I’ve only just got in from the game and so have only skimmed through a couple of media articles about Cardiff City’s 3-1 home defeat by Norwich City in the Second Round of what I still call the League Cup.
A common theme in the articles was that they both used the word “woeful” to describe City’s performance – my only comment to the professional journalists involved is to ask did you really expect anything different?
One of the consequences of being a Premier League team is that your defeats in cup competitions are often looked upon as giant killings, but, in recent years at least, Cardiff City can never be described as “giants” when there aren’t league points up for grabs – any team under the Football League umbrella (sorry, I forgot Macclesfield there!) should fancy their chances of turning us over if they have the good fortune to draw us.
The game was like so many you see in the early rounds of cup competitions where a side with superior ability are matched with more limited opponents who try to make up for the difference in quality between the two sides by relying on things like commitment, physical force and sheer endeavour.
Usually class wins through in such encounters and so it did tonight as Norwich played pass and move football to a level that plucky little Cardiff just could not come close to matching. I’m afraid this is another one to be put down to experience, another in the litany of truly dreadful cup performances which have become the norm at the club in the last six years.
Since the run to the League Cup Final in 2012 and the heroic performance that took Liverpool to penalties, has there been a cup match played by City when it can be said that we played well? Nothing occurs to me at the moment.
Despite the best efforts of the media to prove otherwise, there was no real disgrace in losing to Manchester City (although the defensive mindset we played with was in stark contrast to one or two other Championship sides which played the Premier League winners last season), going to a Mansfield side in very good form at the time and winning 4-1 was pretty impressive and we did win at Newcastle in Ole’s first game I suppose, but I can’t think of one cup game since our last Wembley appearance where it could truly be said we played well.
I’ve had my say about the club’s attitude to cup competitions before on here, but it seems my way of thinking is in the minority these days because after each embarrassment (they’re an embarrassment for me at least, I’m not sure they are for many other people in our fanbase and at the club mind) we always hear the old line about the cup being a distraction.
Perhaps I’m behind the times with my feelings about City’s attitude to modern day cup football – I can accept that if it’s true, but what I don’t get, and never will get, is the way fringe players at the club repeatedly pass up the opportunity handed them in cup matches to lay down a marker for a place in the starting line up for the next league game.
It needs to be pointed out at this stage that, just like so many of the sides inferior to us in league position at least who have beaten us in the cups in recent years, Norwich were, like us. some way short of what they would consider their strongest eleven, but that didn’t stop them from playing with a fluency which we could not begin to match.
Two of Norwich’s goals were top class. The first one featuring some slick build up play and a superb finish by Dennis Srbeny. Frankly, Norwich were taking the piss with their third one as they picked us apart with a lovely passing move which ended with eighteen year old Max Aarons scoring easily – imagine that, an eighteen year old playing first team football, will we ever see it again at Cardiff?
As easy on the eye as Norwich’s final goal was, they were also helped out by some flimsy Cardiff defending and the same could certainly be said for Srbeny’s second goal which doubled his side’s lead.
Three down with about a quarter of the match left, City were looking at a thrashing at one time, but they did at least stir themselves into some sort of response and finally ended their goalscoring drought when captain for the night Bruno Mange headed in a Bobby Reid corner – there should be no surprise whatsoever of course that our first goal in four hundred and thirty seven minutes of competitive action (including the goalless draw with Reading which sealed our promotion) came from a dead ball situation!
If Reid’s deflected free kick shortly after we scored had gone in, rather than rebound back off the post, then we might have been faced with a very interesting last ten minutes or so, but any chance of what would have been an amazing fightback died at that moment to be honest and the away side had two or three chances to add a fourth.
That they didn’t was down in part to Alex Smithies who I thought did pretty well on his debut, while Greg Cunningham was fairly solid at left wing back and Bruno, who was one of three centre backs, along with Matt Connolly and Lee Peltier, put in a decent shift. Danny Ward was pretty lively when he came on and may have played himself into the side to play Arsenal, while Gary Madine won a couple of headers to set up chances for Reid (whose snatched finish from the better opportunity and another one which came along a bit later revealed a lack of confidence in front of goal) and also came as close as I’ve seen him to registering that elusive first goal for the club with a well struck free kick which drew a good first half save from Michael McGovern.
Sadly though the overriding memories for me from a miserable evening watching another pretty meek cup offering are that our squad depth is not good as we thought it was, that technically we were some way behind a team in the lower half of the Championship and of being reminded yet again that I really should stick to the never again resolution that I’ve made so many times after watching us in cup competitions over the past six years!
One last thing, well done to Blaenrhondda FC who won at the weekend and last night gained revenge for the defeat I watched last week, by winning 3-2 at FC Cwmaman in the reverse fixture – this win takes them to second in the table, a point behind leaders Treforest with a game in hand, but the main threat looks to be third in the table Porthcawl who are only behind them on goal difference and have played a game less.
