The most comprehensive Cardiff City defeat I’ve ever seen? Probably.

5 Responses to The most comprehensive Cardiff City defeat I’ve ever seen? Probably.

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   February 2, 2025 at 9:44 pm

   Regarding our fate,I am reminded of American elections. (Eh? Yes really… for I mean the way that the various TV networks compete with each other to be the first to declare the winner in particular states.)

   And alas I take no pride in saying that for the first time in my many years of MAYA contributions, I declared that we would be relegated… and I ‘went very early’ (to use the psephologists’ jargon) in saying that we were doomed to go down this season. I said it in print here, before Bulut ‘had the bullet’… so-to-speak…

   And the reason? Shocking player recruitment. None of the close season purchases exactly thrilled me… and it is clear to me that desideratum is not a centre forward, so much, as a proper centre back.

   D’ya know Paul… I watched the Plymouth game in full on Saturday… they have just got themselves two giant centre backs, and what a difference they made.

   We are deluding ourselves if we think that Daland and Chambers cut the mustard… they don’t… though the latter is a half-decent midfielder at Championship level… though no more.

   I know Harry Darling is an S.O.B. who did not have his best game in our recent derby, but I would love him to be our S.O.B… and it seems two other savvy managers see him similarly.

   Finally, Omer should fine himself a week’s wages for yet again picking O’Dowda as a left back. He has little or no defensive qualities… but of course is a very decent left winger…

   https://tinyurl.com/45svktxt

   TTFN,
   Dai.
2. Blue Bayou says:

   February 3, 2025 at 10:47 am

   Again, I don’t have much to add to your report, Paul, although this game reminded me a lot of our home defeat to Leeds under Erol Bulut earlier this season.
   On that day I felt there was a similar gulf between the teams as on Saturday.
   After that game the vast majority of fans comments I saw were from disgruntled Leeds fans, complaining that the 2-0 scoreline in no way reflected their dominance, and being very critical of Daniel Farke for being too negative after taking the lead after 30 minutes.
   Most felt Cardiff were there for the taking by a much bigger margin, as happened on Saturday.
   There’s nothing to gain from dwelling too much on this result though!
   It’s a cliche, although true, that after a (very) bad day at the office, it’s how the players react in the next games that’s more important.
3. Dai Woosnam says:

   February 4, 2025 at 1:42 am

   Monday’s last minute transfer activity sees our rivals get the very man on loan that I would have wanted in our midfield… leastways would have wanted 3 or 4 years ago. But somehow his career has nosedived ever since Steve Cooper took him to Forest.

   Fine little film is this, produced at 5 minutes’ notice and immediately posted on YouTube. Two minutes from the end, check out the description (emblazoned on the wall) of the derby double…!! The girl asks some interesting questions, that our own in house films would do well to replicate.
   https://tinyurl.com/amfvr7yw

   DW
4. The other Bob Wilson says:

   February 4, 2025 at 9:30 am

   Morning both and thanks for your replies. Dai, I read what you dsay about our centrebacks and want to disagree – I think Goutas is a decent to good Championship quality defender and Daland has a poise and tenacity to his game which at timnes suggest she can go higher than second tier football. However, the facts say different, in particualr the one that tells us it’s now one clean sheet in nineteen league games and we have the third worst defensive record in the Championship after having the fourth worst one lasr season – Goutas has been a virtual ghe ever present during that time, so maybe he’s not as good as i think he is. Daland has not played in all of those nineteen games and there’s the possibility that the twice he’s been substituted in our last three games could be down to him not being fully fit in recent weeks. The problem is that, both at Millwall and Saturday, his performance was of a type that could have seen him withdrawn for tatical reasons (which is very rare for someone who plays in his position). Instead of improved performances as he settles in at a new club in a new country, Daland seems to have gone backwards a bot in recent weeks – he looks indecisive at times and is struggling for pace.
   Lewis O’Brien has become a little like Josh Bowler (who I see is at luton now), a victim of Nottingham Forest’s scattergun approach to transfers before they went up and in the summer when they were promoted.You’ve got to ask why did they bother signing those two players? You could have made a case for O’Brien being the best central midfielder in the Championship in the season Huddersfield reached the Play Off Final and he was always going to move somewhere when they weren’t promoted that year but not Forest – I suppose they were very good payers. Certainly, O’Brien’s not really pulled up many trees when he was on loan at Middlesbrough – he could be a very good signing for the jacks if he starts playing like he did at huddersfield, but, given the choice, I’d have preferred to have kept Grimes.
   Blue Bayou, I’ve not read any comments about us from leeds fans regarding Saturday’s game, but the fact that I read them saying we were the worst side they’d faced so far after the 3-0 win down here last season and they were saying we were the worst team they were likely to face e all season after their early win here this time around, I tend to agree that we were equally as bad against them back in September. Indeed, I look back at scores like 5-0 at Burnley and how comfortably Sheffied United won here in the end and you could argue that we are light years behind the top sides – certainly, there are games where we look beaten almost before a ball is kicked, but then i remember that we beat two of the promoted sides at home last season, albeit we rode our luck in both games, and you wonder why we take the fireld with such an inferiority complex against the leading teams in the division – I don’t think I can have been the only City fan who was thinking in terms of us losing the game 7-0, or some similar score, quite early on in the first half.
   Someone on the messageboard I use produced a list of our defeats by five goals or more since we were beaten 6-1 at home by Sheffield United in 1977 and I did a breakdown of how we fared in the sic league games following each thrashing – here it is (I think it gives us some grounds for hope);

