The 25/26 league season started for Cardiff City in a new division with a new Manager/Head Coach and a team selection that certainly set the tongues wagging.
Brian Barry-Murphy’s team for his debut competitive game in charge was definitely the youngest fielded by the club in the twenty first century and, with an average age of just over twenty two, it’s hard to imagine that the club has fielded a younger team than this one in it’s history. Also, in a real throwback to the days when I first started supporting the City, six of the starting line up were Welsh born, as were two of the five substitutes used (that was not a throwback, I’m ancient enough to have watched my first City game back in the days before substitutes!).
Perhaps the biggest shock BBM came up was to include Matt Turner in goal for his first team debut. The impending arrival of Nathan Trott (presumably he’s hitching his way from Copenhagen to Cardiff because the club have told him they won’t pay for a flight) means that neither Ethan Horvarth or Jak Alnwick are going to be number one choice this season, but I would have expected one of them to fill in here while the Trott loan signing is taking so long to complete.
Ronan Kpakio’s inclusion at right back was predictable with Perry Ng out injured, as was Dylan Lawlor’s at centreback alongside Will Fish in light of new captain Callum Chambers’ suspension and Joel Bagan, as the only experienced left back in the squad, was always going to start.
Ryan Wintle saw off the challenge of Eli King for the number six role, captain Rubin Colwill was the number ten and City started with brothers in their line up for the first time I can remember since the days of Gary and Dave Bennett in the early 80s. Yousef Salech led the line up front, with Cian Ashford on the left and Ollie Tanner (a little lucky to start I thought after a quiet pre season) on the right.
As it was, Tanner had a strong game as City predominantly attacked down his side with Kpakio and Joel Colwill offering him plenty of support.
It was the right side that was to the fore in a first half that City enjoyed the lion’s share of yet went in at the break a goal down to a Peterborough side that was getting on top somewhat after they taken the lead through a controversial penalty awarded by inconsistent referee Ben Speedie, who I thought favoured the visitors throughout.
Before that though, Salech volleyed over, Rubin Colwill wasted a good chance set up for him by Tanner, before shooting just wide from the edge of the penalty area and our Danish striker was crowded out as another fluent move down the right opened up the defence only for City to want to take another pass, rather than get a shot away.
Peterborough had been able to probe away on occasions and, in a league in which we are told more teams than we’ve been used to will play a physical, more direct game, they were very build from the back and pass patiently based.
In saying that, they had a big unit up front in Bradley Ivionvien who gave the much touted Lawlor quite an awkward afternoon. Referee Speedie’s interpretation as to what constituted a foul seemed to vary depending on which colour shirt was being worn, but he was right to caution Lawlor for a foul on the Posh striker,. However, he was wrong not award another free kick against the young centre back minutes later when he brought down Ivionvien just outside the penalty area. Instead, he allowed play to go on as Declan Frith went down under a challenge from Fish whose poor pass had started the Peterborough attack.
After a slight delay, Speedie pointed to the spot – the replays I’ve seen suggest that was a wrong decision, but I suppose it’s balanced by the feeling that Lawlor may well have seen a second yellow card if his earlier foul had been spotted.
Ivionvien’s spit kick was a good one, struck right into the corner as Turner dived the right way and City found themselves in the familiar position of being 1-0 down at home. It could have got worse as Turner dived to divert an Iyionien shot wide after Bagan had carelessly conceded possession and there were a couple of late corners to defend before the half time whistle was blown.
For all that City might have been happy to reach the break just one down, they still were having chances of their own, such as when Salech probably should have scored when he met a Tanner cross six yards out, but his header was too close to goalkeeper Nicholas Bilokapic who palmed over the bar and then Rubin Colwill’s header from the resultant corner was blocked by his marker’s shoulder and the ball flew about a yard wide.
Somewhat cruelly, I found myself thinking at half time that it had been typical Rubin Colwill (much less influential when there’s league poinats at stake) so far, but it didn’t take long into the second half for him to have me eating my words!