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Thanks, Paul.
A very predictable performance from us. I can’t get out of my mind Mr. Warnock’s comment about a cup game we had with an early Sunday-morning kick-off…something like “it was an effort to get out of bed for this one”!
That and subsequent performances in cup games have convinced me it is not worth the effort of turning up, so I didn’t.
As you say it is difficult to understand why the “fringe players” are not up for the game, have they no professional pride or are they just not good enough.
I have only seen the first goal, on Sky, but the stats on the BBC site suggested we had about half the possession but so few attempts on goal and even fewer on target?!
What was the formation?
How did Damour and Caramassi (sp) perform was there any cohesion at all?
To concede three at home to a Championship side suggest that our first-team defenders need to stay fit or we are going to be shipping a load of goals.
Don’t know where Neil goes now with his attack selection – we really could have done with 3 or 4 goals ourselves last night, I’m not really sure a goal by a central defender from a corner is going to do much ‘to get the monkey off our backs’.
So on to Arsenal and if we manage to keep a clean sheet ourselves (big ask) then their defence is leaky enough to give us some hope.
It’s going to be a long, long season…is there any hope of avoiding playing in the Championship next season.
Sorry about the pessimism, after the Newcastle game I was quite ‘up’ mainly because of our improvement in mid-field. I am hoping it wasn’t false hope.
Although an avid MAYAn, I only rarely ‘contribute’, mainly because I’m so far away, but also because I worry about being a Jeremiah among the passionate – but cautious – optimists of the World’s Greatest Football Blog.
I’m afraid I saw last night coming.
You can’t play coarse football based only on grit and team spirit, and then be surprised by performances of unforgivable incompetence…”reinforced” by unambitious and uninspired summer signings.
I happen to think that the signings leading to our previous foray into the Premier League, Cornelius apart – Medel, Caulker, etc. – were OK, only undone by the unparalleled boneheadedness of OGS.
Not so this year.
You won’t be surprised that, down here, the general feeling was that the Canaries had made a dismal start…we certainly helped them to put that right.
On a lighter note, the man at Wren Kitchens who is supervising our ‘works’ goes by the name of…Andy Dibble. AND, he’s a Cardiff man.
Paul – this is my second attempt at responding to your comments regarding the “woeful” display, the first being lost somewhere up in the atmosphere, a bit like our lot last night. Woeful, an apt word but I would add an adjective before it, but not state it here.
Sitting up in the gods on level 4, we are often entertained in the lounge area by former players Bell and Brazil and prior to the commencement last night they were at pains to state the strength in depth that we now have with the “fringe” players now having the opportunity to press a claim for inclusion in the premier starting eleven. After last night’s inept display, really. Our fringe players were beyond!
We were second best everywhere. No attacking guile, out of position, and slower. Had Smithies not produced a couple of heroic last ditch smother saves, it could have been even more embarrassing. We had chances to score, but our strike forces of Madine, Paterson, Reid and Harris all lacked composure when given the chance, so it was left to the captain of the night to open our account from a corner, And the gallows humour of the Canton end breaking out in singing “we scored a goal, we scored a goal” etc was the best moment of the night for me, followed by the quickest ever journey home to Creigiau.
I commend the 300 plus Norwich supporters who made the journey over from East Anglia, and wondered why they too did not break out in song with the comment that “were we Ipswich in disguise”, the Tractor Boys now propping up the rest of the Division from which we have just escaped.
My half glass full has gone into reverse and may well be empty at the end of September if we have to employ any of the fringe players during the month. But – but it was only a Cup game!!!!!
I don’t enjoy criticising NW but when we are so poor in front of goal games like last night are an opportunity for the 1st team to gel. If any are injured, tough, part of the game, get over it.
There are 2 scenarios though.
1. Reid and Zahore both score and we win. Their confidence is up. OR
2. They fail to score and we lose. Confidence down.
For me it’s 1st team, get on a roll and look forward to the next game. Not.
Defeat of our 2nd 11. Dreading what the next game will bring, where the next goal will come from and when will we get our next point.
Too late now as the damage is done.
Although perhaps it will help if jazz plays right back to give us some danger on that side. Plus he is quick enough to get back to defend.
Well I hope he is.
We are used to seeing atrocious cup performances -I am thinking particularly of Shrewsbury(fresh from a 7-0 thrashing a couple of days earlier)-but last night’s effort against Norwich reserves was particularly humiliating.
It will be interesting to see how many of their starting eleven are selected for their derby game against Ipswich this weekend.
Unlike our squad Norwich showed how fringe players can use these games to press for a first team place.
