramsey combined to send Neco Williams surging down the right, the wing back’s cross glanced off James’ head into the path of Ramsey who had sped sixty yards forward to receive the ball on the far post.

There was still a lot for Ramsey, booked after about twenty seconds by fussy German referee Aytekin, to do, but he showed great composure to dummy Vaclik and then thread his shot beyond the three defenders covering behind the keeper.

Criminally, Wales lost their lead within less than two minutes as their three central defenders were all drawn towards the ball, leaving Novak free to get in a shot which may have been going just wide, but Danny Ward, who had made a good early save to deny Hlozek after Ampadu had presented the Czechs with the ball from a throw in, sprawled to save it and the ball fell into the path of Pesek who scored easily from eight yards.

I wouldn’t criticize Ward at all for that goal, but just four minutes after half time, there was no one else to blame but him for an awful howler which presented the home team with a lead which they did precisely nothing to create themselves as Ramsey won the ball and passed it twenty yards back to his keeper. Yes, there was a bit too much pace on the pass and, ideally, it would have been played wide of goal, but we’re often told Ward is very good with the ball at his feet and there was certainly nothing panicky in the way he tried to deal with the situation. In fact, Ward was, if anything, too casual and ended up getting the slightest of touches on the ball as he allowed it to trundle past him into the net – the television coverage gave it as a Ramsey own goal, but it should be debited against the keeper for a blunder which threatened to consign us to a defeat which would have considerably weakened our chances of getting second place.

For a while, the Czechs were in the ascendancy as Wales struggled to recover from their self inflicted wound, but the tide began to turn again with the introduction of  Harry Wilson and Connor Roberts for Chris Gunter and Joe Morrell. Even though he is just back from injury, Robert’s, predictably, offered more of a threat down the right than Gunter did and Havlik was soon forced into a save from a Moore header, but it was when Wilson began to get involved that the contest definitely began to swing back in our favour.

Wilson, operating a bit deeper than I expected him to, set up the equaliser by finding James with a slide rule pass and the winger confidently added another goal against the Czechs to go with his winner against them at Cardiff City Stadium – there was a nerve racking wait for a VAR check on a possible offside before the goal was confirmed mind.

Within a minute, Wilson was at it again as he picked out Ramsey in a congested penalty area and the skipper forced Havlik into another save. Wales, with Huddersfield’s Sorva Thomas on for a debut in place of Williams, were now enjoying their best spell of the match as Ramsey was inches from turning in a Moore header that bounced just wide, while the centre forward then crossed for Robert’s whose back heel flick hit the side netting.

Still Wales attacked and Page now really went for it by sending on Tyler Robert’s for Chris Mepham, but it was probably the home team who came closest to a late winner after a frantic scramble which saw four or five shots from the edge of the penalty area before one was finally fired over the top.

Defeat would have been completely undeserved though and now at least, we’ve made up for some of that damage caused by the home draw with Estonia.

A few hours earlier, a Welsh Under 21 side containing George Ratcliffe and Sam Bowen were disappointingly beaten 1-0 in Moldova in a Euro’s qualifying game and with just a draw to show from their two matches against these opponents, now have a huge task on their hands to even make the Play Offs. Wales were unlucky in many ways as they ran into a goalkeeper in good form and also hit the post, but they conceded a very sloppy goal and allowed the home team to make the game very scrappy and stop start in the second half – it was pretty poor really and they now go to the Netherlands on Tuesday needing to at least avoid defeat.

* I wrote this within ten minutes of the match finishing, but have now noted that the Czechs are still above us in the table, so can only assume that this is because of their slightly better goal difference which mean that this must be the first choice way of separating teams with the same number of points.

Even during something of a golden era for Welsh football, a 6-0 win over China in a meaningless game apart, Wales have never really won big – we don’t seem to have the capacity to really put weaker sides to the sword.

The Czech Republic match was ideal for us in attacking terms in many ways, because we were able to break on a team that were treated the match as must win as well – there were gaps to exploit that generally aren’t there when Estonia packed the bus next month. With the Estonians having beaten Belarus tonight, they’ll be very tough to overcome at home and, realistically, it’s a game that needs to just be won first and foremost – a scrappy 1-0 will do fine.

Perhaps we can build that goal difference up a bit when we entertain the Belarussians next month, but the way we’ve struggled in home matches with the likes of Israel, Georgia and Estonia in recent years suggests otherwise – I think the realistic approach is to accept that we’ll still probably have to avoid defeat against the Belgians in our final match to finish above the Czechs. Of course, that will be a very big ask, but we’ve done it quite often before and, after losing at home to France after being 2-0 up on Thursday in a Nations League Semi Final, the suspicion that the aging Belgians are not quite the force they were is growing.

Posted in Wales | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Someone up there doesn’t like Cardiff City!

Posted on October 3, 2021 by The other Bob Wilson

Twenty seven goal attempts to two (one of which went out for a throw in). Five efforts on target to one and yet the team under the cosh for what turned out to one hundred and one minutes ends up winning 1-0!

Make no mistake, Cardiff City were desperately unlucky to lose a fifth successive game today to modern day bogey team Reading (no wins in thirteen against them now I believe) in what was also a fifth successive home defeat for them. The result had a freakish quality to it which left you thinking that the footballing gods have clearly decided that we need to punished (for crimes against the beautiful game?) and, if any further proof were needed that it just wasn’t our day, it came deep into the ten minutes of added time when Ryan Giles’ cross bounced off the inside of the post and then bobbled about in the six yard box without anyone able to get the touch which would at least have enabled us to stop the rot with a draw.

