This probably says more about me than the people I’m going to have a moan about, but, seemingly, right from the moment we got promoted we’ve heard how some City fans are going to “enjoy the ride” during the upcoming season in the Premier League.
To be honest, it didn’t bother me too much when I first heard it. In fact I agreed with it in a way – after the disaster that was our first season in the Premier League where there was friction between owner and manager, friction between owner and supporters and what turned out to be a disastrous managerial appointment when Malky Mackay did eventually go, our second chance dawned as an opportunity to put things right with manager, team, Board, owner and supporters all pulling in the same direction – we may end up being relegated, but there would not be a repeat of the meek surrender of 13/14.
The trouble is, as the defeats mounted, the determination of some to keep on enjoying the ride began to jar with me and culminated in what was one of the most miserable days in my recent City supporting experience when I got soaked watching Manchester City walk all over us – they scored five, but they probably could have doubled that tally if they had really wanted to.
I think I’ve mentioned before on here that I woke up on the day of the Man City match and was looking forward more to the Under 18 game I would watch before (we lost 1-0 to Palace, but it was a high quality encounter) the senior match more than the chance to see my team taking on the League Champions.
As I said at the start, that probably doesn’t reflect well on me, but I would also say that it says a lot about the modern Premier League and the unequal struggle between the elite at the top and those whose ambitions can only realistically stretch to survival at the start of each season. The Premier League is marketed by Sky as the league where anyone can beat the best and, of course, there will be instances where that happens occasionally, but the only result I can think of this season so far which would, possibly, justify such a claim is Watford 2 Spurs 1.
As I squelched back to my car after Cardiff 0 Man City 5, I would have gladly strangled anyone who had piped up that they were disappointed by today’s result, but were still enjoying the Premiership ride!
My disposition was not improved in our two matches since Man City. The more I think about our defeat to Burnley, the more it seems to be a travesty of justice except for the fact that our woeful defending for that first goal served to negate so much of the bad luck we had to endure that day.
An injury hit Spurs team were then able to capitalise on more dozy defending to score early on, but a City team reduced to ten men for much of the second half were still able to stay in the game to the extent that when it finished 1-0, while accepting the result was probably right, I looked at it as a match which we might have got something out of.
So, there you had it despite the fact that no one in the national media had a good word to say about us, I actually thought that we were playing better than our results indicated. Six points with a win over Burnley and what would have been a slightly fortunate point against Arsenal would have been a fairer reflection of things than the two points we actually had.
It all pointed to the Premier League not being a place where you get your just deserts and this feeling was only given more credence with the continuation of a trend from our first season at this level where we got virtually nothing from the “celebrity” refs who probably think they are slumming it when they have to take matches involving the likes of Bournemouth, Huddersfield and us.
How anyone could possibly have really enjoyed the ride that was our first eight league games (plus the woeful League Cup showing against Norwich) is beyond me, but, again, I think I was probably in full feeling sorry for myself mode by then.
Two weeks ago as we dropped to the bottom of the league after the Sours defeat, I wondered if we would stay in twentieth position for the rest of the season and then in my reaction piece to Wales 1 Spain 4 I commented on what a miserable season 18/19 was turning out to be for someone like myself who takes an interest in international as well as club football. With me also proving to be something a Jonah when I went along to watch my local non league sides as well, I found myself wondering whether I had inadvertently upset some deity or other somewhere in the past few months!
However, they always tell us about it being darkest before the dawn – they also always tell us about giant oaks growing from little acorns and it was from one such acorn that the week just ended turned into what was the best seven days of this season so far by an absolute mile.
Monday’s 3-1 win for the Development side over Charlton ended a run where City sides at senior, Under 23 and Under 18 level seemed to be on losing sequences. In truth, it wasn’t quite as bad as I’m making it out to be because there was a win for the Under 18s and a draw for the Under 23s in there somewhere, but they were the only times we avoided defeat in something like fifteen matches for the those teams.
