Having led their league for months, Cardiff City’s Academy team has been overhauled by Ipswich going into the final few weeks of the campaign. A 6-3 win for the East Anglian side combined with a 1-0 loss for City.against Sheffield Wednesday at Treforest this lunchtime means that we are two points adrift of them with a game in hand.
To be blunt, City looked anything but a title winning side today and I don’t think they could have many complaints about the outcome against a good Wednesday side that are something of a bogey team for us at this level and are very well placed to make the end of season Play Offs as they sit second in the Northern Section of the league with games in hand over leaders Leeds.
City started well enough and looked the sharper side early on, but, from about the tenth minute onwards, the visitors imposed themselves on the game and it was a grip that they didn’t relax..
All of that may sound as if Wednesday were well on top for most of the match, but that’s not really true. Both sides set out to play a possession based pressing game and it was just that Wednesday were that little bit better at it than us – they were also a slightly cuter and less naive side than us.
If I was to compare the teams, I would say that the side I wanted to win had the edge when it came to the goalkeepers, but their opponents had it everywhere else and, usually, that has to be a recipe for defeat for my side.
Even with the keepers, when I say George Ratcliffe was the better of the two, I should qualify that by saying that Render in the Wednesday goal may be good enough to go on to win a hundred senior caps for his country, but he was outshone by his rival today solely because one keeper was forced into making three or four very good saves, whereas the other one had barely anything to do.
By and large, City defended pretty well, but they found it increasingly tough the further forward they went to the extent that I can only think of them really threatening the Wednesday goal twice – once in the first half when a cross by Siyabonga Ligendza was scrambled away for a corner after he got in down the left and then after the break, right wing back Taylor Jones saw his well struck shot deflected narrowly wide after what was probably City’s best move of the game.
In a way, the only goal was a microcosm of the match in that, whereas Wednesday were more often than not able to pass the ball out from defensive positions, City usually either found themselves forced to resort to longer, fighting passes forward because they never had the ball under the same sort of control as their opponents or they were robbed of possession in areas just in front of their defence. That is what happened on seventy two minutes, when Harry Pinchard lost possession just outside the City penalty area and the ball was quickly played through to Liam Shaw who was left with the fairly simple task of firing past the helpless Ratcliffe from about ten yards out.
City had little to come back with against opponents that saw the game out pretty comfortably and, on this evidence, Wednesday would certainly fancy their chances if the teams were to meet again in the end of season Play Offs.
However, it should be pointed out that City had a long list of first choice players who were not available today. For a start, just as they have been so often this season, City were lacking arguably their two best attacking players in Sion Spence and Isaak Davies, while Keiron Evans, who has been a real match winner for the team with his goals over the past month or two, made it three attacking players who would surely have been in the side if they had been fit.
Ryan Reynolds, who has been named as captain in Wales age group squads this season, was also one of a clutch of centre backs out through injury as the situation required midfielder Keenan Patten and full back cum midfielder Ryan Kavanagh to fill in as makeshift central defenders. Both of them did well in their unusual role, but I couldn’t help thinking that Patten especially was missed in our midfield.
If City can get some of their injured players back, I’d like to think that they can do well in the Play Offs provided they can get across the line by securing a top two finish. In truth, they are all but there already, because they are eight points clear of third placed Millwall, albeit with a slightly worse goal difference, and the Londoners only have three games left to play.
Defeat in a big game for the Under 18s was a suitably downbeat prelude for a miserable afternoon for the first team whose chances of avoiding the drop now look a lot worse despite them not kicking a ball in anger.
Even the bit of “good news” had caveats which conspire to make survival that much harder for us. By that I mean that Huddersfield are now definitely down after their loss at Palace as other results went against them and Fulham could well have joined them by the time we play at Manchester City following their home defeat to the defending Champions. However, the fact that two sides are pretty certain to have been relegated with more than a month of the Premier League campaign left will have played a small part in indirectly pushing up the safety figure, in terms of points, needed for the those in danger of occupying the third relegation place will have to reach.
City’s cause was not helped by the fact that Palace got three points to make their survival almost certain, but I suppose the slight silver lining for us is that it is more likely that they’ll be safe by the time they come to Cardiff for our penultimate match of the season. Unfortunately, with Burnley and Southampton winning, the danger is that the game will be rendered meaningless because we’ll be down by then anyway.
Wolves have, quite rightly, got plenty of praise for their ability to give the top six sides a real test this season, so it’s certainly strange that their record is so ordinary when facing struggling teams. Burnley became the latest bottom six side to beat the Midlanders, who may well have been distracted a little by next weekend’s FA Cup Semi Final with Watford, as they triumphed 2-0 at Turf Moor, while another Semi Finalist, Brighton, went down at home to Southampton, so City now find themselves an imposing five points adrift of safety with a goal difference which, in effect, makes that six.
There are those who are now saying that we have to beat Chelsea tomorrow to stand a chance of staying up, but I would say that, with defeat the most likely outcome in our next two games, what we need from our matches with them and Man City is at least one performance of the sort of quality that will enable us to go into the three crucial away matches which follow our visit to the Etihad with a positive frame of mind. We have shown that, on our day, we can win at Burnley, Brighton and Fulham, but I can’t see how we can get the six or more points we’ll probably need if in the next week we see a repeat of the sort of meek surrender to top six sides we’ve seen too often this season
Another 1-1 draw for Blaenrhondda this weekend, this time at third placed Cornelly United, keeps them in the hunt for second place, but that result was a good outcome for the side currently occupying that position, FC Cwmaman, who did not have a fixture – the table shows that the odds must now be against Blaenrhondda getting that runner’s up spot, but they’re by no means out of things yet.
Finally, Ton Pentre’s new found ability to hit the net did them no good at fourth placed Haverfordwest County I’m afraid – their 4-2 loss keeps them stuck at the bottom of the table while the sides immediately above them either won or didn’t play.
