These “rabbits caught in the headlights” starts to away league games will get us relegated.

4 Responses to These “rabbits caught in the headlights” starts to away league games will get us relegated.

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   February 12, 2025 at 8:52 am

   Thanks Paul, as ever.

   Observations re Fratton Park last night…

   Wales Online continue to astonish me with their player ratings. Mannsverk never MotM. We did not have one player worthy… although Bagan got close.

   I hope we are looking for a new manager NOW to bring us up from Div 1 next season: a man we can hire and start on June 1st.

   Where was Ramsey last night? Injured again? He is the 2020s equivalent of Darren ‘sicknote’ Anderton. The man is as rich as Croesus, and continuing to take this massive salary from Vincent is now bordering on the immoral.
   Biggest offender last night was surely Riza. Only a cockeyed optimist of a manager would decide to play to Portsmouth’s biggest strength at Fratton Park.

   All this season they have been pulling off unexpected home wins against superior opposition by surprising them with the ferocity of their forward press.
   So what does our manager do yesterday? Only decide to spend the whole 94 minutes of playing time not just his customary way of square and backwards… but going one rung further down the negativity ladder by involving our goalkeeper in one suicidal back-pass after another. Madness.

   Alnwick’s kicking is his strongest point, but like you say Paul, even he wilted under that pressure yesterday. Pressure we masochistically brought on ourselves… and Riza clearly allows this insanity.

   ~ What has Robinson got for a brain? How can one player be caught offside so many times every game he plays?

   ~ I was back as a youth again listening to the Pompey Chimes, when they licked us 5-0 and I travelled back to Cardiff General on the train with the team. Those chimes are a heck of a USP when it comes to ‘supporter chants’.
   ~~~~~~~~~~
   And watching the Man City game afterwards on Prime, I was delighted that Real Madrid won. I have had it up to here with Pep’s circus football. Constant risky square passes, and playing out from the back when they have an admittedly overrated goalkeeper who has only one real asset… the ability to take a proper goal kick and land the ball on a sixpence in the opponent’s third. Instead of which, he constantly puts pressure on himself and team by rolling the ball out. (I won’t trot out the definition of insanity cliché… but need to point out that a cliché is only a truth worn thin by constant use… but a ‘truth’ it remains.)

   And incidentally, lest someone say that the Madrid goal for 2-2 did not come from Ederson playing out from the back, I would counter with, ‘quite right, but it was the next worse thing: an apparent aimed longish pass to a teammate in the centre circle, and that pass was intercepted. I shouted at my TV… “take a proper goal kick! It ain’t called a goal KICK for nothing…”

   And as for the Madrid winner, this was also down to the City keeper, crazily running out to the edge of the penalty area. That said, what was Kovacic doing passing it backwards to Lewis? Especially since he had not got proper control of the ball. It should have gone into the stands.

   Gosh one feels sorry for Haaland. I know he scored goals in his first season like he was Dixie Dean reincarnated, but I’d swear to God he’d have scored even more were he in the Liverpool team, then under Klopp. It is criminal how Haaland’s talents are wasted.

   But back to our own ‘City’… how we could have done with a Haaland this season. Robinson does not make the runs enough for my liking… but then he is not a centre forward.

   He needs Salech as the front man, and him playing in the pocket (he won’t be caught offside so much then, one hopes!)

   Like you said Paul, Goutas had a shaky game last night, and he clearly misses McGuinness. Fish looks like he is Division One standard… just like Daland. That central defence deficiency is what will relegate us… that, and a negative manager allowing Ashford to be facing the wrong way when he mis-controlled the ball in the 9th minute to give them their opener. That ball to him should have been played up the touchline alright, but over his head to take out his marker and for Ashford (now facing the right way) to run on to. Elementary stuff.

   As I said at the start, I hope we are currently busy looking for a manager to come in for June 1st. I fancy Man City will be… but alas we don’t have anything like the money needed to attract the deeply impressive and ‘attack thinking’ Andoni Iraola… but even Man City may be beaten to the punch there by Daniel Levy.

   TTFN,
   Dai.
2. ANTHONY MOR O'BRIEN says:

   February 12, 2025 at 10:47 am

   Good Morning,
   If our goalkeeper will – or can’t – use his right leg when needed, when Ralls always loops the ball from corners, when players hoof the ball into the sky in wasted hope (or are frightened}, when there is a 3 million six-foot three genuine centre-forward left on the bench, when our chief goal-winner is really (to use an ancient word) an inside forward, if players are manifestly in the wrong selection, if no-one be creative, if speed has become wasted, etc, etc. we are doomed, Mr Mannering. Call for Trump or his hidden brother somewhere..
3. Billy Bob says:

   February 12, 2025 at 10:05 pm

   I have to say, you give the best overall summary of all Cardiff City games. I have read your work from afar for decades now. Of course, we seem to agree on so many points that I am bound to feel that way. We apparently see the games in the same light for the most part. Cutting through the bias of the streaming commentators on the club stream and the emotion of the many website comments and articles. The worst reports and insights coming from the supposed professionals at WalesOnline. Anyway, enough to say thank-you for an always good read, sensible, intelligent and informed. I hope OR can find a way or there are three worse teams than us entering the final stages of the season.
4. The other Bob Wilson says:

   February 14, 2025 at 8:39 am

   Apologies to all, I’ve just typed a long reply to your messages and, through my own mistake, lost it in the internet ether for ever! So, with me having to go out shortly, I’ll just welcome Billy Bob to the forum and thank him for his very kind comments, say nice to hear from you again Anthony and thanks Dai for a typically thought provoking response. As for our manager, I typed an awful lot about him just now, but I’ll try to summarise it by saying that I’m still undecided about him – for me, he can be innovative tactically and his decisions have at times got us something out of games we were on the way to losing. However there have also been mistakes which have cost us points and he still hasn’t mastered how to get a squad which I’m pretty sure want him to stay in the job to show that in their performances, especially when they play fellow strugglers away from home. Barring a dramatic and totally unexpected change of attitude from the players, I’ve given up on next weekend’s trip to Plymouth already.