Weekly review 4/8/24.

Posted on August 4, 2024 by The other Bob Wilson

Cardiff City rounded off what must be one of their most successful pre season programmes of recent years with a 2-0 win at Bristol Rovers to follow up on another victory over a League One side in midweek when Reading were overcome by 2-1 at Cardiff City Stadium on Wednesday.

Bath City, Kortrijk, Pen Y Bont and Hamburg were also beaten and their were creditable draws with South African Champions Mamelodi Sundowns and Hertha Berlin along with a 1-0 loss to Kidderminster in the first open to the public game nearly a month ago.

So, results were good, but, encouragingly, so were performances generally speaking- as someone who was very critical of City’s style of play through the last two thirds of last season, I must say i enjoyed quite a bit of the football we played. 

Of course, it’s one thing being easy on the eye when there are no league points at stake and as soon as results start to suffer, a change to a more pragmatic style is often not too far away, but I think there is definite intention to play in a more attacking and entertaining manner from Erol Bulut and his staff.

For now at least, there is a full commitment to playing out from the back in a way that there never was completely last season – I datesay Jak Alnwick did kick the ball long on Wednesday at some time, but I can’t remember it, while I’m pretty sure Ethan Horvarth didn’t do it today.

With this virtual total reliance on playing out from the back, comes an increase in the risks such an approach carries and it cost us a goal on Wednesday. On an afternoon where we were generally pretty comfortable in defence, Rovers’ better chances came from pressing the likes of  Manolis Siopis and Joe Ralls and, particularly towards the end of the game, there were occasions when the opposition mounted potentially dangerous attacks after possession was carelessly lost around the halfway line.

I’ll make a prediction and say we could concede a sloppy goal or two in the opening weeks through the opposition’s press and because, as mentioned earlier, we seem a lot more committed to playing out from the back, hence the degree of risk increases, but, so far at least, we’re getting more bodies into the box when we attack and the early signs are that we’re a lot less rigid positionally when in possession.

Last season there was a feeling that even if the opposition got their press wrong, we didn’t have the attacking resources to take advantage of this, the early signs are that this might not be true this season. Of course Aaron Ramsey staying fit would help things greatly in that respect and there were signs today of an understanding between Rambo and Chris Willock forming already, add in an “on it” Rubin Colwill (as he was today when he replaced Ramsey for the last quarter) and we look to have more creativity and flair in us.

There still has to be doubts as to whether we have the strikers to fully take advantage of what appears to be more attacking quality in our midfield mind. Yakou Meite was an effective attack leader against League One opposition today, but, too often, he wasn’t against higher level defenders last season. There is still the hope that Kion Etete’s* game can develop to a higher level, but he’s not even been on the bench in three of our last four games and, unless he’s injured, it seems like a move, either temporary or permanent, is on the cards for him.

In addition, there is Isaak Davies* fresh off a season on loan where things went well at Kortrijk, Callum Robinson has scored six times in pre season and looks like he has his mojo back and there is a newcomer who I’ll come to later, but is there anyone in those five who’ll represent “the complete package” at this level? I’m not sure there is.

City were good today though and would have won by more but for the heroics of Griffiths in the home goal. The keeper had no chance though with either of the spectacular goals we scored either side of half time. The first was arrowed into the top corner of the net from twenty five yards with great force by Ramsey after neat work by Willock and the second placed into the same corner to the keeper’s right by Ralls from twenty yards.

On Wednesday, City weren’t as impressive against a Reading team that I thought had the better of a first half which saw them fall behind very early on when Robinson cashed in after robbing the Reading keeper of possession. The visitors were level within ten minutes when Andy Rinomhota lost possession twenty yards out and was punished by a good finish by Azeez and they would have fancied going home with a win at various times in the next hour before Robinson had scoring made easy for him by a cross from sub Luey Giles that I genuinely believe bettered anything City came up with in that department all through last season. We could have had further goals after that as, just as we had done against Hertha a few days earlier, we finished the stronger team, but we had done enough to gain what I thought was a just about deserved win over a team that had beaten both Watford and QPR in warm up games already.

I mentioned we had a new striker, twice capped Ivory Coast forward Wilfried Kanga joins us on a season’s loan from Hertha Berlin (he wasn’t involved in our game with them a week ago). Kanga’s CV is mixed with unsuccessful spells at most of his clubs mixed with a good one with Swiss club Young Boys of Berne and a decent one with Standard Liege of Belgium on loan last season. Kanga played in the last twenty minutes or so today without making much of an impression, but, to be fair, with the game won by then, much of the earlier intensity had gone out of City’s play.

