If you were someone who liked football and watched this afternoon’s game between Cardiff City and Blackburn Rovers without knowing anything whatsoever about either side or what competition they were playing in, I’d say you probably would have quite enjoyed it.
After all, it was a match in which both teams were always willing to attack, there was a lot of goalmouth action, one set of goalposts took something of a hammering and there was the drama of a late equaliser.
Although it’s hardly an infallible test, I tend to think that if a match finishes at 2-2 it’s a sign of a good, entertaining contest and, overall, this was one which fitted that criteria.
Going back to the neutral observer I was talking about, given the attacking intent on both sides, they may have come to the conclusion that they were watching a tussle in a cup competition between teams from different divisions with the team in red, Blackburn, being the ones from the higher league and the team in blue the plucky underdogs from a league or two lower that probably realised their only chance of progressing lay in winning on their own ground.
It was not that the blues were without skilful footballers. For example, if they caused the reds defensive problems, and they did from time to time, it was a very fair bet that their number twenty three was involved somewhere, while, before he tired, their big lump of a number ten showed himself to be more than just a target man as he displayed a decent turn of pace and a quicker pair of feet than expected.
Defensively, however, they were a mess and their deep lying midfielders, although giving their all for the cause, were guilty at times of not being able to complete a pass which would play an attacker into the space where a gap had been opened up and also they had a habit of conceding possession cheaply in dangerous positions, particularly the number twenty one..
The team in blue looked to get on top through their work rate and closing down while trying to exploit their height advantage at set pieces, but the reds clearly had more “proper” footballers in their ranks and, when they got the ball down and played, the blues had to ride their luck with their woodwork being hit three times in the second half – in truth, the away team should have won, but you had to feel for the home side who conceded an equaliser in the ninetieth minute when they must have been dreaming of a money spinning tie with one of the really big clubs in the next round.
Of course, we all know the reality is a lot different. The two sides involved are in the same league and today Cardiff City were trying to revive their almost dead hopes of a top six place when they entertained a woefully out of form Blackburn side with their experienced manager, Tony Mowbray, coming under real pressure after a run of one win, four draws and nine defeats in their last fourteen league matches.
Ordinarily, if you were coming off successive defeats, the last of them by 5-0, then a home match against a team with a record like Blackburn’s would seem to be a heaven sent opportunity, but these aren’t ordinary times. Maybe it’s the lack of home support that is responsible for what surely has to be our worst record in this division on our own pitch since we returned to it after a break of nearly two decades in 2003, but City can take absolutely nothing for granted when they play at home this season.
I happen to think there’s also what I find to be a deeply puzzling mind set at the heart of the club I support, whereby a squad was, seemingly, purposely assembled for the beginning of last season by the then manager which is poorer in terms of technique, passing ability and dynamism than nearly every team we face and this is despite the advantage we have over so many of those sides in terms of the Premier League parachute payments we’ve been in receipt of during that time.
Neil Warnock seemed to believe that we could grind Championship teams down through a mixture of our sheer size, power and set piece domination – we were going to be even bigger and stronger than in 17/18 with even more of his beloved “bread and butter” central midfielders in the squad.
For me though, we play underdog football, (hence my rambling introduction to this piece as I try to find a different way of saying the same thing as I have been doing for so much of this season!) – we seem unable and/or unwilling to play the game like sides with far less of our spending power do, for Cardiff, the weapon of choice is a large bludgeon rather than the rapier – it’s as if we’re playing football with an inferiority complex out of choice!
Warnock has been gone for nearly eighteen months now, but we still play the game in the same way that we did when he was here (and like we did when Russell Slade was here before him). We’ve had two managers since Warnock, the first of which spoke of changing things, but was half hearted at best about it in practice as he stuck with the bread and butter midfielders he had inherited – to clarify, I think all teams need one or two such midfield players, but we have them at the exclusion of anything else!
As for our current manager, he deserves to be given the benefit of any doubt for now because he had no chance of putting different ideas into practice between his appointment and the closing of the January transfer window. A self confessed pragmatist, Mick McCarthy has looked at what was here when he arrived and, correctly in my view, deduced that they are best suited to playing a certain way and has stuck with it and, in some respects, taken it further.
I must say though that as I look towards next season and what I will be likely to be watching for my season ticket, I hope I’m wrong when I say I see a likelihood of more of the bludgeon and batter them into submission football with bread and butter midfielders aplenty.
Anyway, on to today’s game from a real person’s point of view! Dealing with things chronologically, within a couple of minutes, we saw our opponents being presented with another one of those chances where a cross is pulled back, albeit with the aid of a deflection this time, into the path of an opponent coming on to the ball around our penalty spot. This produced goals for Forest and Wednesday, but City got lucky because the player in question this time was one of the Championship’s best strikers in Adam Armstrong, yet, faced with the chance to end his six game scoring drought, he shot wide – Armstrong’s wait for a goal wouldn’t last much longer though.
