Cardiff have Burnley on the ropes by the end, but defensive woes continue to haunt them.

Cardiff City fell to a predictable home defeat tonight against third placed Burnley, but not really in the manner they were expected to. Burnley, the team that don’t concede goals are going to miss out on automatic promotion by failing to turn enough of their numerous goalless draws into 1-0 wins if they finish the season in their current position, so the predictions beforehand tended to favour a 1-0 win for the visitors, with City being given a chance of earning a goalless draw.

In the event, it was a much more open game than expected and, although it’s little consolation in defeat, City scored the first league goal against the Lancastrians in a whopping 1,132 minutes, they also hit the woodwork twice and should have scored a late equaliser as they missed badly from inside the six yard box.

For all of that though, Burnley created a lot more chances than they did back in August when they somehow beat us 5-0 and there was a desperation to much of City’s defending in the first hour of the game. It needed some good saves and last ditch blocks to keep the score down before we finished strongly and pegged Burnley back for much of the last twenty five minutes or so.

Burnley’s defending wasn’t as good as I expected it to be, but I’m thinking of what I’ll call traditional defending there because they were very good and organized with their pressing.

It’s to City’s credit therefore that Burnley must have been relieved to hear the final whistle – I wouldn’t deny the visitors their win, they deserved it over the ninety minutes, but it still felt like City could have got a second goal if the match had gone on for another ten minutes and at least, after five feeble defeats to the current top four with an aggregate score of 0-18, we managed to give one of them a decent game at the sixth attempt.

Im sure I wasn’t the only one caught out by Omer Riza’s tactics from the start as what looked for all of the world like a three at the back selection with wing backs became a 4-2-3-1 with Andy Rinomhota and Joel Bagan full backs, Perry Ng partnering Dimi Goutas in central defence, Sivert Mannsverk paired with Calum Chambers in central midfield, Cian Ashford on the right, Alex Robertson playing centrally and Callum O’Dowda given something of a roving commission behind Yousef Salech.

Will Fish and Ruben Colwill were two members of the team that played at Villa Park on Friday with good reason to feel hard done by after their omissions from tonight’s starting line up and the fact Riza introduced them both at half time for Rinomhota and Robertson is something of an admission that he’d got the original selection wrong.

City had defended pretty well in their previous three games, but I’m afraid tonight was a return to their woes at the back which have haunted all season.They were poor defensively in the first forty five minutes during which all of the goals were scored with the one which turned out to be the winner being a shockingly bad one to concede.

Three goals in a first half is almost unheard of at Cardiff City Stadium these days and so it doesn’t take much figuring out to realise this was one of the best first periods seen at the ground in months. City had begun in bright fashion and Ng’s cross was collected by James Trafford with his feet well behind the goal line, but his hands the right side of said line.

Burnley had moved the ball about quite slickly, but when they scored on eighteen minutes it was from their first serious attack as City’s season long problem preventing crosses from their right resurfaced as Hannibal get clear down that side and pulled the ball across for captain Josh Brownhill to score from eight yards out – there was a slight deflection off Ng, but I’m sure the shot would have gone in anyway.

Burnley now took control, but it was City who came closest to scoring in the next twenty minutes or so when O’Dowda clipped a great ball in and Salech, stood close to the penalty spot, stretched to divert the ball on to the outside of the post with Trafford beaten.

Zian Flemming missed a great chance to double the lead as he climbed unmarked to meet another cross from our right, but headed well wide from eight yards.

The Dutchman did better with his head five minutes before the break when he was left totally free on the far post to head across goal to where defender Maxine Estevan, equally unmarked, tapped in from about three yards out – again, the danger came from the right and there was little effort made to try and close Josh Cullen down as he crossed.

Given Burnley’s defensive record, it definitely felt like game over when the ball hit our net for the second time, but within a couple of minutes, O’Dowda did really well to win possession on the edge of the Burnley’s penalty area and Bagan’s cross was headed in at the far post by Salech who was giving his best performance for the club so far as he enjoyed an aerial superiority over the visiting centrebacks throughout.

For a minute or two in the second half, City pushed Burnley back, but they soon recovered their poise and I’m still not sure how we came through the next 15 minutes or so without conceding again – Ethan Horvarth made two good saves and there were a couple of decent looking penalty appeals turned down as our goal led something of a charmed life.