We’ve also signed twice capped Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi on a free transfer. El Ghazi has signed a one year contract, but it will take a bit of time for him to get fully fit because he has not played since late last year after being sacked by Mainz – see the Mainz 05 section here for a full explanation of his dispute with the German club. He has played, with varying success, for Villa and Everton in the Premier League and, again, his CV is mixed, but, he’s still only 29 and, rather like with Willock, we’ll have a very good player on our hands if we can get him fit and firing.

Another signing is imminent it would seem as we are strongly rumoured to be bringing in the number 8 type midfielder that has been a target all summer. It’s likely that the player is 21 year old Australia international Alex Robertson whose successful loan spell with Portsmouth last season was ended by an injury around Christmas time. It has been said by Pompey fans that Robertson was the best player in League One last season before his injury and they’ve certainly  been keen to get him back, but it’s been reported that we’ve agreed a fee with his club Manchester City and he is keen to come here.

There’s also talk of a centreback coming in next week to be a regular starter in the senior team. Even if this is not true though, there is clearly now a need to cut the wage bill – all that has happened on that front this week is that Joel Colwill joined Cheltenham on a season’s loan. There is talk that Stoke have pipped Blackburn for the signature of Ryan Wintle and the absence of the aforementioned Etete and Mark McGuinness makes me wonder if there’ll be departures for two of our younger players.

Below first team level, an under 19 team beat Oxford United 3-1 with goals by Cody Twose and a couple by Tanatswa Nyakhuwa and it was the same score line for the Under 21s last night against Pontypridd United in the Nathaniel MG Cup at Leckwith – all of our goals coming from summer signing from Norwich, Michael Reindorf.

*Since I wrote this, it’s been confirmed by Erol Bulut that Isaak Davies is out for four months with a hamstring injury picked up in Austria. Isaak missed the start of the 22/23 season with a similar injury and has had rotten luck when it comes to trying to make progress at City lately. There’s more bad news in that Kion Etete, who had hamstring injuries that eventually led to his season finishing a couple of months early in 23/24, is out for three months with a similar injury. They say it comes in threes and there was also confirmation that Jamilu Collins will be absent for eight weeks with an injury as well.

The loss of Davies and Etete rather takes us back to square one when it comes to strikers – it seems to me that a second new striker this summer now becomes more of a priority than another centreback.

Posted in Out on the pitch, The kids., The stiffs | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Weekly review 26/7/24.

Posted on July 26, 2024 by The other Bob Wilson

The City party are returning to Cardiff today after a week in Austria which seems to have gone well in terms of preparedness and team bonding for the new season and results against three opponents that were, Kortrijk apart perhaps, a step up from what we’d faced beforehand were perfectly acceptable – i thought, generally speaking, performances were promising as well.

Before going on the the matches played over the past five days against Hamburg, South African multi times Champions Mamelodi Sundowns and Hertha Berlin, the only hint regarding new signings this week came from the manager himself as Erol Bulut, speaking after the Sundowns game on Tuesday, said that he was hopeful of bringing in two, possibly three, new signgings before the week was out.

I have to say that, as yet, there has been nothing to justify the manager’s optimism. However, it is being claimed on one of the City messageboards that there is a medical taking place today for Man City’s twice capped Australian international midfield player Alex Robertson who we have been linked to for the last few weeks.

I’ve seen nothing anywhere else about Robertson having a medical and so I think it’s very much take it with a pinch of salt for now, but what has become pretty clear is that there is something to these rumours of our interest in the player, hence why I’ve broken what has been a rule I’ve tried to stick to this summer (I’ve not always succeeded mind!) of not going into details about transfer rumours until they have something concrete to them.

To return to the games played in Austria, City gained what I’ll call revenge for their heart breaking Cup Winners Cup Semi Final defeat by Hamburg fifty six years ago by beating them 3-0 on Sunday.

Hamburg are very much in the fallen giants category currently as they are finding returning to the Bundesliga much tougher than they would have expected to when they were relegated in 2018, but, to be fair to them, their comprehensive defeat probably had a lot to do with them having faced Nantes, of all teams, the day before – I checked the Hamburg side which faced StPauli in the derby game in May when ex City man Robert Glatzel scored the only goal and there were two or three members of that team in from the start against us.

Glatzel was not one of them, apparently he was injured, and Hamburg did look pretty toothless without the man who has scored 63 times in 100 Hamburg league appearances. It was all pretty low key in the first half as City struggled to make chances themselves in the opening forty five minutes, but, not for the first time on the tour, the introduction of substitutes who generally tended to be younger than the players they were replacing livened things up.