City were awarded a free kick at around about the corner of the penalty area two minutes into the second period as a run by the younger Colwill was blocked. It was the wrong side of the pitch really for a right footed taker, but Rubin’s shot was perfectly placed as it flew in at the near post to enable his entire league goals output from last season to be equaled within the first hour of this one.
More importantly, it brought City level and in the following quarter of an hour, they played BBM ball in the enterprising and entertaining manner our new Head Coach wants with its high energy and press to the fore.
City had been unlucky to be behind after forty five minutes, but they were getting close to the heights reached in their pre season game with QPR now and it felt like a second goal was coming – although, when it did on the hour mark, I’m pretty sure no one had predicted the scorer!
Rubin Colwill was again involved. This time, his clipped ball inside a defender was perfect for Bagan to run on to and he delivered a lovely cross which just eluded Salech and Joel Colwill. However, the ball did find Tanner who rolled a pass into the path of Kpakio from the bye line and the 18 year old, stood at the same sort of angle as Rubin’s free kick had been, but a couple of yards closer to goal, delivered a fine first time shot into the net via the underside of the bar. However, perhaps the best thing about the goal was that replays showed there were six other blue shirts in the box at the time for a move from open play.
BBM sensibly replaced Lawlor with Jesper Daland rather than run the risk of going down to ten men and City were pretty comfortable for the next twenty five minutes or so while occasionally putting together some eye catching attacks such as when great work by Joel Colwill set up Tanner for what might have been a hat trick of fine City goals were it not for Bilokapic’s best save of the game.
However, a better City move which should have seen them make the match safe was the signal for a sea change in the game. Chris Willock, on for Ashford, started it off with a clever ball to Colwill who picked out Callum Robinson, who’d come on for Salech, and his attempt to beat Bilokapic on his near post only found the side netting.
It was the sort of chance you’d expect last season’s top scorer to take and the fact he hadn’t seemed to serve as a reminder to City of how hard they had found it to see out matches they were in front in during their relegation campaign.
City now began to lose the composure they’d displayed for eighty odd minutes and Peterborough would have left with a point were it not for the best save of the match from debutant Turner who palmed away substitute Gustav Lindgren’s shot after Kpakio’s one mistake of the afternoon when he lost possession by the corner flag.
There was a further panicky moment to endure when the ball bounced around six yards with no attacker able to get a decisive touch, but City were able to record an opening day win which I think was a bit more conclusive than the 2-1 scoreline suggests.
Nevertheless, it enabled us to go to the top of the league for a few hours before all of the other games were played and it was clearly a more entertaining watch than we’ve become used to in recent years.
Nevertheless, I still can’t help thinking that all of these youngsters need more “old hands” in there than just Wintle who, at 28, was almost five years older than anyone else in today’s starting line up – clearly Callum Chambers will be one of them once his suspension is over.
Another more experienced player who could have played is Ethan Horvarth, but I can only consider that he’s on his way out of the club following his absence from today’s match day squad. I assumed the same applied to David Turnbull who was also conspicuous by his absence from the squad, but after the match BBM stated that the Scot had been left out following some sort of breach of training procedure – it was a show of force by the new boss who confirmed that Turnbull will be available for selection on Thursday at Port Vale.
The other news to emerge today came from Chairman Mehmet Dalman who spoke to the media and supporters’ groups before the match thereby ending the Board’s silence on take over speculation.
Here’s what the Chairman had to say
Mr Dalman’s dismissal of there having been any meaningful discussions on a takeover of the club does at least deny the club hierarchy the chance to use that as an excuse for their lack of action over the course of a summer where you might be excused for thinking that the three men at the top had been off on holiday for the past three months.
It’s hard to argue with Mr Dalman’s logic when he says they’d get more for the club if they can get City back in the Championship again , but can anyone who has watched how the club has been run since our previous relegation in 2019 in particular really see us going up under the present ownership?