I was disappointed to see Ashford and Bagan withdrawn as I thought they’d both been among our best players, but the introduction of Callum Robinson and Anwar El-Ghazi as well as Aaron Ramsey for Mannsverk saw us improve as a team and we gained an element of control for the first time in the game.

Chances were still hard to come by though – Robinson’s good cross was headed on to the top of the bar and over by the impressive Salech, but the big chance came in the five minutes of added time when Goutas headed on to fellow centreback Fish who screwed his shot from the corner of the six yard box across goal and wide to send City to their first home defeat since the game before Christmas, which also happened to be the last time our opponents had conceded a goal in the Championship.

As I mentioned earlier, I thought the score was just about right, but there are plenty who thought we merited a draw with our stronger finish and, overall, it was a performance that makes me more confident we can stay up, but the obvious caveat is that we cannot afford to keep on giving away such soft goals. 

Although the final ball and finishing still isn’t all that it should be, I feel this is the best attacking side we’ve had for three or four seasons, but the accusation that we are as poor in defence as we have been for a generation is a damning one with some merit to it I would say.Ability wise and on an individual basis, I don’t think we’re that bad, but we seem to have problems concentrating and we’re not as organised as most City defences since we were promoted in 2003. 

A defeat for Plymouth by 2-0 at Hull sends the Humberside club above us again, but I’d say it wasn’t a bad outcome for us as we remain ahead of twenty second placed Luton by five points which is a handy gap to have over the bottom trio at this stage of the season. Clearly, Luton’s visit to Cardiff next Tuesday could see us taking a huge step towards safety, but, if things take a turn for the worse and we drop back into the bottom three, it’ll be substandard defending, more than anything else, that puts us there. 

It was also a 2-1 defeat for the under 21s who played poorly this afternoon at home to a Millwall side who played the second half with ten men following what I thought was a very harsh red card shown to one of their defenders just before half time. Millwall were leading 1-0 at the time with a soft goal scored from a header from a corner, but City were given a lifeline by a penalty award given for a foul on Trey George as he dived to head a Luey Giles cross – the decision looked a correct one, but it was a real surprise to see a red card being shown to the culprit as well.

Mannie Barton’s underhit penalty was saved by the Millwall keeper and the visitors doubled their lead soon after the restart with another simple goal.

City struggled to find any fluency even with a man advantage, George did get a goal back when he took advantage of a mistake to round the keeper and finish well, but, apart from a shot against the post by Raheem Conte, Millwall saw the game out with few alarms. 

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Seven decades of Cardiff City v Burnley matches.

A 3-0 defeat by Preston in the Cup on Saturday will have dented Burnley’s aura of defensive impregnability, but not shattered it as their team at Deepdale showed nine changes from their previous league game, so it bore little resemblance to the team which has not conceded a league goal since a 2-1 win over Watford four days before Christmas.

City will go into the tomorrow’s game with the players that have accrued a truly remarkable record of just nine goals conceded in thirty four league games boosted by having kept a very rare clean sheet (only their second in the league since late October) in their win over Hull last week. However, having said in my piece on the Villa game that the only way City would have progressed to the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup was via penalties following a 0-0 draw, logic dictates that a goalless draw is the only outcome that will see us avoiding defeat tomorrow.

City barely ever looked like scoring on Friday and it’s been the same whenever we’ve come up against one of Leeds, Sheffield United, Burnley and Sunderland, the four teams that have dominated this season’s Championship. Yes, we did win away agaainst a shadow Sheffield United side in the Third Round of the Cuo, but we’re lost our five league games against the top four by an embarrassing aggregate of 18-0 with the narrowest margin of defeat being 2-0.

As it turns out, Yakou Meite came as close as anyone to coming up with a goal in these matches when he hit the Burnley upright when he should really have scored up at Turf Moor back in August. We were 1-0 down at the time, but were on top and playing well in one of the weirdest games I’ve seen where Burnley went on to win 5-0 despite having just four on target efforts and an expected goals figu=re of less than one!