Soon after the interval, Jamilu Collins, City’s best player in the eyes of many who watched the match, crossed to the far post where Ollie Tanner scored with a simple header. Once ahead, City took a degree of control and it was two of the younger substitutes who combined when Joel Bagan played a long ball out from the back (and it was a pass as opposed to a hoof) which enabled Isaak Davies to sprint clear of the last defender and shot calmly past the keeper.

It was a real reminder of what Davies might be able to give us this season – certainly, I don’t think we had anyone capable of scoring that goal last season and therefore the number of options facing anyone trying to play the ball up to our forwards was reduced.

The scoring was completed by Callum Robinson who netted from twelve yards from a half cleared corner in the closing minutes and, without creating that many chances, City had been able to add three more goals to the ten they’d scored in their previous two matches against Kortrijk and Pen y Bont.

Mamelodi Sundowns on Tuesday represented a step up in class though and, by the end, City could probably consider themselves a little fortunate to come out of a testing afternoon with a 1-1 draw. The Sundowns have been South African Champions for the last seven seasons and had a speed and effective press to them that marked them out as definitely Championship standard to me,

City went with a younger looking starting line up and, as they did in all three matches, offered little in the way of a goal threat in the first 45 minutes. The Sundowns were the team on the front foot most of the time, but, in truth, although I found it an interesting watch in many respects, there was not a great deal of goalmouth action throughout.

Joel Colwill had played at right back in the first half, but the half time introduction of Ronan Kpakio and Cian Ashford (both of whom have done themselves no harm at all in the last week I’d say) enabled him to move into his normal central midfield role for the second period and, just as against Hamburg, City had a goal to celebrate within a couple of minutes of the restart as Ashford fed Colwill who scored from fifteen yards with an assured left foot finish.

City were quite comfortable after that until around the seventy minute mark when the Sundowns seemed to step up a gear and put us under increased pressure. Ironically though, the equaliser came via a rapid counter attack after one of City’s best moves of the game – City found themselves short of cover at the back as Collins was sucked into the middle and Tashreeq Matthews was given plenty of room to run into down our left before placing a good shot from the corner of the penalty area across Ethan Horvarth, who was making his first appearance of the season and into the corner of the net.

The tour ended with another 1-1 draw yesterday. Although not quite the historical force that Hamburg have been in German football, Hertha are a side that I always tend to associate with the Bundesliga, but they did no better than a mid table finish in Germany’s second tier last season after being relegated in 22/23.

Like Hamburg, Hertha had the excuse of having played a game not long before this one. Indeed, they’d been beaten 2-1 by Huddersfield at a different venue in the area only a few hours later – this would explain why yesterday’s match was watch by Cardiff and Hertha fans, plus a small number from Yorkshire!

Therefore, once again, we were probably faced by something which was some way short of Hertha’s strongest team, just as had been the case against Hamburg, but that was counterbalanced to an extent by the fact that the Bundesliga 2 season starts next weekend, so both Hamburg and Hertha were probably quite a bit further down the fitness path than we are currently,

That said, it was noticeable yesterday how we finished the match much stronger than Hertha and, if we had been somewhat fortunate to draw with the Sundowns, the same applied in reverse to Hertha – it certainly felt like a game we were going to win if it had lasted for an extra ten minutes.

As it turned out, City were behind for about ninety per cent of the match. However, it was us who threatened first as Davies and Aaron Rmasey combined well and the Hertha keeper had to turn the former’s shot over the bar.

Within minutes, the Germans had the lead as a corner was half cleared, Tanner was beaten too easily out on the left and the resultant cross was headed in firmly from eight yards by Linus Gechter.

The goal apart, there was little between the sides and the next hour or so passed with chances at a premium, but with a feeling that City were, gradually, taking a measure of control. In saying that, they would have been two down midway through the second half were it not for a fine clearance off the line by Mark McGuinness.

By then, both of our summer signings had come on for their first action in City colours. Calum Chambers came on for the last half an hour and made an impression by moving into midfield twice as City looked to develop attacks, while Chris Willock had a promising twenty minutes as he was instrumental in gaining a string of corners as City stepped up the pressure.

Rubin Colwill made a difference as well in the final quarter of an hour or so as he became an influential performer in the middle of the park, but it was on the flanks where he proved most dangerous as his cross led to a header by McGuinness which was turned over the bar by the keeper and then from the result corner, Colwill eventually crossed and David Turnbull’s shot was blocked into the path of Robinson who jabbed in from six yards with a minute to go.

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