Away from the first team, I’m somewhat confused as to what to make of our under 21s. On the one hand, they had no trouble scoring when getting notable wins over National League side Yeovil from a position of 2-0 down and they scored half a dozen in winning 6-4 against National League (North) team Merthyr last weekend. However, on the other hand, those two results came either side of a 0-0 draw at lower ranked Ammanford in the First Round of Nathaniel MG Cup in which they needed a penalty shoot out win to proceed and, on Friday, they lost their Second Round tie at Cambrian, who play at the same level as Ammanford, by 2-0.
The highlights of the Ammanford game on the club website showed very little in the way of threatening City attacks through the 90 minutes and, although I only have brief snippets posted on Twitter as the game went on to go on for the Cambrian game, it appeared as if we spent most of the time on the back foot.
I’d also like to mention a couple of other Welsh teams from other sports. First, Glamorgan moved twenty four points clear in the Second Division of the county Championship with a notable and comfortable victory over Lancashire at Old Trafford on Friday. They have three games left to play when the competition resumes in September and they’re close to, but not quite in, a position where one more win would secure them promotion. Of course, with the cricketing powers that be in one of their never ending discussions as to how they can cut back on the best form of the game even further, there is the chance that some sort of restructuring of the four day game could take place whereby we stay outside what in football would be called the top flight!
Secondly, Welsh Hockey is virtually ignored by both the media and the the people who allocate Government money to individual sports, so I’ve decided to include this message-board post outlining the situation the men’s and women’s teams find themselves in – they really are doing superbly considering the conditions they operate under and the sacrifices some of the players are making are amazing;-
“Both the Welsh hockey teams have qualified for the 2027 Euros in London, the women by finishing second in the B division in Poland while the men won their B division in Porto today by beating Ireland in the final after a shoot-out.
For the men, the week changed in the group game against Scotland when Wales were trailing 2-1 to the better side with only 5 minutes left. The Scottish players and coaches were shouting ‘no cards’ but one lad didn’t get the memo and stupidly got sin-binned for the rest of the game. Wales immediately took their keeper off to give them an 11-9 outfield player advantage and used the extra space available to get an equaliser with 14 seconds left.
The Scots still had a goal difference advantage in the group so Wales needed a big score against Croatia to avoid finishing second and having a harder route to the final. They decided to change the warm-up routine, hoping that a more intense and aggressive session might help them get off to a good start. This seemed to work as they went 7-0 up inside 15 minutes and 12-0 by half time before winning 14-0 to give them the group.
A routine 5-0 win against Italy in the semi final ensured qualification for the next Euros, the final win against a higher ranked Ireland side was reward for a strong finish to the tournament.
Credit to the team for punching above their weight yet again despite a chronic lack of funding. They were invited to an excellent tournament in Malaysia earlier in the year but had to pay around a grand each to compete, nearly doubling the amount they have to pay already.
A former GB captain tagged along for coaching experience in Malaysia and was staggered by the lack of funding. He was only there as a one-off but cleared his diary to get out to Porto as well. Hopefully he can use his contacts to push for some sponsorship, especially after the success of both Welsh teams this week.“
Finally, I was not surprised at all to learn this week that the food inflation figure for last month had risen to 4 per cent because I’d been noticing the increase in prices on my weekly shop over the summer. The cost of living crisis has not gone away and so my message to all of you who generously make a financial contribution towards the running of this blog is that you don’t need to do so any more. I needed help tp keep MAYA going when my only income was my works pension, but now that I’m getting my state pension as well, I have no problem funding the blog myself. Therefore, although I’ll continue to be very grateful to anyone who wants to continue to support MAYA, if some of you who are contributing are feeling the pinch, then, by all means, cancel your payments to me – I’ll just remain very grateful for the help you gave me when I really needed it.
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