Glory be! Cardiff City actually win a Cup game as one month contract man scores twice.

Posted on August 11, 2021 by The other Bob Wilson

Just before the first lockdown in March of last year when Storm Dennis was pounding the Rhondda Valley with trains cancelled and roads flooded, I decided it was not worth battling the elements to try and get to Cardiff City Stadium to watch the game with Wigan (ironically, the weather in the capital was not that bad with not that much rain about as Keiffer Moore scored twice to grab a point for the visitors).

It was the first home game I’d missed for a reason other than illness or injury in the twenty first century, but a spell had been broken and I find now that, after all that has happened in the past eighteen months, things like making sure I get to every single game City play at home does not seem as important as it once did.

So, I was never going to go to tonight’s First Round League Cup tie with Sutton even though it would have been nice to add another name to the list of sides I’ve seen us play. City have taken me and other supporters who have attended cup games in recent years for mugs with a series of couldn’t care less performances from teams picked by couldn’t care less managers and so, probably not for the last time this season, I decided to give it a miss.

Of course, after all of those losses I’ve seen in this competition since we reached the Final in 2012 and the FA Cup during the same period, it turns out that we actually go and win the one I miss and, judging by Radio Wales’ commentary, it was quite lively and entertaining fare as we came out on top 3-2.

So, there’ll be none of the usual moaning from me about our style of play tonight (thank God I hear you say!) because I wasn’t there to see how well or badly we passed it or how long or far we booted it up the pitch.

However, based on what I heard in the opening forty five minutes, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that we were very fortunate to be on level terms at 1-1 after forty minutes because, after taking a very early lead, it seemed like Sutton had all of the worthwhile scoring opportunities until the final few seconds of the half.

The second period sounded more comfortable, but, even then, Sutton were still carrying a threat which saw them come very close in the final stages to taking the game to penalties- a shots on target count of 6-3 in Sutton’s favour tends to confirm that this was no routine victory for the “giants” in the tie.

Still City won on a night when, as usual, a fair few Championship teams came a cropper against lower ranked outfits and they did so with a team which showed nine changes from the one which got the league campaign under way against Barnsley on Saturday.

Alex Smithies, Sean Morrison, Tom Sang and Will Vaulks, back from suspension, all saw their first competitive action of the campaign, but it was the two players making their debuts which attracted most comment.

Teenage left back/wing back Tom Davies was an unexpected first young debutant in a season where the impression being given is that there will be a fair number of them. I wish I could give you an opinion on Davies based on how often I’ve seen him performing in age group football, but I can’t because I didn’t see any live Under 18 football at all last season and he was barely involved with the Under 23s.

Nearly all I’d seen of Davies prior to tonight was in pre season friendlies and I thought he formed an impressive partnership down the left with Lee Tomlin in the 2-2 draw with Exeter. Tonight, it sounded like he struggled early on, but grew into the game – he came as close to scoring as anyone in the first until our very late equaliser and Danny Gabbidon was purring on Radio Wales about the assist he provided for our third goal.

The other debut was given to someone who was at the opposite end of the spectrum to Davies as Marley Watkins, who had been training with the club for a few weeks and had featured in at least two of our pre season matches started after signing a short term contract until the end of the month.

When the side was announced, I was among quite a few on the messageboards who were critical of both the decision to give Watkins a contract and to include him in the team. Now, as this piece goes on, it will become clear that those of us who voiced our reservations about Watkins have been left with egg on our faces somewhat tonight. However, I maintain that giving a contract, even one lasting a month,  to a thirty year old who has just been released by the team who were the worst in the Championship through the second half of last season is typical of the short termism that has got the club into the position where we have too many very well paid veterans or near veterans that nobody is interested in buying because they couldn’t match the wages we pay.

Anyway, on to the game and City, who seemed to have played about a quarter of the teams in League Two this season in the last few weeks, once again conceded early to a side from two divisions below them and it sounded like the goal had some similarities with the one Barnsley scored against us three days ago. I say that because one moment Vaulks was hurling in his first long throw into an opposition penalty area of the season and the next keeper Dean Bouzanis was launching a long clearance for lively winger Dave Ajiboye to run on to and he got the better of Davies to lay on a cross for Donovan Wilson that enabled him to score easily from close range.

City had nothing to offer in response as a rusty looking Morrison endured a difficult half an hour or so and Smithies did well to deny Wilson a second, while Harry Beautyman was inches away from doubling the EFL new boys’ lead.

Watkins had done nothing noteworthy as half time approached, but when he hit a volley from eighteen yards which provided no more than a moderate challenge to Bouzanis, the Australian let the ball slip through his hands and into the net for a very soft equaliser.

Smithies again had to save well at the start of the second half, but, shortly afterwards, City were in front when Watkins scored a fine goal from more than twenty yards out with a shot placed out of Bouzanis’ reach.

