With Swansea’s fast start petering out in the face of a run of just one win in their last eight matches that had seen them take just the one point from their last four home games and Cardiff City’s campaign resolutely refusing to get out of a low gear as they went into their fourteenth game of the season (fifteenth if you include the pathetic performance against Luton in the League Cup,) there was a fairly common refrain from the pundits before today’s first derby in five and a half years at the Liberty Stadium.
The talk from the likes of John Toshack, Danny Gabbidon and Iwan Roberts was that the losing manager would come under pressure regarding his job and, judging by the viscous social media reaction from Cardiff fans to their side’s 1-0 loss, Neil Warnock is feeling as much of that pressure tonight as at any time in his three years as City manager.
I don’t think any of Cardiff previous fourteen performances can be called convincing. Yes, we deserved to beat Huddersfield and Middlesbrough at home, we played well at Hull and, up to a point, in midweek at Millwall, but a game where we were as convincing as when we beat Fulham, Bournemouth, West Ham and Brighton (away) in the Premier League last season? I don’t think so.
If it’s a struggle to identify a match where we have performed like a top six Championship team, it’s been pretty easy to identify our worst showing – Sheffield Wednesday, QPR (yes I know we won 3-0!) and Wigan would be contenders, but, for me, it has to be the 3-0 loss back in August to a Reading team that have won just three times and stand one place above the relegation zone.
We put on a dismal showing that afternoon in front of the Sky cameras and their viewers must be heartily sick of watching us after worthy, but dull draws against Fulham and Derby and the slowest of slow burners against Wednesday, but this was another level down again – this took the worst of the season mantle off Reading.
Forget about the narrow margin of defeat. A fully committed, mobile and positive, but hardly outstanding, Swansea team were way better than us and I’d say another three goal defeat would have been a fairer reflection of the difference between the sides.
Writing this having had a few hours now to consider the game, I find it hard to come up with anything that the side did even moderately well – no, after a few minutes further thought, there’s nothing I can think of that we did as a team which offers at least some consolation for supporters.
Individually, Lee Peltier offered the sort of dogged defending that you get from him game in, game out and I felt some admiration for Sean Morrison for the way he carried on after sustaining what appeared to be a very painful hand/arm injury early on to go along with the bandage he has been wearing on his other hand in recent weeks. As well as that, our captain and his girlfriend have received online abuse, and some at the ground it seems,from City fans – those responsible should feel ashamed of themselves.
Morrison also came up with one or two good bits of defending in the closing minutes as Swansea looked to exploit the gaps left by our chasing an equaliser and had two of our three on target goal attempts (that figure was something else which greatly flattered us given our many failings going forward), but there were also the predictable problems for the captain when faced with nippy and mobile forwards.
As for the rest, Neil Etheridge had no chance with the goal and made some decent saves, but, having always taken the old fashioned view that it is what a keeper does with his hands that is really important, I must say this was a day when his shortcomings with the ball at his feet was an issue. Eccentric is the word which springs to mind when it comes to the contribution of Etheridge the footballer – the Swansea fans cottoned on to the fact that our keeper is shall we say erratic when he is kicking the ball and so built up the pressure on him to the extent that his standards fell below their usual pretty low levels.
It’s always been a source of mystery to me as to why our defenders are so keen to play the ball back to Etheridge to the extent that he almost seems to be like a quarterback as we rely on him to start attacks with long balls forward – there are some keepers around with whom that would be a sensible tactic, but Neil Etheridge is definitely not one of them.
Things got even more bizarre today when Peltier threw the ball back to him when he was stood out on the touchline some five yards out from the penalty area – when the inevitable poor kick arrived and a Swansea player tried a shot from just inside his own half as the ball arrived at his feet with the goal unguarded some fifty odd yards in front of him, we had what would have been the comical sight of a goalkeeper tearing back towards his goal and diving in an attempt to head the ball a yard or two outside the penalty area if it had not been for the fact he was playing for your team.
