If the Championship is the marathon race equivalent that many seem to think it is, then last night was the time when early pace setters Cardiff City, having endured what threatened to be a catastrophic stumble just past the race’s halfway mark, tried to make a break from the rest of the chasing pack just as long time leaders Wolves had a little wobble of their own.
With around seventy per cent of the race completed, Cardiff have put in a little spurt in the past week or so and things look a lot different now compared to how they did on 11 February after Aston Villa had just recorded their seventh straight win by beating Birmingham in the second city derby to move into second place in the table.
At the time, Cardiff City were fourth in the table some sixteen points behind Wolves, they were four points adrift of Villa, three away from third placed Derby and had a lead of three points over Fulham in fifth and sixth placed Bristol City – there was a six point Play Off “buffer” over seventh placed Preston as well.
Cardiff could point to having a game in hand (the home match against Bolton which had to be postponed on the weekend we played Man City in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup) on all of the sides around them, but, although they had recovered well from their Christmas wobble, it had not been to the extent that they had made up all of the ground lost when being beaten in those four consecutive games.
However, after last night’s 1-0 victory over Ipswich at Portman Road, City have been the big beneficiaries so far in a period where there are an awful lot of matches between sides who would have seen themselves as genuine top six candidates.
This morning, City find themselves in second place in the table having picked up nine points in the past eight days. Yes, playing, and winning, that game in hand has helped matters, but Cardiff have taken advantage to the extent that that the gap to Wolves has been cut to nine points, Villa now find themselves four points behind us, we are five clear of Derby, Fulham are eight adrift and the wurzels ten – Sheffield United are now seventh and have played a match less than the other clubs at the top of the table, but they have a twelve point gap to make up on us.
The fact of the matter is that, while we were winning three games, Wolves and Bristol have drawn two, while Villa and Derby have both drawn one and lost one – apart from us, only Fulham of the top six have been able to win a game in the past week.
So, in marathon terms, I’d say City have, within the space of a mile or so, cut a third off the big gap the leader had built up and have put in a kick which has left the others in the chasing pack a little concerned that they could be creating a gap that will take a lot of catching up given that opportunities to make up lost ground are beginning to run out.
I’m not enough of a marathon aficionado to say with any accuracy whether breaks made with around a quarter of a race left have a tendency to be decisive – my suspicion is that they don’t.
However, I do recall that back on 16 December after we had beaten Hull 1-0, I was allowing myself the luxury of thinking that it would take something to go disastrously wrong now for us not to make the Play Offs – at the time, we were just four points behind Wolves, while the gap between us and the others in the top six was four points over third, six over fourth and ten over fifth and sixth, while we had a Play Off buffer of eleven points.
Of course, something of a disaster was in the offing for us very soon afterwards and there have been times over the past seven or eight weeks where I doubted whether we had it in us to claim that top six spot.
However, to a very large extent, the damage done over the holiday period has been fully repaired and then some now. I say that because, although the points gaps are not as great as they were in some cases, the number of games left for each team has declined. Indeed, although I’m sure that there are many City fans who, like me, feel that I shouldn’t bring this up because it could jinx us, it has to be admitted now that we are getting into a position where we’ll be thinking as much in terms of top two as we have been about top six.
What needs to be borne in mind in the Marathon/Championship comparison I’ve been alluding to is that while a silver or bronze medal can be a big compensation for “failure”, the twenty six mile race is really a case of winner takes all, whereas the two Championship sides that finish behind the winner, but still get promoted can, in many ways, celebrate as hard as the club which came first.
So, I don’t see Wolves fans losing any sleep yet about the “crisis” which has seen them go two games without a win (especially when you consider that they had won three consecutive matches before that). Some City fans are now saying that the long time leaders are catchable, but my attitude is that it’s far more realistic to keep our eyes on the eight or nine contenders immediately behind us rather than the one in front of us – increasing the gap on the teams in seventh and third positions is far more relevant to us as things stand and, who knows, if we keep on doing that catching Wolves may become a more viable propostion.
I mentioned that there are nine or ten behind us who will still be thinking in terms of a top six finish, but, looking at the table this morning, I’d say that only the sides from QPR in fifteenth position downwards can say with any certainty that they won’t be going up this season.
