The wins keep on coming! incredibly, Cardiff City’s senior, Development and Academy teams have now won fourteen straight games between them, with the split being three for the under 18s, five for the under 23s and six (yes, six!) for the first team.
The upshot of all this is that each of these teams are in the running for a place in the end of season Play Offs in their respective leagues – for the age group teams the prize is a place in a competition to decide the Champion side in the north and south sections and they need to finish at least second in their southern section league to gain it.
We all know what the Play Offs in the Championship entail, but, with us now already in the final Play Off position, I daresay some very optimistic supporters will be thinking that, with the sort of momentum we have behind us, we won’t need to bother with any Play Off competition because we’ll have finished in the top two!
Let me say that I’m firmly of the opinion that the only way we’ll be going up this season is as the one out of the theee promoted teams that has to play a forty nine game league season, as opposed to a forty six game one – there is still an awful lot to do and, although the task facing us now is not as daunting as the one we faced when fixtures restarted after lockdown last season, there are a lot of sides around us who will feel they have as good a chance of making the top six as we do (Barnsley for example, would go two points above us if they won their game in hand following their good win over Stoke tonight).
So, it would be wrong to get too excited yet about what the next fourteen matches may bring, but it cannot be denied that we are playing as well as we have done all season at the moment.
On Saturday, I said that we looked like a top six side in beating Preston 4-0, well, in the first half of tonight’s game at Bournemouth, I reckon that, despite what I said earlier about forgetting about finishing in the top two, that’s what we looked – a team that could emulate the achievement of 2013 and 2018 and be either Champions or runners up.
Before kick off tonight, I thought we could get a draw, but it was going to be the match where our run of victories would come to an end – we’d not played a serious promotion contender in our last five games, but Bournemouth were certainly that.
In terms of quality and entertainment, our 1-1 draw with the Cherries at Cardiff City Stadium in October was probably the best game we’ve been involved in this season. We played well that night, but not as well as Bournemouth did and I can remember writing that I thought the recently relegated club were heading straight back to the tremier League, but the last couple of months have not been easy for them and, certainly I believe that, when the long time top six of Norwich, Brentford, Swansea, Watford, Reading and Bournemouth had got themselves a handy cushion over the rest of the division a few weeks back, it was the south coast club that the chasing pack thought were the most vulnerable.
A run of five straight losses transformed Bournemouth from automatic promotion probables to Play Off hopefuls – it cost Eddie Howe’s successor, Jason Tindall, his job and, after rumours of Thierry Henry getting the manager’s job, it was announced earlier this week that caretaker boss Jonathan Woodgate, who had steadied the ship with ten points from five matches in the league and an FA Cup triumph at Burnley, would keep the job until the end of the season at least.
In an indication of the confidence at City at the moment, they were unchanged as far as both their starting line up and subs bench went, but for about ten minutes, that confidence looked misplaced as Bournemouth started with purpose and aggression to put us on the back foot. Dillon Phillips was forced to make the first of four good saves as Junior Stanislas, the home sides most dangerous forward, tested him from a free kick, but, gradually, City worked their way into the game and started to lay a foundation for a dramatic ten minutes or so which left a stunned home side clinging on like a wounded boxer who was trying to clear their head before a knock out punch came their way.
The build up to City’s period of total dominance which decided the match was gradual as, almost imperceptibly, the game’s action area switched from our half to Bournemouth’s.
With City at the top of the Championship when it comes to aerial challenges won and Bournemouth close to the bottom, this offered an obvious way for us to dictate matters, but more than that, it was the almost feverish pressing of the front three of Keiffer Moore, Harry Wilson and Josh Murphy which was the overriding factor in the transformation.
That said, it was the old faithful of a header from a corner which gave substance to City’s increasing control of proceedings as Sean Morrison glanced in Wilson’s delivery from about five yards for a goal which looked so easy from a City point of view and so inept from Bournemouth’s.
Despite their improved recent results, the home side were still very brittle mentally it seems from that run of losses and their defenders began to wilt under the threat of Moore who was superb on the night.
Goalkeeper Asmir Begovic was tested by City’s striker after he ran thirty yards down the left before powering in a shot that the keeper diverted away for a corner, then when a Will Vaulks long throw wasn’t cleared, Moore lashed a fierce right yard left foot shot that seemed destined for the net, but the Bosnian international turned the ball around the post via his foot without knowing a great deal about it.