Joe Bennett was another who did very well to prevent a second Swansea goal late on, but that was the only worthwhile thing he did all game. I’ll come to his part in the goal later, but it’s as if being a regular in a relegated Premier League team last season is making him believe that is his natural level, whereas his displays this season suggest he should be in League One – that’s probably being harsh, but I do think we are seeing an example of what can happen when a player thinks there is no real competition when it comes to his place in the side.
Aden Flint wasn’t particularly awful, but, after looking like he was coming into some good form in September, he has slipped back again and, like a few summer arrivals, is looking poor value for money.
Joe Ralls was the better of an overrun central midfield pairing, but that’s the best thing I can say about him, while Marlon Pack’s performance offered a reminder of comments by some Bristol City fans when we signed him that his legs had gone.
On the wings, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing showed he had the beating of home right back Kyle Naughton a couple of times early on as he knocked over threatening crosses and then, as is his wont this season, disappeared from view for long stretches of the game. Gavin Whyte on the right tracked back diligently as usual and offered little or no attacking end product as usual – to be fair to him, he did at least get in the right position when a cross came in from the opposite flank and he struck Ralls’ centre well, but straight at keeper Woodman for what was the closest we came to scoring all game.
Danny Ward, played in what I think was a number ten type role but I cannot be certain of that because he was simply anonymous and Robert Glatzel gave another of those increasingly common performances where he looks like a player completely devoid of confidence who is not enjoying his game at all (Josh Murphy, an ineffective sub for the last few minutes, currently cuts a similar miserable figure).
Just before his inevitable substitution around the hour mark, Sky put up a graphic showing that Glatzel had not had a single touch of the ball in the Swansea penalty area and I’m pretty certain he hadn’t had one as he left the field. Now, anybody who has played central striker for us since our level dropped from our great start to 17/18 (so we’re talking about two years really) has grounds for complaint about the poor quality of service they get and that could be extended today to include the wingers and Ward.
Our lack of creativity, or even reasonable passing ability, too often offers the forward players an excuse for their lack of success, but with Neil Warnock’s Cardiff side this is a double edged sword because those players guilty of providing so little for the front four can also, justifiably, say that the lack of movement and footballing intelligence in front of them gives them very little to aim at when they are looking to launch attacks.
If the words “lumbering” and “statuesque” were not in use before today’s match, someone watching Cardiff’s performance would have thought them up. “Lumbering” could be applied to City players all over the pitch as bigger, but less mobile and manoeuvrable footballers were constantly shown up by Swansea’s dexterity and commitment.
Up front, players in blue were on their heals waiting for something to happen while those in white charged with dealing with them moved quickly to snuff out any perceived (it was barely ever real) threat. In the middle of the park, the visiting midfield players wanted too much time when they were on the ball and were, invariably, harried off it by opponents who were sharper in mind and body.
As for at the back, well it was just like it has been all season as a defence which has looked porous and ponderous over the past three months again endured a tough afternoon.
Swansea manager Steve Cooper was praised after the game for his decision to go for the mobility of a front four of Ayew (five foot seven), Celina (five foot eleven), Routledge (five foot seven) and Dyer (five foot four) who were all most comfortable with the ball at their quick feet against our giant centrebacks.
Now, normally, I’m not one for blowing my own trumpet, but if you look back a few months on here, you will see that I was expressing my reservations about the decision to sign Flint as a replacement for Bruno Manga because he was too similar to Sean Morrison. I was far from alone in saying what I did as well, there were stacks of City fans who were concerned about our centreback pairing before a ball had been kicked in competitive action this season and so, with due respect to Mr Cooper, I would say that he did not pull off a tactical masterstroke today, he was just doing what was bleeding obvious!
This brings me on to “statuesque”. Once again, City conceded a shocker of a goal as, firstly, they allowed themselves to be caught out by a short corner routine from Swansea that exploited a three to one advantage which they did not have to work hard to create. Even then though as Routledge crossed.’ City’s distinct height advantage should have enabled them to have dealt with the danger, but instead, Ben Wilmot, a centreback on loan from Watford playing his first league game for Swansea as a replacement for Wales’ Joe Rodon who faces two or three months out with injury, was able to run from behind Bennett to a position a yard in front of him without the City man moving a muscle to guide his header beyond Etheridge.