What teams like Leeds, Norwich, Millwall and Ipswich need to start doing quickly is beat a few of the sides above them if they are to retain their hopes of a promotion much longer. In the case of the first two named clubs, Leeds have had two creditable 2-2 draws against top six teams in the past week, while Norwich got a last gasp equaliser on Sunday in the East Anglian derby and scored another very late goal last night to secure a brilliant point at Wolves from 2-0 down.
However, the reality is that the long odds you would have got on either Leeds or Norwich going up before last weekend would have got longer still after last night – draws are not really enough for them.
Things are different for the teams from tenth placed Brentford upwards. They can handle a few draws and still retain their top six credentials – that could well be why so many of the recent spate of matches between sides with promotion ambitions have finished all square.
What you cannot afford to do is lose many of these games against fellow promotion contenders, hence there will surely be an understandable tendency to think a draw is no bad thing in such games as long as you do the business in your matches with the “no hopers”.
However, what would be really great for one of the top ten sides would be if they could win a few of those games against fellow promotion seekers, because, given the way things have been going, that would give you the chance to make enormous strides up the league.
That’s why Fulham’s win over Villa on Saturday was so huge for them, but, with one exception, no other top fourteen side has managed to beat another one in the past nine days.
That exception is, of course, Cardiff City. After our draw at Millwall, many supporters, including myself, looked at a run of five home matches out of our next seven and felt it was a great opportunity for us to take advantage in a period where some of those in the top six had a series of very testing looking games.
However, the fact is that four of those seven matches were against sides in the top fourteen (i.e games that are tending to end up all square). Bristol City on Sunday and Brentford the following weekend will be big tests, but by managing wins against top fourteen sides in our past couple of matches, we have got ourselves into a position whereby defeats in both of those games would not be the disaster they would be for some who are not too many positions below us in the table.
As for last night’s game, I remarked in my review of the Middlesbrough match that Sky’s very brief highlights package offered a true reflection of an encounter which offered little in terms of goalmouth incident and yet I described it as a gripping encounter battle which left me feeling we had definitely played well.
Once again, the highlights of last night’s game are of the blink and you’ll miss them type. Indeed, Kenneth Zohore’s winning goal (more on that later) came from our only on target effort of the whole ninety minutes.
Certainly, Radio Wales’ post game discussion contained much extolling of the ability to “win ugly” and it seems that, unlike four days earlier, there were not many who were prepared to say that we played well.
However, I think it’s fair to say that, to a degree, there was an excuse for the perceived lack of quality on City’s part. After the game, Neil Warnock spoke of a “nightmare” forty eight hours which had seen Joe Bennett, Armand Traore, Callum Paterson and Lee Peltier all declared unavailable, with the last named expected to be absent for about a month and the first named, apparently, suffering from an illness.
So, with Jazz Richards back on the injured list again, this meant that we were without five full backs. Now, if the injuries to Traore, Paterson and Peltier did all come about in the forty eight hours before the match, I feel it again asks questions about the type of training the first team squad is undergoing as well as the intensity of that training given the stage of the season we are at.
Given all of those absentees, I’ll mention in passing that we do have both of the current first choice full backs for the Wales Under 21 team on our books and, certainly as of last week, they were both fit and available. However, our manager looked instead to experience with Bruno Manga again starting at right back and Matt Connolly making only his second league start of the season at left back.
Now, I’d have full confidence in Connolly coming in and doing a good job for us in any other defensive position, but I’ve never been convinced by him as a left back. However, after missing a decent chance early on, Connolly seems to have settled down fairly well and generally done okay, as did Greg Halford who played fifty minutes at right back as Manga was moved into the middle to fill the gap caused by the substitution of captain Sean Morrison.
Needless to say, the sight of Morrison walking off set alarm bells ringing amid memories of the one win and four defeats when he was out of the side after going off under similar circumstances at Reading in December. I don’t think there has been any confirmation that the in form defender had suffered a recurrence of his earlier groin injury, but I’m sure that there’ll be many hoping our manager got it right when he said “it’s not too bad”as he hinted that the captain’s withdrawal was a precaution.
Therefore, what started as a fairly makeshift back four became even more of one just before half time and so full marks to all concerned for getting a fifteenth clean sheet of the season. Credit also to Mr Warnock for a bold half time substitution which saw Marko Grujic taken off so soon after we had made our first change.