   “The result on Saturday cannot be changed, it’s happened and the important thing now is how we respond to it. Having picked out the 6-0 at Preston to take a glass half empty view on the aftermath of a thrashing, it’s only fair that I look into what happened after the other games listed in the OP and, hopefully, this will result in more of a glass half full interpretation – where possible, I’ll look at the six games played after a heavy defeat as I reckon that’s a large enough number to get a definite idea as to how we reacted.

   City 1 Sheff Utd 6 12/77 – it’s already been mentioned that we conceded six more at Bolton, who were toip of the table at the time, in our next match, we then drew 0-0 at home to Hull before winning two and losing two in the next four (despite the thrashing by Sheffield United, this was a season where we were strong at home and terrible away and through the second half of that season we tended to win at Ninian Park and lose away).

   Luton 7 City 1 9/78 – we were bottom pf the table at the time, but six games later we were up to 17th as we responded really well to what happened at Luton by winning four and drawing one of our next six games.

   Brighton 5 City 0 12/78 – strange one this, a cold, snowy winter meant that we didn’t play our next home league game until the end of February. The two league games we were able to play between Boxing Day and our next home match included anpther 5-0 loss, at Cambridge, and a 0-0 draw, but then when the weather relented and fixtures returned to normal, we won four on the trot!

   Cambridge 5 City 0 1/79
   The four matches we played after this were all won (see above) and they were followed by a draw and a defeat.

   Bolton 5 City 0 3/86
   I need say no more than Durban was our manager at the time, so you know how things went after this loss – a win, a draw and four losses!

   Port Vale 6 City 1 9/88
   Things were somewhat complicated by the fact that we were playing in Europe that year and winning games in that competition, but there wasn’t a win in our next six league games after Port Vale, but there were four draws.

   City 0 Maidstone 5 1/92
   A notorious defeat, but we responded by winning five and drawing one of the next six league games.

   Preston 5 City 0 1/96
   The season when we finished 22nd in Division 4 – the next six games saw us win two, draw one and lose three which was probably a bit better than par for that season.

   Preston 6 City 0 4/09 – already covered, we drew one and lost three of the remaining league games for that season. For what it’s worth, we won one and drew one in our first two matches of the following season.

   City 0 Man C 5 9/18 – part of a very testing set of fixtures to start that season, we won two and lost four in the next six games.

   QPR 6 City 1 1/20 – a positive response, three wins and three draws.

   Sheff W 5 City 0 4/21 – around the time it started to go wrong for Mick McCarthy, but we ended that season with two wins and four draws.

   Burnley 5 City 0 8/24 – followed it up with a creditable draw at Swansea, but this was part of our poorest start to a season ever, so the next four games were lost before we managed a first win of the campaign in the next one.

   So, the thirteen matches covered saw us win more than we lost in the next six games on six occasions and lose more than we won seven times. Given that it’s more likely for struggling sides to be beaten by five or more in games, I’d say those figures give reason for hope that our loss at Leeds will not be the disaster for our season that the 6-0 at Preston was.”
5. Dai Woosnam says:

   February 4, 2025 at 11:30 am

   Paul compadre…
   In my defence (oops… pun unintentional) I was specifically talking about last year’s recruits, when I dissed Daland and Chambers as centre backs. I regard Goutas as twice the player either of them are, and whilst he doubtless yearns for Mark McGuinness back alongside him, I have no hesitation in saying he is a player who could fit into most lower Championship teams.
   Before signing off, I have just discovered this – on my iPad notes – ‘wot I rote’ on 31st Jan at 11.15am… but mysteriously forgot to then post on MAYA…

   ‘…
   When I saw the European scores flash up on Wednesday last week, I saw a former Yugoslav ‘fanatically-supported team’ had won one-nil up away from home, and Kanga had been the scorer…!! I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

   I knew he had gone to the old Yugoslavia just a week or three back… and was shocked to the core…

   Wilfried could not put the ball in the net to save himself for us, despite him ‘doing the Ayatollah’ with élan, as here…
   https://youtu.be/-xG6Kovhnt8?si=C_lhQfRkRR0dPNy
   … yet I note he immediately scores for his new Yugoslav employers.

   ‘Typical for ex-City strikers’, methought. They fire blank-after-blank for us, then become prolific as soon as they leave us.

   And it took a good 24 hours for the penny to drop. It was a namesake who had netted for Red Star Belgrade…!!

   You see, there are two fanatically supported teams from the old Yugoslav top tier. Wilfried had chosen not Belgrade… but 230 miles west: Dynamo Zagreb.

   And looking at their impressive team and their list of substitutes for their own win over AC Milan on the same night, I note that Kanga is not listed. (He was hardly cup-tied…!!) The mystery to me is why they have signed him in the first place. What have I got wrong here?

   TTFN,
   Dai.
   …’