After that, City seemed fairly comfortable even though it didn’t sound like they were doing much that would extend their lead, but the introduction of Rubin Colwill and Josh Murphy on seventy five minutes livened our attacking play up and the latter doubled the lead with ten minutes left when he raced down the left on to Davies’ pass and then cut inside to hit a shot which beat Bouzanis with the aid of a slight deflection.

3-1 would have been very harsh on Sutton and it was in keeping with their performance when Coby Rowe scrambled in a goal on ninety minutes after City failed to deal with a corner and missed two or three chances to clear the ball.

Smithies had to save his side again when he blocked a shot from around ten yards and then A far post header just wide with seconds left from the resultant corner had the visitors cursing their luck and City relieved, but we held on to go into the draw for the Second Round which takes place after Wednesday’s matches in the competition.

Just one other thing about the match, it was mentioned in the commentary that Sutton manager Matt Gray had been a youth player at City in the early noughties at the time Danny Gabbidon was playing for us. Danny was asked about the man in charge of City’s opponents, but said that, despite researching him, Gray’s name meant nothing to him and he couldn’t recall him from his time with City. I can only echo what Danny says, it would have been a little before I became a regular at home Under 18 matches, but I can’t remember someone called Matt Gray ever being associated with the club.

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 yesterday, 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 Out on the pitch | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

“It was as if we had not been away”

Posted on August 8, 2021 by The other Bob Wilson

Apologies to him for not remembering his name, but the first caller on Rob Phillips’ phone in tonight to discuss this afternoon’s season opener against Barnsley at Cardiff City Stadium got it exactly right with his opening remark.

Having not been to a City game for eighteen months and only travelled to Cardiff once in over a year, today was my first experience of the new congestion creation scheme at Radyr Cheyne on Llantrisant Road (it added half an hour to my driving time to the game), I was at least able to listen to the phone in for my second encounter on my way home with something that would drive me bananas if I still lived in Pentrebane.

The caller I referred to above summed the game up in eight words with “it was as if we had not been away” and in doing so exactly captured my feelings as I left the ground at five o clock.

He was talking mainly about the subject I admit I spend too much time talking about on here (our method of play or what I’m increasingly calling the Cardiff Way) and I’m going to have a few words on that later, but I thought his remark could also apply to the subject of frustrating drawn games which, these days, don’t tend to do either of the participants much good.

We signed off at Cardiff City Stadium for the best part of a year and a half with a 2-2 draw with Brentford in February 2020 and, if you count the FA Cup loss on penalties to Reading as a draw, we had a run of eight of them in the ten home matches prior to lockdown ( the other two were a win over West Brom and a defeat by Forest).

So, I’m sorry, but although there was a very poignant two minute silence beforehand which featured images of City fans who had lost their lives to Covid and a reminder of the magnificent Peter Whittingham’s best City goal in my opinion (ironically against Barnsley) as what I hope is part of a series of events the club have lined up to commemorate City’s best player of this century and one of the best in our entire history, the football, as in this 1-1 draw, left me feeling pretty flat I’m afraid.

The strong suspicion that the summer months had not been spent by Mick McCarthy and his coaching team putting together the finishing touches to their plan to introduce something like the old “Cardiff Way” as envisaged by Ken Choo following the appointment of Paul Trollope five years ago, hardened somewhat when the ball was played back to Aden Flint from the kick off and he delivered City’s first aimless hoof of the campaign straight into touch forty or fifty yards upfield with five seconds showing on the stadium clock.

Before I talk too much about us though, can I say a few words about Barnsley while making an observation on their playing style. Last season as Barnsley made their unlikely, but thoroughly deserved, way into the Play Offs, they were generally reckoned to have a playing style that was, if anything, more physical and direct than ours.

However, Barnsley popped the ball about at times today (notably in a smooth build up that ended in a disallowed goal for offside early in the second half) in a manner which is quite foreign to us, so, if Barnsley, who have lost their best player, Alex Mowatt to West Brom over the summer, can transform themselves over a few months, why can’t we?

I’d answer that by going back to November of last year when Neil Harris effectively gave up on his half hearted attempt to introduce more of a passing style at Cardiff. By doing that, I would argue that our former manager was as good as admitting that our squad could not adapt their game enough to play in a more entertaining manner.

Therefore, leaving aside the real possibility that Mick McCarthy is perfectly happy to continue playing in my version of the Cardiff Way for now, that leaves three possibilities. First, Vincent Tan could have splashed more serious cash in an attempt to bring in players who would offer us more than the restricted way of performing typified by the current squad, but, for reasons I can entirely understand, our owner appears to have said enough is enough when it comes to transfer spending of a type we had grown used to seeing from him.

Second, the funds needed for rebuilding could have been raised by the sale of existing squad members (many of whom are into the final year of their contracts). Truthfully though, there couldn’t be a worse time than the present to embark on such a scheme because, apart from those poor unfortunates at the top of the game that were having to think in terms of forming a league of their own in the spring, hardly any one is spending big these days.

The third possibility is that we use young players already on the books to play in a manner which could see us presenting opponents with some different problems to the ones they are used to when playing Cardiff.