Apart from Danny Ward no-one merited more than 5 out of 10 and this included team selection and formation.
We started with a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 with Reid playing behind Madine and Jazz on the right wing.
Long before Norwich scored it was clear that this was not working.
There were two main reasons.Jazz unsurprisingly, was useless in that position and our midfield two of Damour and Camarasa were being over run and outnumbered by the passing and movement of the opposition.
It was a nightmare game for Damour, and Camarasa,who is clearly used to playing with more skilful colleagues,was not much better.
I doubt that NW will be tempted to experiment with just 2 in central midfield in Premier League games.This will still leave him with the problem of finding how best to utilise Bobby D-Reid.
Fortunately our defence and midfield will be much stronger against Arsenal and we might even manage to score a goal!
Morning everyone, Colin, it was the loss to Fulham in his first season that Neil Warnock was referring to in his I should have stayed in bed comment, but it would be wrong to say it’s solely a Wannock problem – we were beaten by Macclesfield and Northampton when Malky Mackay was in charge, we lost to Wigan at home in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup when we were in the Premier League and they were in the Championship under Ole, Gabbidon/Young were in charge for the awful hammering by a Bournemouth second team, we played dreadfully in losing at home to Reading and Shrewsbury under Slade and Bristol Rovers deservedly beat us when Trollope was in charge. As for the formation, I thought we started with a kind of 3-5-1-1 with Richards and Cunningham as wing backs , before switching to a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 in the dying stages, but others have said we played with four at the back throughout (see Mike Hope’s reply to this thread) and Jazz Richards was a kind of wide midfielder cum winger – suffice it to say, it was another Warnock selection where identifying our formation was nowhere near as easy as you’d expect it to be. Our midfield was a reminder of what it was like on a bad day last season – I had a lot of time for Damour in his early months with us, but he’s not played well for some time now and he really struggled on Tuesday, Camarasa played some nice passes and was able to use his skill to get out of awkward positions at times, but we were comfortably second best in the middle of the park. I’m afraid I share your pessimism after that – I just posted on a City messageboard that I can’t explain why, but Tuesday left me more downbeat about our survival prospects than I felt after any of our league matches so far.
Lindsay, the presence of Arter and Camarasa in our midfield against Newcastle (and once it became eleven v ten against Huddersfield) offered hope that the “coarse” (good word to describe how we play that) football you mention would be less noticeable than it has been – I think there is hope that we can play a bot more football with our two midfield additions in there, but the difference in quality and team understanding between us and Norwich in the way we moved the ball was embarrassing – as I said, it was like one of those early round cup ties where the classy, top flight club has to face a team of triers and musclemen from the lower leagues except the roles were reversed and the Premier League side were the team of earnest plodders who couldn’t compete with the slick stuff their opponents sometimes produced.
BJA, while I think it would be wrong to say that the intensity levels for some cup matches always matched that shown in league games during Messrs Bell and Brazil’s day, I think it is fair to state that any youngster/fringe player thrown into the team for a “meaningless” would do their best to make it very hard for the manager to drop him – for at least, six seasons now, that’s not been the case at Cardiff as we slump to defeat after defeat against opponents with sides with as many second choice selections as us who you’d expect City to beat at first team level more often than not.
Paul, all I can see is two things, one I agree with pretty much everything you say and, two, I’ll be amazed if Jazz Richards starts on Sunday.
Mike, although we may differ about the formation we started with, there’s nothing else there I can disagree with you about. Like you, I wonder where Reid fits in if Neil Warnock insists on picking two wingers, because, as you say, we can’t risk playing with two central midfielders in the Premier League unless we are in a win or bust situation and yet. like you it seems, I can see reasons for some cautious optimism about Sunday’s match.
Bit late to the party as I’m on holiday ,thanks Paul once again the only worthwhile read for me .
I thought we could lose when the draw was made Norwich are a good side, educated as a club on playing good football , and seem to create endless stream of talent ,which they profit from.
Your point is very well made about us playing an 18 year old, the club should think hard and long about its future stradegy, or any stradegy in that area, it’s very worrying.
I like to see both Reid and Ward in on Saturday , and play like we did against Real Betis, a fast mobile 3 upfront .
The dilemma of having to play Manga,Bamba and Morrison stops us playing a mord attacking minded full back like Richards or Cunningham.(perhaps playing Manga in a losing team on Tuesday , may result in him being rested ?? )
Big September ahead .
Thanks Russell, I could go far more than I did about the culture we seem to have at the club these days whereby the notion of playing a teenager in the first team has just died – Ciaron Brown, our signign from Wealdstone last season, and Cameron Coxe were unused subs on Tuesday, so I suppose that’s progress of sorts, but Coxe will be 20 in December and I hope someone comes in with a loan offer for him today.