I’ve not seen any clarification as to whether Grujic’s withdrawal was down to tactics or to injury, but, rather than turn to someone like the fit again Craig Bryson (who had to wait until the eighty seventh minute, when he replaced Zohore, to see his first senior team action since Boxing Day), our manager brought on Gary Madine to play up alongside Zohore.
The two strikers combined to notable effect in the sixty fifth minute when Madine nodded a Joe Ralls free kick on to Zohore who took an air shot with his attempt at a left footed acrobatic volley, but then recovered sufficiently to stab a low shot home with his right foot from eight yards.
It was a goal that will never win any awards for its beauty and there has been post match discussion as to whether it should have been disallowed for handball when Zohore controlled the ball after his first, failed, goal attempt. For me, there was contact with the City player’s hand(s), but I’m reminded of an incident from last Sunday’s FA Cup game between Rochdale and Spurs where the ball hit Toby Alderweireld on the hand at least twice as he lay on the floor in his own penalty area, but the BBC’s pundits were unanimous in agreeing with the referee that a penalty should not be given.
Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that City got lucky there and so things have evened themselves out somewhat following the disallowing of a goal by Sol Bamba and a far more blatant handball in the penalty area being missed during the closing minutes of our recent draw at Millwall,
Lucky or not, it’s a goal which could be very important for the team and, hopefully, the scorer in the weeks ahead, because this time last year Kenneth Zohore was, occasionally, winning games for us almost single handed. Having shown signs of hitting that sort of form again against Bolton and Middlesbrough, he now has a goal to go with it – if we could see Zohore playing to the standards he did in the first three months of 2017, I reckon we’d have a great chance of making the top two when you also consider how strong the squad is this time around.
Thanks Paul for the summary a win which I thought was unlikely knowing our record at Portman Road and the make up of the side , think it does show the manager has resilance right through the squad.
Like you it does worry me why our youngsters are not considered to be at least bench players during this dark era of fullback itist.
Big decesion to put Marine on though , he caused chaos as soon as he entered the game and thats a big plus for us as is the returning Bryson .
Brizzies next.
Thanks Paul – As ever a thoughtful piece of writing. I had not realised that the match was being broadcast, so received my news from “live” reporting on my I Pad, not the best way to stay in touch, whilst watching Derby and Leeds battle it out.
What a remarkably good few days for us – both from our winning performances and our rivals losing ground. Some tough fixtures ahead, but surely, surely we can now make the play offs, if not better.
Taking off Gruzic and replacing him with Madine seemed a master stroke, and one that I would not have envisaged. It gave the Ipswich defence a more difficult time. Was our Serbian injured? And as for the skipper, what has he done that required him to be substituted before the interval. We certainly need him back sooner than later.
Surprised to see Mendez-Laing have a run out, but have no idea how he performed, just hope that he put in a good shift and that he was up to the mark defensively bearing in mind our injury problems. It would also be good to see him back to his early season best from an attacking perspective because we cannot rely on Hoillett every game.
Amazing that we now have so many full backs out of action, but that NW seems to be able to shuffle our pack with great enterprise. No wonder he has been successful over the years. But he is not every player’s favourite. In this morning’s Daily Telegraph there is an article by the 45 year old Barry Hayles, still playing in some minor league and two games from a Wembley appearance if his team makes it to the FA Vase Final. Hayles, who played for a number of clubs in his League career, is scathing about his treatment by NW when at Sheffield Utd. and has no doubt that our supremo is the worst manager that he ever played under. I wonder what our current bunch think?
According to our to the programme for the last home game against the ‘Boro, 32 different players have appeared for us in the league so fat this season, and only Joe Ralls joined us a youngster, although Kadeem Harris and Rhys Healey had fledgling careers before moving to us as teenagers. I do hope that one or two of our U 23 team have a chance before the season is over, if only to sit on the bench with a possible appearance when a game is clearly won. As ever, I think of young Spence.
I note that our next four matches are against teams beginning with the letter “B”. Fingers crossed that they don’t prove to be “b…..s”.
Thanks, Paul.
