Cardiff City play their fourth away game in five on Saturday when they travel to Exeter for what passes as their local derby this season with the knowledge that they have already enjoyed a couple of 1-0 wins over the Grecians in 25/26.
Unfortunately, if you look at our last four matches, it’s the impressive 4-0 win at Doncaster which looks like the outlier and, given how we’ve defended in the other three games, you have to think that another 1-0 victory is beyond us currently – eight goals conceded in the games against Plymouth, Lincoln and Barnsley suggest that we’re going to have to score at least twic e to win.
Taken over the course of the season, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for the divisions’s top scorers, but, in our last two matches, we really have looked like a team that is missing their top scorer and another forward who would certainly increase the level of pace in our front line.
It’s easy to obsess about the continuing absence of Yousef Salech (I’ve been guilty of it myself to some extent), but we’re also without Isaak Davies, who is both the quickest front player we have and one of the best finishers at the club. .
So Davies’ loss is restricting our attacking play in a couple of ways, then you add the absence of Salech’s physicality, aerial ability, hold up play and his often overlooked ability to score goals from within the six yard box (who’s doing that for us currently?) and you begin to see why opponents are finding it easier to defend against us despite the success we had playing with a false number nine for a while.
Some encouraging news for City is that Exeter are struggling to come to terms with the departure of their manager Gary Caldwell to Wigan recently. Since winning 3-1 at Port Vale in late January, Exeter are winless in ten games. The fact that six of these matches have been drawn helps explain why they still have a handy points buffer over the bottom four, but the possible Play Off challenge that looked on as they responded positively to their loss here on Boxing Day looks to be delayed for at least a season now.
Exeter’s cause has not been helped by the fact that they have faced Bolton and Lincoln in two of their past three home games with the Trotters scoring five against what is still one of the division’s meaner defences and Lincoln doing what they do while winning 1-0 on Tuesday.
Therefore, Exeter will complete their trio of stiff home examinations when they face the other team in the top three this weekend – based on how the trio have been doing lately, Exeter will probably be thinking that they have every chance of avoiding another loss to a team at the top.
On to the quiz then, I’ll post the answers on Sunday.
60s. It’s appropriate that this winger with another surname that i believe is unique in my time as a football fan was from Lancashire because the only other person I can think of off the top of my head who shared the name was an actress best known for appearing in a series based in that county. Starting off as a Lamb in non league football, he broke into the full time game with a team thats involvement in the first ever Premier League was very much at odds with what I’ll call its usual standing in the game. Our man’s one season stay at Exeter was a change from the rest of his league career which saw him wearing white (although they’re wearing blue and black stripes this season) and then amber/yellow for a couple of Lancashire teams no longer in the EFL and then white again for another side that now wears blue, when he crossed the border to play in Cheshire. Can you name the player I’m describing?
70s. Released by Portsmouth after they scrapped their youth team, this full back with another surname unique in.the game in my experience moved a shortish distance to represent a team which wore various combinations of blue and white during his eight years with them with one of his sixteen league goals for the club earning them a promotion. His debut in senior football as a teenager matched that of some City players around that time in that he was given a man marking assignment on QPR’s Rodney Marsh. He then clocked up over 200 league games wearing various combinations of red and white during his five years at Exeter before a move to another team in red that I suppose could also be described as from. the west country to finish his time in the professional game as the eighties began. Who is he?
80s. Piling into Hong Kong? (4,4)
90s Hoarder of a certain type of Royalty?
00s. This striker was loaned to Exeter by his Premier League club early in this decade and he shared his name with a midfielder who had been loaned to the Grecians in the mid eighties. The midfielder later went on to play for us, making sixty three league appearances, scoring eight times and, after retiring from the game, he became a maths teacher. When I say they shared their names, they didn’t quite, but if you heard them, you’d never tell the difference. Who are the two players concerned?
10s. Born in Neath, he marked Luca Modric in his first appearance for Wales and gave away a penalty against Switzerland in the only other game he played for his country – he also had a two year spell with Exeter during this decade, who is he?
20s. What some uncouth people may say when you look to one side!