City, with Keiffer Moore showing up more than in recent games and Harry Wilson more involved than normal from the start, began to find their feet though and had a good spell of ten to fifteen minutes which culminated in them taking the lead.
Before that Moore, seeking to end his run of six City games without scoring, ran powerfully and quickly down the left past a couple defenders before being foiled by a last ditch tackle and then chested down a Will Vaulks cross, turned and fired wide from the sort of chance that was going in for him during the autumn and winter.
Besides that, Blackburn keeper Thomas Kaminski was booked when he took out Harry Wilson thirty yards from goal as the City man was taking the ball around him. Wilson’s effort from the resultant free kick was blocked by the wall, but the outcome was different from a free kick some seven or so yards closer to goal when he backheeled the ball to Vaulks who shot low into the corner with the clever change of angle City had created having taken the Blackburn player who was lying on the ground behind their wall out of the game.
City were worth their lead at that stage, but they rather lost their way after that and Blackburn were pressing in the minutes before half time, so their equaliser didn’t come as a complete shock as Armstrong got in behind Ciaron Brown and put an angled low shot in from about ten yards.
It’s not with the benefit of hindsight that I say that I was surprised by the decision to include Alex Smithies in place of Dillon Phillips as one of four changes from the Hillsborough mauling (Perry Ng for Joe Ralls, Wilson for Jonny Williams and Josh Murphy for Leandro Bacuna, who was not even a substitute, we’re the others, while there was a welcome return on the bench for Jordi Osei-Tutu after around six months out with a troublesome hamstring). Returning to Smithies, faced with his first real test of the game, I’m afraid he made a horrible mess of Armstrong’s shot, which was hardly struck that cleanly, and the ball rolled apologetically across the line and into the net.
A word here about the referee at this stage. I try not to mention refs as a rule and, when I do, it’s usually to criticise them, but I’d like to praise Jeremy Simpson here. First, although I expect most City fans will disagree with me, I thought a yellow card for Kaminski for his cynical foul on Wilson law was right, but, more impressive was his use of the advantage law in both of the game’s first two goals.
For City’s, he gave the free kick for a foul on Moore after first allowing a flowing move, which showed we can put together quick, incisive and exciting sequences containing clever passing and movement, involving him, Tom Sang and Wilson which ended with the latter narrowly missing the target when he should really have scored, to continue. Then, for the equaliser, Simpson allowed the game to go on following a foul by Murphy deep inside the Blackburn half (sadly, it was the City man’s only significant contribution to the afternoon and it earned him a deserved yellow card) and a few seconds later, the ball was in our net..
Perhaps City were a little unfortunate to not be ahead at the break despite the stats showing one on target effort by us and three by the visitors, but luck was certainly on our side in the second period with Gallagher, Johnson and Douglas all hitting the woodwork for the visitors.
City had their moments as well with Kaminski denying Wilson from close range, then having to back pedal furiously to stop the Liverpool loannee becoming the second of our players to score from inside his own half this season and there was also a smart stop as Sang threatened to score his first City goal from around twenty two yards.
Armstrong shot across the face of goal late on at a time which would have had my imaginary neutral watcher of the first few paragraphs thinking it was going to City’s day, but those of us familiar with the 20/21 version of Cardiff City would have known that we weren’t going to win because we’d only scored twice, not the compulsory three plus times which is needed by us to win at Cardiff City Stadium.
As for the goal which denied us – a three man central defence really shouldn’t be undone as easily as we were by a single pass (and you can’t help thinking we wouldn’t have been if Sean Morrison had been there), but we were, as Armstrong was played through in the inside left channel and, with his confidence now restored, he was always going to score once he had eluded Aden Flint and Curtis Nelson.
Having questioned the decision to include Smithies (Dillon Phillips may have let in five in his last match, but, for me, the only goal he’s been at fault with in the almost three months he was in the team was Watford’s winner here a few weeks back), I must admit to, once again, being bemused by Mick McCarthy’s use, or non use that should be, of substitutes. His first one certainly worked, because It was Ralls, on for Murphty, who put us 2-1 up on seventy two minutes when he intercepted Kamiski’s clearance, exchanged passes with Wilson and then calmly rolled his shot past the keeper.
However, when, in a very unusual move, Tony Mowbray made five changes all in one go with fifteen minutes left, there was no response from the City manager despite him having admitted that Moore was “knackered” in his pre game briefing on Thursday – faced with half of the opposition’s outfield players having “a fresh pair of legs”, our manager stuck to his tiring, or just plain tired, troops.
Moore played the whole game yet again and McCarthy only turned to his bench again after Blackburn’s second equaliser – taking Wilson off had a bit of an air of “well I always take him off don’t I” to it, but, if the introduction of Williams suggested we were still looking for the win, Wilson leaving the pitch suggested otherwise and left this watcher baffled..
Finally, a quick word about the Academy team, they were beaten 3-1 at Crewe this afternoon with James Crole scoring from the penalty spot.