Leaving the scoreline to one side, Burnley still ended up worthy winners, but I always felt we were “in the game” more in that one than we ever were in the other four matches we’ve played against the leading quartet and so I don’t completely rule out the goalless draw or even us managing to breach the Burnley defence, but, surely, it would be just the once if that happened – an away win has to be, by some distance, the most likely outcome and I wouldn’t be too disappointed with a narrow loss in which we competed better against a leading side than we have done up to now.

Tomorrow is another one of those games where anything we pick up will be a bonus, but stronger performances against Burnley and Sunderland on Saturday would make me feel more confident that we can avoid the drop.

Here’s the usual quiz on upcoming opponents with the answers to be posted on here on Wednesday.

60s. There was something which was not unique I’m sure, but definitely quirky about this north eastener’s career which saw him cross into Yorkshire once, but, otherwise he remained within Lancashire. Starting of at Burnley, he played most games for them and scored his goals at a rate he would never repeat at his other three clubs. After nine years at Turf Moor, he moved to ,local rivals (not their most bitter ones) where he continued to play in the top flight and set a club scoring record which can never be beaten. His three years at his second club ended with the move to Yorkshire mentioned above as he dropped down the divisions to play for a team that may be the closest thing we have to a yoyo team between the Championship and League One these days. His final club were sole holders of an enviable scoring record when he signed for them, but now they share it with another club and it’s surely going to be an awful long time before they get a chance to either match or break it? Who am I describing?

70s. Such was this defender’s desperation to move closer to his native Scotland that he left his first club in London without knowing where Burnley was precisely and he signed for them without bothering with any negotiations about his wages. He’d been a bit part player at his first club and, after being given the runaround by an England winger when he made his debut playing out of position at right back, he found it hard to establish himself at his new club. In fact, it wasn’t until his fifth season at Turf Moor that he became a regular in the team, but once he did, he was there for not far short of a decade as he made it to three hundred plus appearances. When his playing days were over, he returned to work for the club for the season when they almost lost their Football League status and he never did make it all the way back to Scotland as he stayed in Burnley until his death a few years ago. Can you name him?

80s. I’m surprised that VAT for couples ends up as a full back! (4.8)

90s. Burnley, briefly during this decade, was the only English club this Scottish midfielder played for in a career lasting seventeen years. He’s probably best known as a manager as he had a lot of success on both sides of the border in his early days before it’s kind of plateaued out in recent years. His career in management can be said to be a strange one as it’s consisted of one spell at two English clubs, three spells at the same Scottish club and he’s currently managing an English club for the third time, who is he?

00s. Baptist adds oomph perhaps!

10s. Starting with the Rebel Army, this defender was loaned out six times in his thirteen years with Burnley for whom he made less than a hundred league appearances – one of them being in a game against City which saw us achieve something we’ve only managed to do twice before in our history. Capped seventeen times by his country, he’s currently playing on the other side of the Atlantic, name him.

20s. Which member of the current Burnley squad played his first game in the EFL while on loan to Newport County from Brentford?

Answers

60s. All four clubs that Jimmy Robson played for began with the letter B. He spent nearly a decade at Burnley racking up over two hundred league appearances and scoring close to eighty goals before a move to Blackpool where he became their first ever substitute to score a goal. His next team was Barnsley and he ended his career at Bury who for over a century had sole possession of the record for the biggest win in an FA Cup Final (6-0 against Derby in 1903) before it was equalled by Man City with their win over Watford in 2019.

70s. Jim Thompson left Chelsea for Burnley in 1968 and, after having to mark Liverpool’s Peter Thompson on his debit in a 4-0 loss at Anfield, it took him until 72/73 to become a first team regular in his preferred position in central defence. Thompson left Burnley in 80/81, but returned to the club as commercial manager for the troubled 86/87 season.

80s. Paul Comstive.

90s. Derek Adams played a couple of games for Burnley in the mid nineties in a playing career spent otherwise in Scotland. As a manager, he’s taken charge of both Ross County and Morecambe three times and had spells with Plymouth and Bradford.

00s. John Spicer.

10s. Kevin Long started his career at Cork City and was at Burnley between 2010 and 2023, he now plays for Toronto FC.

20s. Josh Laurent was loaned to Newport by Brentford in 2015. 

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