Cardiff City may have set some sort of record tonight as they trailed for ninety seven minutes and yet didn’t lose – in fact they trailed by two for most of the first half. So, the unbeaten run stretches to six, seven in all competitions, and I suppose the most encouraging thing about a night where they managed to get a point from 2-0 down was that they did so while playing pretty poorly and carelessly.
In the early stages, it looked like the physical effort and emotional high of Saturday’s derby win had taken a toll as the game panned out in a completely different fashion to what the pundits had predicted.
I talked about Millwall’s record this season in the preamble to the seven decade’s quiz for this match – after losing their first two matches 3-2 and 4-3, the next two dozen league games they played had produced a total of just thirty six goals as they averaged less than a goal a game at either end of the pitch.
The pre match talk on Sky’s coverage was about how vital the first goal would be because with Millwall having won just one in twelve and slipping towards the relegation zone and City still deep in trouble despite the euphoria of the Swansea game it might well be the only one of the game.
The sensible way to go surely would have been to keep things tight early on, frustrate the crowd (Millwall had lost four out of their last five home league games 0-1) and then gradually become more ambitious. However, yet again, football’s unpredictability was to the fore and we ended up with four goals, with the home team, scorers of just seven in those twelve matches I referred to earlier, netting twice before we reached the twenty minute mark!
Having cracked the hard bit, scoring goals, Millwall’s defensive solidity should have seen them get a much needed three points because, since those high scoring first two matches, they’d only conceded more than one in a game twice.
Certainly, a City side showing five changes from the weekend provided little sign of what was to come through the first half until one of the players brought in, Chris Willock, scored in added time.
Willock was joined by Joel Bagan, Manolis Siopis, Rubin Colwill and Yakou Meite in the starting line up with Callum O’Dowda predictably missing with the injury which forced him off early on Saturday. Injuries surely accounted for Alex Robertson and Ollie Tanner’s absence from the squad (in fact, it was confirmed after the match that the former was ill and the latter had a bruised foot), while Cian Ashford and Joe Ralls were named as subs.
A pitch which I feel may have contributed to two serious looking injuries suffered by Millwall within a couple of minutes that made up most of the added time which enabled City to equalise so late on and had the occasional bobble in it which cost us dear at times offered an excuse for City’s sloppiness which lingered on beyond the first half, but only a partial one.
There was doziness in our defending from the start and the beginning of a trend which saw the home side winning the vast majority of fifty/fifty challenges saw Liverpool loanee Calum Scanlon worked clear on the left and his fierce shot from twelve yards flew high past a helpless Jak Alnwick.
A well struck effort from distance by Meite suggested City might be able to hit back quickly, but, apart from a Callum Robinson shot saved quite easily by Lukas Jensen, that was as good as it got for them until the one minute added time at the end of the first period.
Siopis had been a pretty obvious selection, but he was to have a poor time of it when he, first, gave away a needless corner as he ignored a shout by Alnwick that was loud enough to be clearly heard on the television coverage. Then, as City didn’t fully clear the set piece, the Greek international was beaten three times (I’m not joking there!) by the precocious Ra’ees Bangura-Williams who then showed composure to pick out Casper de Noore who side footed past Alnwick from eight yards to put the hosts two up in nineteen minutes (Siopis was again given a case of twisted blood by Bangura-Williams in the second half and was promptly replaced by Perry Ng to complete a miserable night for the midfielder).
For a while, things looked to be getting very dodgy for City as Millwall surged all over them – it wasn’t as if their goal was under great threat, but they were second best everywhere and, apart from Colwill’s prompting (Rubin was the best of a bad bunch during the first half I thought), the home side were not being put under any pressure.
Willock, a candidate for replacement at half time according to Don Goodman the match summariser (I agreed with him), changed the whole tenor of the game though with a goal that was lucky in that the home side had a player down injured at the time, but was still a quality finish totally removed from the messy scrambling that preceded it – the shot from twenty yards was curled beyond Jensen for the winger’s second goal for the club.
Willock was transformed and, as Colwill’s influence faded, he was the main reason for an encouraging start to the second forty five minutes for City as Robinson got in a crisp shot which Jensen had to save and then Willock shot not too far wide from twenty five yards.
However, the delay caused by those two injuries suffered by Millwall seemed to halt any City momentum and the home side took a degree of control again as things turned scrappy and bitty for twenty minutes or more.
Jesper Daland, who had an awkward, error ridden evening, was replaced by Will Fish and Riza made attacking changes that saw Ashford, Yousef Salech and the fit again Anwar El Ghazi on for Willock, Colwill and Meite.
El Ghazi owed City a performance after his failure to go in where it hurts in his last game at Oxford and he made a difference here as he played a prominent part in a City improvement which took advantage of Millwall’s cautiousness as the home team, probably understandably, opted to sit back and try to hang on to their lead.
El Ghazi’s free kick from twenty two yards flew only a foot or so wide and Jensen then had to turn a Salech header around the post.
However, the new striker looked to have lost the game for his team when he headed a fine cross by El Ghazi over from an unmarked position no more than six yards out, but, instead, Salech became the hero with ninety eight minutes on the clock.
Ashford and Callum Chambers (who began to show the improved form of the last month or so in the closing stages) played a part in the dramatic equaliser, but it was Ng who refused to give up on what looked a lost cause to head across goal to Salech who, calmly, took a touch and then finished well from eight yards with a hooked shot which flew in off Jensen’s face.
City’s point means they go above Saturday’s opponents Derby who were beaten at home by Sunderland, while Hull were also beaten on their own ground by in form QPR and there was another good result for them as Luton made it eleven straight away defeats I think it is for them now, going down 3-2 at Oxford.