Yet, that one win six days ago which, probably, hardly any other City fans noticed, along with Wales’ victory in Dublin the following evening lifted the clouds for me to such an extent that my parting words to Richard Holt (co author of the Journey Back, a few copies of which are still available at a fiver each if anyone is interested!) before kick off in today’s match with Fulham was that I fancied us to win.
My prediction was that we would come out on top by 2-1 – a scoreline which turned out to be pretty mundane when compared to what actually happened in the following two hours or so!
Ten minutes into the match, I was convinced we were on our way to that first win of the campaign – Fulham were wobbling in the face of a fast start by City, a goal was definitely coming and it duly did within a minute, trouble was, it was our net that was bulging.
I’m not quite sure what has happened to Andre Schurrle since he won his World Cup winner’s medal with Germany in 2014. He was a Chelsea player back then, but soon found himself surplus to requirements there and a £22 million move to Wolfsburg followed. He did pretty well with the team we faced in a pre season friendly a few weeks after that World Cup Final, before making what was an upward move for him to Borussia Dortmund, but with due respect to their newly acquired spending power, it would have taken an idiot or a very deluded Fulham fan to imagine that he would end up on loan at Craven Cottage two years later.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but it seems to me that all of that points to a footballer in decline at the age of only twenty seven (just two appearances for Germany since 2016 backs that up as well), but he provided a reminder of what he is all about today with a stunning shot from about thirty yards out to beat Neil Etheridge to his left. In a season where you quite often have had a choice of which City player to blame when a goal has been conceded, there was no one at fault with this one, it was all down to Schurrle and his excellent technique.
That moment of brilliance pricked my bubble of enthusiasm as I quickly retreated into pessimism mode, but, thankfully, today the City team were made of far stronger stuff than me – whereas I railed at the injustice of it all, City just went back to battering away at Fulham and within ten minutes, they were in front.
For me, this was the most impressive aspect in what I would venture to say was one of Cardiff’s five best ever Premier League performances (that’s not as impressive as it sounds really is it, given the low number of matches played in “the world’s best league” and the lack of serious contenders for such an award, but it’ll do for now!).
To react to what could have been a devastating blow in a game which, despite it only being mid October, was the second successive home fixture that was being described as a must not lose occasion was very praiseworthy.
Now, while City’s determination, drive, physicality, pace and, yes, quality (Ian Walsh on Rob Phillips’ phone in programme mentioned two or three times how surprised and impressed he was by the ability shown by the likes of Josh Murphy, Bobby Decordova-Reid and Victor Camarasa) all played a part in the turnaround which left Fulham reeling, it does need to be said that their defending was as awful as a record of twenty one goals conceded in eight games going into this afternoon’s encounter suggested it would be mind.
At the moment, all the first promoted side ever to spend £100 million plus on new players in the lead up to a new season are doing is offering conclusive proof that, even in the cash soaked Premier League, money isn’t everything. Having watched them collapse 5-1 against Arsenal in their previous game and again this afternoon, I would back the Fulham squad which gained promotion last May to have fared better in the top flight than this expensively assembled bunch of individuals have done so far.
His great goal apart, Schurlle was one of a few on the Fulham side who, faced with fully committed opponents with more modest reputations and a raucous and loud home crowd, didn’t look like they fancied it. The smooth passing you normally associate with the Londoners was interspersed with careless concessions of possession in dangerous areas and, with the fit again Aron Gunnarsson to the fore, it was City who were winning the large majority of second balls and fifty/fifties.
Josh Murphy was giving Callum Chambers a torrid time of it down City’s left and the visitor’s right back was hopelessly out of position in the fifteenth minute after he had given the ball away to Sol Bamba who hit a perceptive pass into space for Murphy to run onto and the winger provided a second classy finish in successive home matches as he guided the ball beyond Bettinelli and into the corner of the net.