There is what seems to be an endless argument going on in the game as to the relative merits of the man to man and zonal marking systems when defending dead ball situations. I’m a man to man man myself, but Cardiff have, it seems to me, been favouring, at least partially, a zonal system lately. Well today, they came up with a variation on that theme as they opted for each player standing stock still in their own zone no matter what the Swansea players were doing – I can only hope that this new statue or dustbin method of zonal marking is retired gracefully after its first outing today!
After watching his side look second best all over the park, Neil Warnock went through the motions of blaming the officials a bit, having another go at his sides defending, saying City did better in the second half (otherwise known as damning his side with faint praise) and had a dig at the home fans for how quiet it was in the ground.
Our manager’s interview was played on Radio Wales’ Rob Phillips Phone In and I was struck by how some of the Swansea fans who spoke on the show afterwards had figured him out. One of them, who had his call interrupted to take Warnock’s interview, replied that he should concern himself with his team’s performance rather than what the Swansea fans were doing, while another remarked that he and his side seemed surprised by the intensity of the occasion – I’d say these were all fair points.
Furthermore, Ian Walsh, who played for both sides in the eighties, thought that the lack of players in the Cardiff side, particularly Welsh ones, with experience of this derby was a factor in how poorly City coped with the occasion.
Again, I believe that it is a valid argument, as is the one expressed by Iwan Roberts I think it was which had it that Steve Cooper had comfortably won the battle of the managers.
I’ve heard Neil Warnock, justifiably, describe himself as a motivator first and foremost in the past. Well, motivated struck me as something his side weren’t today. If a team set up to play in a manner that is not easy on the eye, is not winning, their motivator of a manager is not motivating, his record in the transfer market has been poor at best in recent years and they’ve only won four in fifteen matches,is it really a surprise when supporters start thinking it’s time for a change?
Those who defend our manager might point to his record in the Championship – the perception is that he knows all there is to know about this division, but is that really the case?
Is it truer to say that Neil Warnock knows about a version of the Championship where it made sense to play with a Morrison/Flint type pair of centrebacks, but the division changed a lot in the way teams attack while we were away and I’m not sure we’re fully aware of that yet.
Just a few quick words about other games to finish, the under 18s lost again I’m afraid, this time by 3-2 at Watford where a last minute goal for the hosts proved decisive. Also, in the only game in the Highadmit League structure which did not fall victim to the weather over the weekend, Blaenrhondda beat Pencoed Athletic (who are second currently in the Premier League), by 2-0 on the artificial pitch at Clydach and Cambrian in the Second Round of the FAW Trophy.
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Thank you, Paul, I’m surprised you were able to raise the enthusiasm to write a report on that abysmal showing.
I think Mr. Warnock thinks he knows all there is to know about the Championship. As you rightly say, this may have been the case but the game has “moved on” or at least changed, Mr. Warnock seems unable to do so.
I can’t find anything positive to say, there was nothing. Neil, you’ve tried playing with just two mid-fielders before, it doesn’t work overwhelmed once again, especially when Ralls is in his headless-chicken mode and Pack always off the pace. Surely you should have seen what was happening and at least tey to change things but no subs until well into the second-half and the just a striker for a striker?! It seems as if Bacuna has been a naughty boy in your eyes, why else would you not change the shape by replacing one of the front men with a mid-fielder who is, at worst, capable.
I think it would be best for the club if the manager and his team walk away and let someone younger have a go. If the club doesn’t show more ambition we will soon be in League One.
Paul and others – ‘Bad Day at Black Rock’, it certainly was yesterday, or for half of the day at least. An early Welsh defeat in Japan was followed up at lunchtime by the humiliation of the men in blue (why blue shorts?) who gave the Swans the freedom at the Liberty. At least the rugby team gave their all, whereas our lot gave… not a lot!.
I think we all know how fickle football supporters can be but if our skipper and family have received abuse from our followers, well shame on them. It is accepted that Morrison may well be having a difficult season, but without the assuring presence of Manga, or Bamba alongside, it was never going to be easy particularly with a new defensive partner, but let no-one have any doubt about the captain’s commitment to the cause.