Yes a very important win however scruffy. When I saw the line-up I thought we would struggle, like you I had no confidence in Connolly as a left-back and I’m still not convinced by Manga at right-back. Very glad I was wrong and we were able to achieve another clean sheet. As everyone has said on the forum I read and on here the injury to Morrison is a concern. It would be a real shame if he had a spell out now.
From what I’ve read we lived up to TV pundits expectations last night, except for winning. Watching Derby – Leeds and that annoying after-timer Andy Hinchcliffe took the opportunity to have a go at our style of play when they showed the Cardiff goal; they can’t help themselves can they. Mind you it’s quite strange watching a game between two teams you dislike intensely hoping that it is going to be a draw. Glad to say in the last couple of days my hopes have come to fruition.
Are you living in Treherbert yet?
Hi Paul
Thanks for the game review. As an expat, a compensation for not going to the live games is that I get to watch pretty much all of them on iPlayer.
To be honest, it was a bit painful to watch last night but considering the changes we had to make, it really was a fantastic result. I share the comments about the lack of youngsters coming through but is an away trip to Ipswich, at such a vital time, the place to blood the kids? I would side with NW on this and stick to experience as promotion must be the absolute key focus.
Over the last few games, we’ve got a number of players not playing at their best but still pulling the results out of the bag, so this for me is a great omen going forward.
If I recall correctly, Morrison had a bit of a heavy challenge just before he went off so hopefully this is a knock more than something more longterm.
Gary Madine changed the game when he came on so big credit to NW for this change. Bit surprised that many see him as being behind Zohore in the pecking order, as I think his physical presence causes the opposition major issues. Just look at the way he was targeted by Leeds and Millwall.
This little gap we’ve opened throws down the gauntlet to Derby and Villa and I think if we can keep our run going for the next couple of games, we’ll be looking good when the daffodils start coming up. We’re getting to the stage where we are counting down games now which will hopefully force the rest to take some risks to try and catch us.
Fingers crossed we get some bodies back for the Wurzzles and even if not, I believe we’ll have too much for them.
Major dissapointment is that we are not getting bigger crowds. What else does the club need to do?
Anyway, exciting times ahead.
Thanks for the write up Paul. I suppose it was inevitable that once we began to build up Sean Morrison as THE indispensable cog in City’s machine then he would succumb to an injury which now threatens to put our (well my anyway) theory to the test for a few games. If he does miss some matches, it goes without saying I’d be more than happy for the theory to be firmly debunked but despite our defensive gallantry last night I’ve a feeling that Bristol City and particularly Brentford could pose a more severe test.
Anyway what is certain is that we will enter March in 2nd place and I don’t think there are too many City fans who would honestly have imagined such a situation on New Year’s Day. Nothing is certain of course but I do think it would have to be a pretty disappointing run of form over our last 13 games if we were to miss out on a top six place. I’ve been looking at our points return from our final 13 games over our last ten Championship seasons and not since 2007/08 when we managed just 8 points from our last 13 games have we gained less than 17 points from those final fixtures (that was our total in the promotion season of 2012/13 and last season). Twice we’ve got 22 points (2010/11 and 2011/12) and our best return was 24 points in 2009/10. It would seem reasonable to expect therefore a final total of at least 80 points which should see us safely in the play-offs at least. Certainly it would need relegation form from now on for us not to achieve that – but then this is Cardiff City so who knows.
Thanks for the report Paul, always grateful for them.
I am always concerned about Ipswich away. I have no stats to back it up but like Russel I have it parked in my head that we are none too lucky at Portman road. I would have been happy with a draw, so scruffy goal or not.. I am really happy with three wonderful points at Ipswich.
The almost panic reaction to Morrison’s injury and possible time out misses the point that our poor results over Christmas were not necessarily due to his absence. To my mind they were due to our lack of forward firepower. While not discounting the value of our captain’s contributions, I’d like to point out that we have at least three or four very competent centre backs to rely on. The other encouraging augury is the fact that we now have a genuine and effective centre forward. In all the excitement that Zohore actually scored a goal at long last, little praise has been forthcoming in respect of Madine’s contribution which. in addition to his all-round display, gave Zohore a comparatively easy chance (which he almost failed to take). As my namesake Anthony Evans states above, Madine is — or certainly should be — ahead of Zohore in the pecking order. If Madine does not lead the attack on Sunday it must surely mean that he has an injury problem. I can think of no other reason why he will not be our first-choice centre forward in the weeks to come.