As ropey as Fulham were at the back, I wouldn’t blame them too much for the second goal because it’s hard to perform at your best when you are in stitches after your opponents have made a complete pig’s ear of a free kick in a dangerous area. Having not seen a video of the action yet, I’m still not really sure what happened, but it seemed to me that, for reasons best known to themselves, City went for a move which involved Joe Bennett and Camarasa having at least one touch each of the ball to tee up Paterson. Predictably, it all went wrong with City’s so called emergency centre forward barely getting a touch on the ball, Bennett then miscued another attempt hopelessly and it seemed like Fulham had gained possession and could break, but all of a sudden, Gunnarsson had won a tackle, the ball was at Decordova-Reid’s feet and he was advancing on the Fulham goal – a nutmeg of Bettinelli and it was 2-1 with the ex Bristol City man sprinting to the corner flag celebrating his first City goal.
Fulham could easily have conceded a third in the next five minutes or so, but the City storm blew itself out around the half an hour mark and I thought the rest of the first half was played out with a feeling that the visitors were beginning to get on top.
That said, erratic referee Kevin Friend, arguably, helped Fulham with their equaliser with his refusal to award us a free kick near the edge of the penalty area after Murphy was forcefully dispossessed.
Mr Friend, who awarded Bournemouth a soft penalty and generally gave us nothing all afternoon on the opening day of the season, then booked Gunnarsson seconds later for a professional foul as Fulham looked to break and so was roundly booed by the home fans with that situation getting worse for the official when the ball ended up in our net very soon afterwards.
My own view is that the abuse of the referee was a red herring in this instance (Mr Friend was really poor overall though in my opinion) – City had the chance to get organised after the concession of the free kick that Gunnarsson conceded, but, once again, did not defend well enough in the face of what was, to be fair, some incisive Fulham attacking as Mitrovic (one of only a few Fulham players I’d like to see in our side on today’s evidence) combined with Sessesgnon for the latter to calmly score his customary goal against us – it was like the Burnley game all over again, our opponents were scoring with virtually every goal attempt they had
Neil Etheridge had no chance with either goal, but a poor clearance by him led to more sloppy defending and the keeper had to redeem himself by making a clever save with his chest outside his penalty area when use of his hands could have seen him sent off.
The keeper also had his hands warmed by a Sessesgnon piledriver after the break and there was also a fine late stop from sub Alfie Mawson’s (a half time replacement for the punch drunk Chambers) header from a corner as City again showed they are more vulnerable when defending dead ball situations this season,but, that apart, we were fairly comfortable after the break.
On the other hand, Fulham continued to look jittery when City upped their attacking game and while their goal didn’t have the same amount of narrow escapes as it did before half time, they again conceded two goals.
The first came when, just as in the Burnley game, Bruno Manga claimed an assist from right back. This time though his cross needed some assistance from the opposing defence for it to reach the scorer as Paterson turned and rolled his shot gently beyond Bettinelli into the corner of the net for his fiftieth career goal – credit to ex City man Greg Halford for that stat revealed on his Twitter account – it was either brilliantly placed or slightly lucky, but, either way, City deserved to be in the lead for the second time in the game.
At that time, I doubt it if there were many in the ground who thought that was the end of the scoring and City gained the reward they deserved for chasing a fourth goal, rather than sitting back to try and preserve their lead, when another Fulham defensive blunder allowed my City man of the match Victor Camarasa in, his shot was blocked, but he would have possession twice more in the move and, eventually his low cross was converted from close range on the far post by sub Kadeem Harris.
So, City have that win which was celebrated in ecstatic fashion by supporters who were credited by the home camp afterwards for their part in achieving it. All of a sudden, things look so much more hopeful for the rest of the season, but it was reassuring to hear the realistic views of many of the contributors on the post match phone in – City were good today (any side which has Camarasa, who I’d love us to sign permanently if we could stay up, in it cannot be accused of trying to preserve their Premier League place by brute force and set piece reliance alone), but our opponents didn’t half help us along the way.
There was more good news from the Under 18s when goals from Isaak Davies and Dan Griffiths helped to turn a one goal deficit into a 2-1 win at Charlton and the side have now regained top position in their league with a game in hand. I must also congratulate Blaenrhondda who went to Garden Village of Swansea, who I make it are a couple of leagues above them in the Welsh football pyramid, and won 2-1 in the Welsh Cup.
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