The feeling that someone, somewhere is getting great pleasure out of sticking the knife into us was only added to by the fact that it was Junior Hoilett, five years a Bluebird before leaving in the summer, who scored the winner ten minutes before half time with a composed finish which was, I’m afraid, in total contrast to many of those aforesaid twenty seven Cardiff efforts.

If it’s possible to talk in terms of a fifth straight loss representing a better day, then this may be an occasion where you can say it. Certainly, the reaction of the crowd was far more positive than on Tuesday night when our manager had to face choruses of sacked in the morning from Cardiff and West Brom supporters. Here the support stayed with both the manager and the team because it was clear the players were giving their all.

As Mick McCarthy said after the match, it was not the display of a team that had lost faith in their manager and, although he adopted something of a what will be will be attitude as far his future at the club is concerned, he was adamant that it was the best his team had played in weeks.

Our manager was right as well, but therein lies the rub as far as I’m concerned. I say that for a few reasons, firstly, there have been a series of dreadful performances by the team (including one or two when we were getting results earlier in the season) over the past couple of months, why wasn’t there a reaction like this a few weeks ago?

Second, even when we’re playing pretty well by current standards, the old weaknesses still show themselves. For all that Reading rode their luck, they also defended well in terms of getting blocks or challenges in that just did enough to put a City forward off. Compare that to us where we concede from the only really testing moment our partly rejigged defence faced.

Thirdly, we go back to, perhaps, the most persistent of our faults- the lack of creativity which meant that for all of that pressure and sheer. volume of goal attempts, the only miss I can think of which may fall into the sitter category came from Aden Flint just before half time when Reading’s young keeper Luke Southwood made a mess of a cross and Flint blazed over the unguarded goal from six yards out – to be fair to the man who was captaining the side in the absence of the injured Sean Morrison, he did lose his footing somewhat as the ball dropped to him.

With Joe Ralls and Sam Bowen joining Marlon Pack in a three man midfield, City fielded what I’d say is definitely their best trio of passers in the middle of the park. As a result, we saw a lot less hoofball today from City, but, still, the passing while more accurate than usual, was not crisp enough to really inconvenience Reading.

That error I mentioned earlier from Southwood was the only he made all game and I’ve seen him nominated as Man of the Mstch on a couple of websites, but, although there were some good saves, I don’t think there were any that could be called outstanding and this highlights a lack of precision in front of goal which, if you take away the Flint/Morrison threat from set pieces, has been with us all season.

So, for all that this was better from City and the very least we deserved from the match was a draw, there was still a lot that was wrong with our performance. Now, some of that can be explained away by desperation engendered by our horrendous results and form and you’d like to think that a couple of better outcomes will see confidence levels rising, but, in truth, there were real concerns about some aspects of our play back in August when we were within a win of going top of the table and my faith in our manager being able to turn things around is definitely not as strong as it was a month or two ago.

Mick McCarthy promised changes in his pre game media briefing yesterday and he was as good as his word as the three centre back system, which he has used throughout his time here, was ditched – whether it would have been if Morrison was fit is debatable, but it was Flint and Curtis Nelson (both fortunate to keep their places in my view) who were combined through the middle. However, with Mark McGuiness and Ciaron Brown as full backs, we still fielded a defence made up entirely of centrebacks – I accept it’s being wise after the event, but given Reading’s lack of a threat down the flanks, would we have benefited from having, say, Perry Ng and Joel Bagan in the team?

In saying that, having not really seen what some were getting excited about in McGuiness up to now, I thought he played well today, although it would be good to see what he could bring to the team as a proper centreback, not an auxiliary one out on the right.

Having mentioned our lack of creativity earlier, I find it an odd mixture of the concerning and encouraging that in Ryan Giles and Rubin Colwill, a sub for Leandro Bacuna today, we have two players who can supply some of that elusive quality – Giles’ crossing was maybe not up to his early season levels, but it was still good enough to have brought about something more tangible with better anticipation from those inside him.

As for Colwill, he was a victim in what appears to be our manager’s misplaced faith in Bacuna as an attacking player. Once again, there was little from the former Reading player to persuade the large number of supporters who disagree with our manager that they may be wrong.

Colwill for Bacuna on the hour mark was the right move (even though it came an hour too late!), but the replacement of Bowen and Ralls (has he some sort of long term injury concern which prevents him from completing ninety minutes?) with James Collins and Will Vaulks in the eightieth minute did not work because we never regained the superiority and momentum we had through much of the second period afterwards – once again, I got the feeling that the youngster, Bowen in this case, was taken off just because he was a youngster.

Colwill has it in him to produce something out of nothing every now and then and I definitely think that if we are to have a creative hub in a modern day City team, it is the younger players who are more likely to provide it. However, this is as tough an induction as they could wish for and who’s to say whether the man who will have given them their introduction to first team football will still be here when they next play, at Swansea, following the October international break?

The sense of gloom around the club deepened a little this lunchtime as the Under 18s, who are struggling somewhat this season, were beaten 4-3 at Leckwith by Charlton with our goals being scored by Caleb Hughes, James Crole and Cian Ashford with a penalty.

I should also apologise to Blaenrhondda FC and Ton Pentre because I wasn’t aware until recently that they had both resumed competitive fixtures. In fact the Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier League programme is well advanced, with Blaenrhondda in tenth place in the sixteen team league with games in hand over many of the sides above them as they are paying something of a price for drawing four of their eight games so far. Yesterday though, they picked up only their second win of the campaign with a 4-2 home victory over Aberdare Town.

As for Ton Pentre, sadly, life remains a struggle for them in what is now called The Ardal Leagues South West as they are only kept off the bottom of the table by another Rhondda side in AFC Porth – after winning their first game, Ton, who didn’t play yesterday, have only two draws to show from their next nine matches.

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.

Posted in Football in the Rhondda valleys., Out on the pitch, The kids. | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments