Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

Whether we were in the running for automatic promotion or the Play Offs, early April has looked to be a crucial period in our season for about six months now. Before Christmas, it appeared as if our visit to Sheffield United on Monday would be a clash between two of the Championship’s top three clubs and while the Blades have fallen away somewhat in the second half of the campaign, they are still right in the running for a top six finish. Next Friday’s clash with Wolves was always going to be against a side that was likely to be going up by avoiding the lottery of the Play Offs, while less than a month ago it looked like the visit to Villa Park on 10 April might decide who would accompany Wolves up automatically.

Therefore, the Good Friday visit of struggling Burton Albion to Cardiff City Stadium was always seen as a not too testing prelude to the real stuff that was to follow. As Neil Warnock acknowledged in his post game press conference yesterday that was always going to make Burton dangerous opponents because they were a team everyone was expecting us to beat.

By and large, City have done so well this season on the back of a “we’ll show them” attitude whereby we’ve been perceived as a team which shouldn’t really be as high in the table as we have been. In a way, that has made motivation an easier task for our manager because he has been able to do what those in charge of any sporting team or individual, apparently, love to do prior to a game – portray their charges as underdogs.

However, as the wins have piled up since we ended our four match losing spell over the Christmas/New Year period, the realisation has dawned in places a lot further afield than south Wales that this Cardiff team have more going for them than they have been given credit for.

Although there is a part of me that does not want to admit this for fear of somehow jinxing us, the fact has to be faced that, before yesterday’s match, we were in a position where automatic promotion was now ours to lose.

The problem with this is that, with no disrespect to Burton Albion (and that “no disrespect” is meant genuinely, as opposed to when those words are used as a licence to insult someone!), there was no chance that Cardiff City could be portrayed as underdogs yesterday.

There is no two ways about it, we were massive favourites beforehand. Although I’d say the crowd of 21,086 was still not great for a side that was seven points clear of the third placed team with eight games to play, that could be explained to some extent by the low away fan turn out from the poorest supported team in the Championship and, although it doesn’t seem to be the case as much these days, Good Friday has always struck me as the Bank Holiday above others where more people are still expected to work.

So, overall, it wasn’t  a bad turn out and I’m sure the almost twenty one thousand who were there to support the home side were, almost to a man or woman, expecting a Cardiff win.

In such situations can lie danger, because that is where complacency can develop and breed. I think it’s fair to say that there was an element of that among those watching yesterday (in my case, although I tried to come up with reasons as to why the game was a banana skin that we could easily slip on, my heart wasn’t in it – I thought three points were a virtual certainty) and, it’s reasonable to assume that if spectators felt that, then there was a danger that some of those in blue out on the pitch did as well.

Yes, I know they are all professionals and they should push such thoughts from their minds, but they are also human beings and they are bound to approach different challenges with different attitudes which, in some cases, could be down to the perceived weakness of their opponents.

Certainly, City were slow out of the blocks yesterday as the visitor’s could have gone ahead with barely a minute played as Liam Boyce’s header from a free kick was begging to be touched over the line by a Burton player before Sean Morrison hacked the ball clear.

There was another decent headed opportunity for Boyce before five minutes had been played and, certainly in those opening stages, where Burton were poised and confident in possession, Cardiff, as they so often have looked this season, were rushed and clumsy. This was never better exemplified than when an attempt to play some short, quick passes ended with a booking for Craig Bryson as the midfielder was forced to commit a cynical foul as the ball got away from him when City tired to pass the ball in a manner which every other team we play seems to find easier to do than us.

Burton manager Nigel Clough was right to say that City’s opening goal in the sixteenth minute came from their first meaningful attack and, as such, came against the run of play, but it did offer a clue as to how the match would pan out the longer it went on. The pass that the impressive Joe Bennett played down the left hand touchline may have covered quite a distance, but it would be so wrong to give it the often disparaging title of a “long ball”, because it was perfect both in terms of accuracy and strength as it enabled Junior Hoilett to to take it in his stride, burst to the byeline and put over a low cross which Kenneth Zohore was able to nonchalantly sweep home from close range for his fourth goal in six matches.

The pre match wisdom, which I shared, among most of those I spoke to was that Burton, who, if they are to stay up, are going to do it largely on the back of their decent away record, might prove difficult to break down, but, if we could get an early goal, we’dbe alright. Therefore, it was assumed by many I’d guess that City would go on to assert their superiority following Zohore’s goal, but, not a bit of it – within five minutes, the visitors were back on terms.

Lloyd Dyer may be thirty five now, but, on yesterday’s evidence, he still has a lot of the pace which has helped him be an effective winger at this level for around a decade and a half and, as such, he presented a test of Bruno Manga’s full back capabilities. Although he could complain about being left isolated by his team mates, it was a test Manga failed when Boyce was able to thread a pass inside him which left Dyer clear to come in from City’s right to cross low to the far post where another veteran, thirty four year old Darren Bent, was able to score easily past the helpless Neil Etheridge.

That was as good as it got for Burton. Manga endured an uncomfortable first quarter of the game, but, like his team really, gradually improved and went on to end the match in far better fettle than he started it.

Before Manga and City could claim to have overcome their problems, there was a fairly even second quarter of the game to be played out. The pattern of the match had changed to the extent that Burton’s early attacking threat had largely subsided and, increasingly, it was the visitors who were living dangerously, but, once again I find it hard to argue with Nigel Clough when he said the game changed on what happened in the three minutes added on at the end of the first period.

First, Zohore flicked on a Morrison pass into the path of Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and the winger, who the video pictures here show was not offside, ran clear to beat ex City loanee Seve Bywater with a rising shot from fifteen yards. However, there was still time for Burton to take advantage of sloppy City defending to create a chance which Jamie Allen should have done better with and I think it was fair to say that 2-1 down at the break was harsh on the visitors.

I’d mentioned earlier that our first goal was a hint of things to come and this applied even more so to our second one, because, in both instances, Burton were shown to be unable to cope more with City’s pace than their power and, in that respect, our attacking play after the interval was a throwback to our early season form.

Back in August and September, opposing defences were being ripped apart by the play of a front three which looked as good as anything in the league at that time – I would say yesterday was the first time since our win over Leeds over six months ago where the Mendez-Laing, Zohore and Hoilett triumvirate were all at something near to their best at the same time.

Back in those early weeks of the campaign, City would often find it hard to get Mendez-Laing on the ball, but when they did he was devastating. It was a little like that yesterday as he had very few touches during Burton’s good spell, but he was one of three or four home players who suggested we might have too much for our opponents if we could get a foothold in the game.

To be honest, a poor touch by Mendez-Laing in the run where he scored should have given Bywater the opportunity to come out and dive for the play instead of opting to stay where he was, but he was probably remembering the earlier incident where he had seriously underestimated the winger’s pace and been beaten out on the touchline to leave his goal unguarded – Mendez-Laing took the ball on and, although his low cross was probably a little overhit, Bryson only really needed to make sure his effort was on target to score, but, instead, he shot wide.

Mendez-Laing may not be playing quite as well as he was in his first few matches for us, but I’d say he is definitely in his best form since then and much the same applies to Zohore.

Like Mendez-Laing, injury has played a part in our Danish striker having a rather long mid season dip in form, but he is looking to be completely over that at the moment. There was a curious choice to look to pass to Mendez-Laing when he found himself clear of the last defender and in the sort of position he was scoring from eight or nine times out of ten in the second half of last season and some somewhat over indulgent flicks when we were two goals clear. However, Zohore on this form is a right handful at this level and with his flicked header for his assist in the second goal, he showed the sort of targetman capabilities that he is often accused on here of lacking and a fourth “bread and butter” strikers goal in six games, he is showing an all round level of ability which suggests he could prosper in the Premier League as well.

Good though our other two front men were though, the best of the three against Burton, as well as throughout the season, was Hoilett. I’ve mentioned before that there were three candidates for our Player of the Season in my mind (Ralls, Morrison and Hoilett), well in the last few weeks, I think others such as Bamba, Etheridge and Bennett have advanced their claims, but, more and more, I’m coming around to thinking that it has to be Junior. Unlike, nearly all of the other possibles, Hoilett has not suffered with injuries over the past eight months, but when you also consider that he was playing competitive games for Canada at the time the rest of the squad were involved in friendly matches, his levels of fitness and stamina at this stage of the season are incredible.

As so often, Hoilett was our main attacking inspiration and, more than anyone else, justified my opinion that, like, for example, Villa, Wolves, Leeds and Brentford before them, Burton couldn’t cope with us when we turned on the pace and skill going forward.

Yesterday’s second half should have brought us more goals, but, in essence, it was like watching us in August when it came to attacking play (we weren’t quite at our August form at the back mind) when so much of our success stemmed from our front three.

However, it can be argued that, if anything, we carry more attacking threat now than we did then because we also have Callum Paterson raiding, and scoring at a rate of better than one in every two starts, from his advanced central midfield position. The Scot, who played at right back for Scotland in their defeat by Costa Rice ten days ago, was another who struggled to get on the ball early on and his first half influence wasn’t great, but he got his almost inevitable goal to put us a couple ahead in the sixty fourth minute when Hoilett’s cross bounced off Bryson into his path and he blasted in from eight yards – when you are able to get two midfielders making forward runs to give wingers at least four targets to aim for, you are always likely to score goals.

To be honest, even though we face some really tough fixtures in our run in, it’s hard to see how we can miss out on automatic promotion if our front three perform like they did yesterday and Paterson and Bryson continue to give us extra attacking options from open play – that’s not to say we will definitely finish in the top two because our defending will need to be better than it was at times against Burton, but, with eleven goals scored in our last four matches, our attacking play currently is meaning that teams are needing to score at least twice to stand a chance of taking even a point off us.

Finally, it was great to see Aron Gunnarsson playing his first football for us since our win at Barnsley in November. Not only that, it was great to see Gunnar playing so well on his return as, although I thought Bryson was an effective player for us yesterday, the Iceland captain’s passing, covering, tackling and leadership made our midfield look a better unit than it had done before he came on.