From the resultant corner, a combination of Moore and Aden Flint caused more problems as the ball flew narrowly over the bar, but, as mentioned earlier, it was City’s pressing which unsettled the home team most and this was never better illustrated than when we won the ball about thirty yards from the hone goal and it was worked to Wilson who let fly from twenty five yards, only for an intended block to present the ball to Perry Ng who broke into the box only to be brought down by left back Diego Rico for a clear penalty which the nerveless Moore dispatched in exactly the same manner as he did on Saturday – high to the goalkeepers left.
A third City goal looked more likely than the beginnings of a fight back by the home side in the minutes that remained of the first half, but, in the event, Bournemouth’s Sam Surridge came closest with a six yard shot that Phillips did very well to block with his feet.
Very shortly afterwards, the whistle blew to end a brilliant half of football from City. There’s been a lot of talk about us being “horrible” to play lately, we definitely were that in those forty five minutes, but, certainly during the purple patch when the goals came, a reason we were horrible for Bournemouth was that there was quality there to go with the press and the physicality – any side in the Championship, and a few in the Premier League, would have struggled to live with us during that time.
It was certainly a performance of two halves though for City in attacking terms at least, because I cannot remember us putting Bournemouth under any real pressure during the second forty five minutes – there was a dangerous incursion down the right by Ng which produced an awkward cross for Begovic to take (he dealt with it capably), but I can’t think of anything else.
Bournemouth, with Shane Long and Arnaut Danjuma on for Rico and Lewis Cook, were better in the second half with Stanislas continuing to be their main threat as a second free kick forced another save from City’s keeper and another appeared to beat him only to hit the top of the net after narrowly clearing the crossbar.
There were other good saves from Phillips, notably from Stanilslas again, but for most of the time, he was well served by those in front of him who, while not being comfortable exactly, were surviving a lessening Bournemouth threat as the match entered its final quarter. It was then though that I’m afraid we shot ourselves in the foot by presenting them with a way back into the game.
City were enjoying a rare spell of possession inside their opponent’s half when Marlon Pack, very good against Preston and playing well again here, tried to find Moore. Instead, our best passer in midfield made a present of the ball to Stanislas, who burst clear of our player (the commentary team on the City website were critical of Pack for not fouling Stanislas here and, although I always hate it when you hear talk of a “good foul” when someone “takes one for the team”, they were right to do so on this occasion).
Given a chance to show their prowess on the counter attack, the home side duly did so – they had a little luck as Danjuma’s attempted shot was deflected up into the air to leave Long with a headed opportunity that he couldn’t miss, but it was impressive how quickly Bournemouth made a turnover in possession quite deep into their half into a goal – as an aside, it was good to hear our manager being unable to hide his annoyance at the concession of this goal in what was an otherwise, understandably, upbeat post match media meeting.
For a while, City wobbled, but, crucially, they came through the next few minutes and, looking back now, we survived the final quarter of an hour unscathed with Moore (kept on to the end by McCarthy) magnificent in his hold up and time wasting play despite clearly being out on his feet.
At least Murphy and Wilson got half an hour’s rest after they were withdrawn for Leanadro Bacuna and Sheyi Ojo with about an hour played, but, if it needed further confirmation, tonight offered it of what a huge blow an injury to Moore would be to this squad which, with Lee Tomlin continuing his comeback in the Under 23s and our age group teams thriving, has an impressive looking depth to it now, Moore looks irreplaceable though..
City are in sixth by the very narrowest of margins (Bournemouth have the same number of points and the same goal difference, but, as the second highest scorers in the division, we’ve got the edge on goals scored).
If Saturday was generally a bad day for the top clubs, Bournemouth apart, tonight was the opposite with Swansea, Brentford and Watford all winning to follow up on another victory for Norwich last night, but the interesting one from our perspective was Reading who were beaten by a single goal at bottom team Wycombe last night to suffer a third straight loss and, suddenly, they’re very much in our sights just a couple of points clear of us with a much worse goal difference.
A word as well about the Under 23s latest win yesterday lunchtime, when they went to league leaders Bristol City and blew them away 3-0 with all of the goals coming before half time. It was reported initially that Rubin Colwill had scored the first goal, but it was later confirmed that Isaak Davies had, in fact, touched his cross in to cement his position as top scorer, Tomlin fired in a classy second one with a shot from twenty yards and then Keiron Evans, the subject of media stories linking him with interest from Premier League sides West Brom, Newcastle and Sheffield United this week, headed in at the far post from a Cameron McWilliams’ ccross – just to say that the next two Tuesday lunchtimes see home games for the Under 23s which should be streamed free of charge on the club website, these matches are well worth a watch because the youngsters are playing some lovely football currently.
Finally, it’s now less than a month 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;-