A lovely detailed positively FORENSIC analysis from you Paul. I have read it three times all the way through, and luxuriated in your thought patterns.
Without being a Jeremiah, I have to say that it is not so much the two Bs we encounter in the next week that worry me, so much as the trips to Villa Park and Bramall Lane. But hey, as you say, it is great to be positioned where we are, and we surely now stand a very good chance of making the playoffs…and there, as we all know, if Lady Luck smiles, she smiles…and we can make it to the EPL.
One trivial point though before signing off…
Your headline mentions “stealing a march on”.
Is that really fair…?
A scrappy goal, for sure, but nothing sly or unfair in gaining that advantage, surely?
Once again, thanks for a great set of replies – a few quick points from me in response.
Russell, I watched those two full backs yesterday in what was a miserable 3-0 defeat by Blackburn, but they were among our best three players in my view.
BJA, regarding Barry Hayles, Neil Warnock is a “marmite” type manager among supporters and I daresay it’s the same with players. As for Grujic, he wasn’t mentioned in Neil Warnock’s report on injured players (Bennett should be back, Paterson might be, Traore is out for a week, Peltier for at least a month and Morrison will be missing for “days, not weeks” and has a chance of making it for Sunday), so, presumably, he was taken off for tactical reasons at Ipswich.
Colin, no I think I’m still a few weeks off moving yet, but at least everything seems to be progressing smoothly.
Anthony, I think it’s easy to fall into a trap with young players whereby you keep on saying now isn’t the right time to use them if you’re close to the top or bottom of the league you are in and you end up only giving them a game or two in non competitive end of season mid table encounters where you learn little about how they’ll fare in the heat of battle. Of course, these youngsters need to be good enough first and foremost, but at the moment it’s hard to see a way into the first team squad, let alone team, for any teenager on our books.
Those are encouraging figures Richard – once we get our next two games out of the way, we have a run in which has a very tough three game spell in the middle, but, Derby apart, what comes before and after that seem to me to be games we’d be looking, and maybe expecting, to win – anything less than the early eighties would be a very disappointing return now.
Adrian, I think we’ve won at Ipswich three times in the last decade or so, but it looks like we have to go back all the way to 1946 for the one previous to that – I know they were saying it was our first double over Ipswich in seventy one years on Radio Wales.
Anthony, I’d like top see more of Madine before coming to a decision about who should be first choice (I can see us playing two up front sometimes, but I think we’ll stick with a lone striker in most matches). So far, we’ve had a very good win and a battling draw in the matches he’s started (I thought he was pretty quiet at Millwall), while we definitely played better after he came on in midweek. On the other hand, Zohore is playing a lot better now and we won a couple of matches while Madine was absent. I think it may well depend on horses for courses – Bristol have the giant Flint at the back and played a couple of centrebacks at full back on Wednesday, so would an aerial approach be suitable against them? I’d like to see us try to move them around a bit.
Dai, probably wrongly (I suppose “steal” is a bit of a clue!), I’ve always seen, and used, “steal a march” as meaning to gain an advantage, which doesn’t have to be by unfair means. Although there was some dispute about our goal, I don’t think we did anything dodgy to secure our win.
steal a march on sb. ? If you steal a march on someone, you get an advantage over that person by acting before they do: Our rival company managed to steal a march on us by bringing out their software ahead of ours.
Just saying!
Really enjoyable blog–thank you.
With NW’s Sheffield background, could it perhaps be steel/steeling a march?
It is the way language has changed, I guess Colin.
It now means what you say it does.
All languages change …and they all follow the line of least resistance.
If enough people make a mistake, the dictionaries eventually print it.
I can remember when I was a boy “disinterested” was a special word meaning “having no vested interest”.
Now, alas, this past twenty years it has merged with “uninterested” in the minds of many.
And I can give you a hundred other examples.
Now, when I was a boy, “steal a march on” meant to gain an advantage by clandestine – and often unfair – means. I was simply pointing out that there was nothing clandestine about the Portman Road result.
But that said, I do take your point, Colin. Language changes…and seldom for the better.
Nice one Grange Exile – a great first contribution!
Apologies for my tardiness in approving your message Dai – I thought I’d already done it!