The time has now surely come for a complete rethink about our style of play. Long high balls from defence to attack just does not work. And if we are to play from the back, then we need to have players who are comfortable with the ball at their feet and have some ability to play measured passes forward to those in attack. Simple really. Sadly, we do not seem to have the personnel to perform that task apart from Tomlin who has yet to convince me of his fitness.
The team yesterday seemed totally devoid of confidence. NW has now a sizeable task in raising morale, but also probably more than that. The likes of Bacuna, Nelson, Vaulks and Vassell need to come into the next team selection. I wait with interest our XI for Birmingham.
Thanks Paul for finding the motivation to write so lucidly after such a woeful display (I suppose you’re getting used to it mind).
It seems that the worst fears that some of us had back in August after a transfer window where we managed to spend quite a lot of money yet lower the quality of our squad, are now being realised. Given that 6 of the 18 points we have this season were courtesy of very late goals and another 2 came from a 2nd minute own goal and that’s not forgetting the ‘bizarre’ win over QPR, the reality is that our league position is lot higher than it deserves to be or I fear likely to be at the end of the season unless there are major changes.
Neil Warnock’s post-match comments contained the usual concoction of vacuous clichés with little sense of even a recognition of his team’s fundamental deficiencies. He apparently hopes to witness a better atmosphere in our return match with Swansea in January. His intention to still be in post at that point only deepened my apprehension about our immediate future prospects.
It’s often said that all political careers end in failure and I think the same can probably be applied to football managers with just a few notable exceptions. Neil Warnock has by-passed two great opportunities to become one of those exceptions at the end of each of the last two seasons. Instead it looks likely that his final departure whenever it is will be accompanied by the usual cocktail of relief and good riddances.
Great stuff, fellows.
It already feels too late – and, when you think about it, Warnock has achieved sweet FA since getting us up.
Two incompetent summers, followed by dumb, dreary, arid performances (disgraceful ones in Cups); individual morale (Murphy, Glatzel) plummeting…some motivator.
He has to carry the can, because he chooses the hapless ones around him.
I love Richard Holt’s “…cocktail of relief and good riddances…”
Yes, please – go now!
Watching Cardiff City under Warnock, this season, must be one of the worst 90 mins anywhere in the English pyramid for the football purist. In short, Warnock-Ball 2019/20 would test the patience of a saint. Continually thumping the ball to a largely unpopulated opposition half is a surreal way to seek to progress to the PL. The Club’s former mantra that they were planning to do a Burnley, obviously is now a forlorn hope. City’s threadbare 97 mins on Sunday in Swansea, even looking to be the most charitable that it is possible to be, was hopeless, clueless and gutless. However the most indefensible charge against City was that it was passionless.
The first game I can remember seeing City play was the April 1960 home game against Aston Villa; the 1-0 win securing promotion to the top division. In the unfolding 60 years I don’t think I can call to memory worse football being served up. How I wish there was a football equivalent of television’s, ‘Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares,’ series. We, as a Club, are as devoid of a business structure at CF11, to make us fit for purpose off the pitch as a playing ethos on it to make any progress possible. We have no Academy structure worthy of the name and player recruitment is also nowhere near good enough.
Though, clearly, there have been awful seasons during our stays in the bottom two divisions but at least those teams tried to play football to the best of their limited abilites. In short, even then, the ball stayed on the deck more than it was airborne; today it is the complete opposite.
For most of this season Warnock has gone from his tried and tested 4141/4411 to a 4231. Only against a poor Millwall/a, and then only for the first 65 mins until Hoilett went off, did we play that formation with players who could play it. The mobile Ward, fed by Tomlin, flanked by Hoilett and Whyte (who both covered the spaces behind them well), is the best striker we have at the Club, by a country mile.
This season’s ludicrous partial zonal and partial man for man marking at set pieces is a disaster waiting to happen. And disaster it has often been. Why utilise Morrison, Flint and AN Other, 6 yds out, marking no-one whilst opposition strikers and defenders are marked by smaller players 10-18 yds from goal? The number of goals conceded and near misses from opposition set pieces show the clear fallacy of this method defending corners and free kicks. Why can’t our Management see this?
