Its been a mixed bag since my last post - but we are still TOP OF THE LEAGUE. Our home form continues to go from strength to strength - 7 straight wins from the start of the season for the first time in club history. Our away form hasn’t been so spectacular - 2 consecutive away defeats - but there are bound to be a few defeats through the course of a season. Our most recent defeats have come against Forest and Bolton, both teams likely to be near the top 6 at the end of the season.
The most encouraging thing about recent performances is that some of the back up players have stepped in and done well. Kim Bo-kyung made his first start against Burnley, and the fact that Malky has been patient with him appears to be paying off - he looks to be a very classy player. Joe Mason has now made a couple more starts and reminded us how good he was last season. Ben Turner has returned after injury, although at the expense of Kevin McNaughton who has moved to the bench while Matthew Connoly has moved from Centre back to right back.
So, despite having a number of key players injured - Bellamy, Mutch, Smith and of course Maynard - the team continues to produce results and remains top of the league.
NOTTINGHAM FOREST 3 CARDIFF CITY 1
I must admit that I saw little of this game - I didn’t even watch it on the Football League Show! The message boards and newspapers were almost unanimous in saying that we were outplayed and deservedly beaten. My personal feeling is that Forest are a strong team and will probably make it to the top 6 by the end of the season. They are a well supported club who have received a good bit of investment, and a good young manager in Sean O’Driscoll - I remember what he achieved with limited resources at Doncaster. no shame in losing away to them.
CARDIFF 2 WATFORD 1
This was a night for that old cliche “a good team can win even when they play badly”. Watford were pretty negative in their intentions, and once they scored after 20 minutes you just knew that they were going to do their best to hold on to that one goal lead. For most of the first half we seemed to lose the ability to pass to each other, and even Peter Whittingham seemed out of sorts.
The second half was better, but we rarely looked like scoring. Then the fates took a hand! Firstly, Watford had a player sent off for violent play on Craig Noone. The Assistant Referee gave this decision, and I suspect that he was the only one in the ground who saw the incident! It was right in front of my place in the stand, and nobody around me had a clue what had happened! So, we were playing 10 men. Then, a fortunate penalty (although a clear handball), when Matthew Connoly’s shot was blocked by the arm of a Watford defender. The penalty was suitably dispatched by Peter Whittingham.
Whitts puts away the penalty against Watford (Pic Jon Candy)
Then, a bit more luck came our way as Watford had another player dismissed for a second yellow card. So, we had 20 minutes left against 9 men - surely we could do this now? Of course, these things never seem that easy. Again, we seemed to lose the ability to put a decent cross into the penalty area, and it was a minute into injury time when a cross was finally put into the danger area for Aron Gunnarson to head home the winner.
This could easily have been our first points dropped at home this season, but somehow it got turned into win number 6!
CARDIFF 4 BURNLEY 0
No real drama in this game - just a comprehensive win for the Bluebirds. It was a comfortable victory as the scoreline suggests. Joe Mason’s goal after following up a Craig Noone shot on 3 minutes set up an easy and enjoyable afternoon, with later goals from Noone, Connoly and Gunarsonn (again) to seal victory.
This game was the debut for Kim Bo-kyung. He looked a really classy player throughout the game, doing the simple things well and passing quickly and efficiently.
Matthew Connoly celebrates the 3rd Cardiff goal against Burnley (Pic by Jon Candy)
BOLTON 2 CARDIFF 1
Well - it finally happened - we lost in “lucky” red! This was the Saturday evening game on SKY - somehow we never play at our best on live TV!
Not that this was a bad performance. The first half was pretty even, with few chances for either side. But when Craig Noone’s shot squeezed in just before half time I thought it was going to be our day. However, a couple of inspired substitutions by new Bolton manager Dougie Freedman on the hour saw them take the lead. Although the first Bolton goal followed a questionable penalty, they had already had a perfectly good goal disallowed. They took the lead a few minutes later.
I thought we put up a good effort in the last 10-15 minutes, keeping up sustained pressure, but this time the late goal didn’t come our way. Even in the last minute of additional time, when David Marshall was sent into the Bolton penalty area, things didn’t go our way when his shot hit the Bolton goalkeeper in the head and bounced harmlessly wide.
Our first loss in red. Our next game is against Charlton on Tuesday 6th November, when we will wear our “changed” strip of blue. Lets hope we can overcome our bad luck in blue by winning!
