Too good to go down? Pull the other one.

Cardiff City manager Omer Riza apologised today for calling club supporters “clueless”,  I wonder if he might want to use the same word again to describe his team’s efforts to open up Sheffield United’s defence in a game of very poor quality in which his side suffered a 2-0 defeat which pushed them closer to the drop into the third tier.

City dropped another place to 23rd before this evening’s game against third placed Sheffield United, but there was never a twenty places gap between the teams – the standard throughout was akin to, say, sixteenth plays twenty third as two goals, which both owed much to lucky deflections, saw the home team to a win they deserved, but if I were a Blades fan I’d be fearing what might happen to my team next season if they do make it into the Premier League.

The second goal conceded almost as the ninety minutes was up made the margin of defeat harsh on City as 1-0 would have been about right. However, the fact that we had a lot of the ball as United sat back to preserve their lead in the final quarter of the game only re-emphasised something which had been apparent through the first half – for a team that many supporters will still tell you is too good to go down, we really struggle to create anything worthwhile in the final third.

To watch our plodding attempts to work ourselves a crossing position or an area where a chance can be created at 1-0 down in the last twenty minutes or so, you could be forgiven for thinking that the multitude of little errors that slowed things down may be because of a carelessness born out of the fact that there was nothing on the game for us.

However, once again, I feel it would be wrong to put our failings down to a lack of effort – for me, it was more that we let the pressure of our situation get to us, hence the need for an extra touch or for a pass not to be played with the optimum pace or direction. Sadly, you have to question whether some of our players have the necessary skill set to perform what should be routine tasks for Championship level footballers quickly or efficiently enough – it’s been clear to me for months that we are not too good to go down and, after watching our performances from the Luton home loss onwards, Im amazed that, apparently, there are still those who feel the same way

As I type this, I’m watching Oxford playing Leeds, the game is just ten minutes old and already, our opponents on Monday have caused the Yorkshire team more defensive problems than we did in our two matches with them this season.

Nevertheless, Oxford at home is definitely a game we can win and, following this afternoon’s matches West Brom and Norwich should be as well. City fans will be wanting the Baggies to beat Derby at home on Monday, but wins for Bristol City and Coventry at Luton and Plymouth respectively would reduce Tony Mowbray’s side’s chances of making the  Play Offs to practically nil.

As for Norwich, their 5-3 home defeat by Portsmouth confirmed what has been clear for weeks, they’re a team coasting through the closing weeks of the season. Norwich have the firepower to cause us problems, but their defence is football’s equivalent of the boxer with a glass jaw.

We have a trio of fixtures to finish the season which should make any struggling side in the relegation places confident that they can still climb clear, but our transformation from being a team that, whilst not prolific goal scorers, nearly always managed to find the net in a game, to the current situation where we have not scored in three out of our last four games makes you wonder whether we have the quality to take advantage of opponents that may not be as competitive as normal?

After all, Sheffield Wednesday, QPR and Preston are three teams that anyone in the Championship would fancy facing at the moment, yet when we had what should have been the advantage of facing them in successive matches recently, all we could manage was three draws with performances that grew progressively worse.

Omer Riza’s four changes for tonight were about par for the course with Jesper Daland dropping out for Sivert Mannsverk as Calum Chambers went into the back four, Yakou Meite started up front in a 4-4-2 with Cian Ashford reverting to a substitute role, while injuries meant that Callum Robinson and Perry Ng were unavailable and Andy Rinomhota and Ollie Tanner came in.

Unfortunately, injuries are dogging us right to the end of this miserable season – besides Ng, Robinson and the other long term casualties, Isaak Davies was absent with another hamstring injury and Rubin Colwill had to go off about ten minutes after his introduction as a substitute with what must have been another injury.

Mannsverk and Alex Robertson looked a promising combination in the opening minutes as they won a fair amount of fifty/fifties and there were a few hopeful signs that the plan was to hit Yousef Salech or Meite early with crosses, but they soon fizzled out and City had to take consolation from the fact that, in a nervy atmosphere brought on by three straight defeats for United, they were not causing us any problems at the back.

The dangerous Gustavo Hamer was tending to operate out on the left where Rinomhota was winning his early duals with the Brazilian playmaker, but when he started to drift infield around the half an hour mark it looked ominous that City did not appear to be responding to the changed circumstances and it wasn’t long before they paid the price.

Hamer exchanged passes with Thyrese Campbell and when the striker’s shot was deflected off Will Fish into his path, Hamer slid the ball neatly past Ethan Horvarth from eight yards to give the home team the lead – I’m reluctant to blame Horvarth for the goal  yet his reaction to the situation still struck me as unconvincing.

All City had to offer on the attacking front was an incisive move which proved that, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, they were capable of passing the ball forward with pace and accuracy as Will Alvez was sent clear through the middle. However, the commentators on the stream I was watching had speculated about the length of the grass on the Bramall Lane pitch (was it a bit long?) and you wondered as to whether they had a point as, not for the first time, Alvez slowed down while giving the impression that the ball was getting stuck under his feet (the same sort of thing happened to other City players as the game went on) and Hamza Choudhury got back to clear the danger.

Hamer showed his ability again just before half time as his free kick from fully thirty yards hit the outside of a post with Horvarth flat footed and at the interval there were two changes made by Riza as Alvez and the ineffective Tanner made way for Ashford and Chris Willock.

By persisting with wingers, you would assume that the plan was still to get crosses into the two strikers, but it was taking so long for the ball to get to the wide areas that it was barely happening and when it did the quality on the ball in was lacking.

Horvarth was forced into a save to deny Harrison Burrows, but, generally speaking, the home team were content to let us have the ball safe in the knowledge that we were doing little with it to threaten their lead.

The arrival of David Turnbull, on for Robertson, threatened to change the pattern of the game as his free kick was scraped behind by the home defence and then from the corner, the Scot found Fish whose volley from ten yards flew just over the bar.

Meite then made good contact with the best cross we provided in the second half from Ashford, but his header flew straight at home keeper Michael Cooper.

These were isolated attacks from City though as United closed in on their win and the points were theirs when Rubin Colwill passed backwards to Rinomhota who was ‘last man” stood on the half way line. Rinomhota had been one of our best players until then, but he now allowed himself to be robbed by another sub, Kieffer Moore. No one would expect Moore to run fifty yards with the ball to score in such a position, but he managed about thirty five before Colwill got back to force him to shoot and, for the second time, the ball bounced off a defender, this time Colwill, to fall into the path of Ben Brereton Diaz who couldn’t miss from six yards out.

There was time for Salech not to take advantage of a decent headed chance, but by now, City had the look of a team that had accepted their fate – whether that was for the night or the season remains to be seen, but, as so often recently, it was not a performance that raised hopes that relegation could be avoided..

There were two wins for City age group teams in midweek. On Tuesday, the under 21s beat Barnsley 1-0 in a match played at Cardiff City Stadium with Cody Twose scoring the goal early in the second half, but City missed so many chances to give the scoreline a more realistic look to it.

The under 18s were able to do that and more in their game at QPR the following day however – goals by Talbot, Tobin, Sykes, Hilaire-Clark, Edwards and two from Barton completing a 7-0 rout.