Clearly, if this method were to succeed, it would be likely to be a gradual process over months and even years, but there was a player on the bench today in Sam Bowen who, on his best days at age group level for club and country, has looked like exactly the sort of playmaker/continuity player we lack in the senior squad.

It barely needs to be said that Bowen wasn’t used off the bench today and the likelihood is that he’ll disappear back to the under 23s once Will Vaulks has served his suspension and, an eye catching first few months at Cardiff from new man Ryan Wintle apart, we can have the same midfield options of grafters and not a great deal more that we’ve become used to since Neil Warnock’s last summer with us.

So, realistically, I fear that City fans who feel as I do, are going to have to accept that there is going to be little change from what we’ve seen since Russell Slade’s time in charge and, in particular, from the sort of thing we’ve been watching since our last relegation.

That said, the modern Cardiff Way is not all bad by any means, City fans love battlers and we’ve got a team of them, Keiffer Moore is great to watch, I’m not sure we’re going to see much of Lee Tomlin from now on, so all the more reason to appreciate him while we can and today Ryan Giles reaffirmed the positive impression he made in pre season matches.

Not only that, Giles and Joel Bagan combined nicely down the left at times and the same could be said regarding Perry Ng when the Wolves man switched flanks.

This was the thing more than any other which offered me most hope for the coming months – we did look a bit more threatening down the wings and I know it’s early days yet, but Giles looks to be the best crosser of a ball we’ve had in a while.

Some of Giles’ crossing is Whittinghamesque, but on a day when a great City number seven was remembered, you could not help but contrast a past wearer of that shirt with the current one.

The positive thing to say about Leandro Bacuna is that his athleticism gets himself into positions that others (eg Tomlin) can only dream about, but having missed a sitter from a Giles cross against  Newport last week, a lack of composure with his finishing from another two Giles passes cost City dear today.

Twenty eight career goals in three hundred and seventy nine league appearances rather tells a story (as does three in ninety five games for City) – how many goals would Bacuna score over the course of a full season playing in the advanced position he is currently occupying? Based on the evidence of those figures above, you have to say no more than four or five.

I think most people would have expected the same starting line up as last weekend from Mick McCartjy, but Dillon Phillips was back instead of Alex Smithies and there was a debut for Mark McGuiness at centre back after Sean Morrison was presumably deemed not ready to start a competitive game yet, while Keiffer Moore and Rubin Colwill were on the bench.

City were grateful to Phillips for a fine sprawling save from Cauley Woodrow around the half an hour mark, while they had a goal ruled out for offside when the hard working James Collins touched in a Curtis Nelson header from a free kick to go alongside the first of Bacuna’s misses and a cross from Collins which was desperately cleared before Bagan could apply a finishing touch.

The first few minutes of the second half saw the other Bacuna miss and the Barnsley disallowed goal I mentioned earlier (must say it looked onside on the video I’ve just watched) before Marlon Pack headed us in front from a Giles corner which Bacuna had won with an example of that athleticism I mentioned before. It was a good header by Pack from around the penalty spot, but the most classy thing the midfielder did all day came after the match when he talked about having the fans back in the ground and the pre match tributes to Covid victims and Whitts.

Like so many goals Barnsley’s equaliser some fifteen minutes or so after we’d gone ahead, could be put down to incisive finishing from a fine pass or defensive errors depending on your perspective.

Barnsley will point to a long pass by sub Joel Benson’s which sent Tony Sibbick galloping into a yawning gap down City’s left before a crisp finish across Phillips and into the net from the corner of the penalty area. However, in a post match interview, Mick McCarthy spoke of as many as eight small errors by his team which all contributed to the goal from his point of view as what had initially looked like an effective high press by City was transformed into the ball hitting the back of our net within a few seconds.

It was an indictment of City that they never really looked like regaining their lead once Barnsley had equalised despite the introduction of Moore, Wintle and Mark Harris for Bacuna, Ralls (I really do wonder how much his injury from last season is still a factor for him) and Collins.

New Barnsley coach Markus Schopp thought “Cardiff also had chances but, over the 90 minutes, we had a bit more.”, but I’d say this was a day when the post match stats were an accurate reflection of things – the BBC’s figures show Barnsley with fifty five per cent possession, both sides with ten goal attempts with us having six on target compared to the visitors three, while we scored from one of only two corners we gained, compared to Barnsley’s four.

Those figures capture the essence of what I’d say was an even contest which got the result it deserved on an afternoon where I would have thought that those who are of the opinion that the Championship is a league of no great quality this season will feel vindicated – albeit on very limited evidence so far.

One other thing, there was a notable win for the Under 23s in midweek in their latest warm up match where they came back from 2-0 down at half time against West Brom to win 4-2 thanks to a couple of goals from Isaac Vassell and one each from Keiron Evans (making his first appearance of an injury disrupted pre season) and Chanka Zimba.

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 yesterday, 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 Out on the pitch | Tagged , , | 7 Comments