This piece could go one of two ways. I could write a normal length reaction post to tonight’s miserable 0-0 draw between Cardiff City and Stoke City at Cardiff City Stadium which would be yet another long lament about the fact that we are so bad at passing the ball and for much of the time, we don’t bother trying to do so as we opt instead for the vague “lump” in the direction of our knackered centre forward.
Alternatively, I could decide to only refer to our chronic limitations when we have the ball merely in passing – hardly the most apt of phrases under the circumstances I know! Going with this option would make this report quite a bit shorter than usual because there’s so little worth saying about the match otherwise.
I’m going to go with the second alternative with the proviso that I may slip into criticism of our passing inadvertently because I’m so sick and tired of seeing us turn what could and should be something simple into something that we make look impossible a lot of the time, but I promise I won’t go on too much about it.
Anyway, to the game. I’ll start by saying that, although it would have been very harsh on a Stoke team that could legitimately claim that they had the better chances to break the deadlock, this was the sort of scruffy home game we used to win 1-0.
For an example of what I mean, you only have to look at last season’s match against the same opponents when we scored early on through Leandro Bacuna in what was Neil Harris’ first home match in charge and then ground our way through the remaining eighty minutes against opponents who were lacking in confidence and too close to the bottom of the league for comfort.
We don’t win home games in such a manner these days though – we don’t get the three points at home often enough, but when we do, they tend to be gained by conclusive margins.
A week ago, we played well in seeing off a poor Derby team by 4-0. That was a fairly typical 20/21 home win for us, but top six finishers should also be able to eke out the dour 1-0 wins on their own patch as well – for a side that had mastered the art of “winning ugly” during our previous two seasons in this division, we have certainly lost the knack this time around when it comes to home games at least.
City were forced into defensive changes because Curtis Nelson had not recovered from the calf injury which forced him off on Saturday against Watford, so Ciaron Brown dropped into the back three in his place and Perry Ng stayed on the left, with Tom Sang returning on the right. Mick McCarthy also rested Harry Wilson and Josh Murphy and went instead with Sheyi Ojo and Leandro Bacuna, while Marlon Pack replaced Joe Ralls in central midfield.
Those defensive changes may have accounted for the fact that we looked shaky at the back early on as Stoke, first, worked a short corner routine which included an air shot that I’m pretty sure was not deliberate (it was a truly superb move if it was!) and ended with a shot that deflected narrowly wide. The visitors came closer soon after when City were opened up too easily on their right and Dillon Phillips had to save Steven Fletcher’s close range shot, then it needed a goal line clearance by Ng to keep Jordan Thompson’s follow up effort from going in.
Shortly after that, a blunder by Aden Flint led to a bad miss by Nick Powell who side footed wide with only Phillips to beat, but that was the last we saw of Stoke as an attacking force until Joe Allen headed against the crossbar in added time at the end of the match.
For much of the time, City were unable to create anything that could be called a genuine scoring opportunity – Bacuna had a couple of shots saved pretty easily by Welsh international Adam Davies and Sean Morrison was inches away from connecting with a Will Vaulks free kick in the first half, but it was after the break that City will feel that they could have got the goal which would have won the game.
Unfortunately, Keiffer Moore was the villain of the piece this time missing three chances of varying degrees of difficulty. The first one looked bad as Moore fired well over the top from close in as Stoke struggled to deal with a Vaulks long throw, but the ball had to be hit early as it dropped and I thought it was quite a difficult chance. By contrast, his second one when his poor touch after being put through by a combination of substitute Jonny Williams and Bacuna enabled Davies to make a simple save was quite an easy chance by his standards, while the third one when he was through again and opted to try a side footer from fifteen yards that passed narrowly wide of the post looked a tired effort to me.
In fact, I thought, for the first time this season, it looked like a tired performance almost from the start by Moore who is, in some ways, paying a price for making himself indispensable to City. Tonight, Moore played the full ninety minutes again as Mick McCarthy, for reasons I couldn’t understand waited more than seventy minutes to make a change in a game where his team were playing very poorly – Williams for the disappointing and inconsistent Ojo was the substitution and it was odd that there was only one other, delayed until the eighty third minute when Wilson came on for Bacuna.
Our manager explained the decision to keep Moore on by referring to his value when defending free kicks and corners, but what about giving him some support up front by bringing on one of max Watters, Mark Harris or Rubin Colwill? Also, this doesn’t explain the lack of changes to a misfiring midfield and why it took so long to make the meagre number of substitutions we did see.
There was one other moment when City could have won it as Davies was too casual in going for a Vaulks long throw, fumbled and the ball rolled agonisingly close to the goal only to pass inches wide of the far post with Williams just unable to apply a scoring touch.
Trying to take something positive from the game, I thought Sang’s passing in the right wing back role was an oasis in what was, the occasional contribution by Pack apart, a desert of mediocracy when it comes to that part of the game. The question is would Sang be able to maintain such standards if he was given a concerted run in the largely pass free zone that is our first eleven?
So, City drop another place following Middlesbrough’s win over Preston and, with a fourth poor performance in their last five games are looking a long way short of a top six team going into the game at Swansea on Saturday – the jacks were beaten 3-0 at Bournemouth tonight, but, even so, you’ve got to think that the record of there never having been a league double completed in fixtures between the two clubs is likely to end on Saturday on this evidence and the evidence of our recent matches.
A few hours earlier, the Development team had also drawn a blank, going down to a single goal defeat at QPR – it’s not just the Play Off hopes of the first team that have diminished recently, both the Under 23s and Under 18s have lost two out of their last three games now.
Finally, some words about a couple of books. Firstly, regular Feedback column contributor Anthony Mor O’Brien has published a novel recently – in Anthony’s words,
“The story is about Stanley Sharp (*”Sharp by name and sharp by nature!”) who, with his friend, come out of the Army just after VE Day. They experience several escapades usually involving the quick mind of Stanley at various venues they reach by motor car with petrol from a government storage facility they have discovered.
Stanley briefly meets a WREN named Gloria Munday in London and some time later encounters her again in her home town of Pontypridd. Various adventures in other parts of South Wales occur (Including Tiger Bay) and are generally historically accurate.”
The book is called EPONYMOUS SHARP ESCAPADES and can be bought at
Also, the fiftieth anniversary of City’s 1-0 win over Real Madrid on 10 March 1971 passed on Wednesday, so here’s a further reminder of my book Real Madrid and all that which is a review of both that match and the 1970/71 season in which I’m afraid another home defeat by Watford played a major part! Real Madrid and all that can be ordered from;-