I can remember in the late 1960’s as I stood behind the Boy’s Enclosure with some friends, the girl friend of one of our group who chose to sit on the ground, back to the pitch, reading Tolstoy’s, ‘War and Peace,’ so disinterested was she in what was taking place on the pitch. It must be said that I am very close to bringing my present reading by Theodore Hertzl to CCS this weekend.
The vitriol directed towards some City players this weekend has been shocking whilst the social media outpouring to our captain’s girlfriend has been reprehensible in the extreme. No one has given more to the cause over his time at the Club than Morrison, being a dignified presence at all times. Despite carrying two obvious injuiries, without his couple of wonderful last gap tackles in the closing moments of the game another 3-0 score-line would have been the subject of media reports.
In Warnock’s own defence, I feel the enormity of the Sala tragedy has affected our Manager profoundly and perhaps that was the time he needed to step down. I don’t think he has been the same man since. That said a new outlook is now desperately needed both on and off the pitch. A coherent policy is needed that will build a legacy even if a manager leaves. There is no vision at the Club for anything above limping along and trying to do it on as little outlay as possible. That said, most of what has been given to our once saviour has been squandered on inadequate signings.
The Club is staring over a precipice. My feeling is that had Tan and Dalman been living under Machen mountain, and not in Malaysia and Monaco respectively, then the heat directed in their direction would would have resulted in action, of one sort or another. Absentee landlords rarely are held in good esteem, particularly when things start falling apart.
Excellent post, Steve.
Yes – terrific, Steve, echoing so much of what I feel.
I was concerned that distance was making me TOO negative, TOO critical – but, it’s clear that things are lousy from top to bottom…
…and, the worst thing? There is no NEED for things to be so bad.
It’s one thing to be overwhelmed by events – and Steve makes a fair, even compassionate point about the Sala tragedy, which, I’m sure haunts and grieves us all to this day – but, our Club has (had) so much going for it, so, it all just feels wasted.
Absentee landlords, indeed – demanding our gratitude and obeisance…nein danke.
The words come from my heart, Colin and Lindsay, and it pains me greatly to have to commit such to print. I would much rather write the opposite. However when the Titanic is sinking we can either be delusional dull or preceptive. Neither of the first two serves any purpose at all in getting the vessel going in the right direction and at sufficient speed to make progress. Sadly, I have been roundly criticised, in some quarters for even daring to offer a reasoned assessment of our plight. It is a word some can’t handle. As Paul has stated, we dare not speak or write it and are secondly not deemed fans to do so. How sad the truth can’t be embraced.
All Stewart, in his excellent song, ‘Old Admirals,’ from the 1970’s album, ‘Past, Present and Future,’ wrote: ‘ Sometimes the saddest thing in all the world to be; Are old admirals who feel the wind but never put to sea.’ CCFC are the equivalent of a modern day, old admiral, marooned the wrong side of the harbour wall; seeing ships sailing out on the deep but unable to feel the joy of sailing. How are the mighty fallen.
Belated admiration from me Steve for your excellent responses which get to heart of the problems at City.
I am only able to watch the games live when they are on tv and this latest one was the worst of a not very distinguished batch so far this season. As usual some excellent analysis from Paul and everyone so I won’t repeat those excellent comments but will add just one thought: If Mr. Warnock is going to soldier on with his “systems” to the end of his contract then why on earth can’t he, the coaching team and the players do it better? i.e. hit more long balls more accurately, then win more first and second balls and thus create more chances. It’s not my favourite brand of football but if we have to put up with it then at least do it better. I can only sympathise with you season ticket holders at the moment!
A thank you to everyone for their replies and an apology for the fact that time constraints mean I cannot give them the attention they deserve. Suffice it to say, there is the usual very high quality feedback and, as can be judged by what I wrote about Sunday’s match, I’m in agreement with the large majority of what has been said by you all – interesting to see the references to the men “behind the scenes” who must surely agree now that we are far from having a “right go” at promotion so far this season.