8 games since my last post - 2 losses, 1 draw and 5 wins. Surely that’s promotion form? Fixtures since my last post:-
Charlton 5 Cardiff 4
Cardiff 2 Hull 1
Cardiff 1 Middlesborough 0
Barnsley 1 Cardiff 2
Derby 1 Cardiff 1
Cardiff 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0
Blackburn 1 Cardiff 4
Cardiff 1 Peterborough 2
After the Charlton debacle, we took 16 from the next 18 points available, including 2 wins and a draw away from home. This is definitely promotion form! What I think is more pleasing is the number of different ways we are managing to win, varying from the flamboyant to the downright dour! We are the top scorers in the division, and now have 6 different players who have scored 4 goals or more - a true reflection of the TEAM effort, not relying on certain star individuals.
The home loss to Peterborough? Well, the less said the better. Every team is due a bad day at the office, and we weren’t ever going to win all 23 home games in a season. Let’s hope they put that bad performance behind them moving into the Christmas fixtures.
CHARLTON 5 CARDIFF 4
Well, this was “one of those games” for sure! I was quite happily keeping an eye on the score on Skysports and saw that they were winning 2-0. I switched on the radio to listen to the game a few minutes later when I discovered it was 2-2. By the time I switched the radio off in disgust 20 minutes later, they were losing 5-2!
I really shouldn’t listen to away games on the radio - they always seem to do badly! The proof of this is that we scored 2 late goals after I switched it off!
In general, it seems like we just had an off night. Marshall was at fault for 2 of the goals, and the defence went AWOL for the others. However, it does seem like that they got all of their mistakes out of their system in one go, as the next 6 matches provided 5 wins and a draw.
CARDIFF 2 HULL 1
Make no mistake, this win was much more convincing than the scoreline suggests. An early Heidar Helgusson goal was quite comfortably defended until the 82nd minute when Mark Hudson got the second.
Goalmouth action against Hull - (picture by Jon Candy)
Basically, Cardiff never gave Hull a chance to score until the 90th minute, when Robert Koren scored with a high class shot from a half clearance from the defence. A classy performance against a team in good form.
CARDIFF 1 MIDDLESBOROUGH 0
This was a much harder victory. Although Boro became the 9th consecutive team to lose at the Cardiff City Stadium this season, they did look like a very good side. Yet again Cardiff had to defend an early goal, and had to do it without Ben Turner who had to limp off with a hamstring injury after 20 minutes.
However, this meant a debut for 19 year old Ben Nugent. This followed an injury to Andrew Taylor which meant that young Joe Ralls had to come on to play left back. I think a few of the fans looked on this with some trepidation, but both youngsters played particularly well and were well looked after by
captain Mark Hudson.
Connoly scores the opening (and winning) goal against Boro (Pic by Jon Candy)
At times we rode our luck, but we hung on for a hard fought win. These are the sort of games we would have lost or drawn last year - definitely the form of a good team.
BARNSLEY 1 CARDIFF 2
Having lost our previous 3 away games, this was a big test against a struggling Barnsley who usually try to play some good football.
This game was notable for the first league goal for young Ben Nugent, starting a game for the first time in the absence of Ben Turner. A second goal,by Aron Gunarsson, after 7 minutes of the second half, should have settled Cardiff nerves. But, we never seem to do things the easy way and giving Barnsley an equaliser 8 minutes from the end put on the pressure.
Added to this pressure, loan debutant Simon Lappin, who had joined as cover from Premier League Norwich earlier in the week, was sent off for a second bookable offence. However, we held on for a valuable win after 3 consecutive away defeats.
Notably, this was the first points won whilst wearing blue this season!
DERBY 1 CARDIFF 1
Prior to the Barnsley game, no player had received a red card in a competitive match since Malky Mackay took over. Now, with the dismissal of Craig noone for a second bookable offence with 30 minutes to go, we had had players sent off in 2 consecutive matches.
An early Heidar Helgusson goal helped settle the nerves, but Derby are being built into a decent side, particularly at home. The dismissal of Craig noone put the team under extreme pressure, which eventually led to a Derby equaliser with 20 minutes left. However, the team never completely buckled and were good value for the draw (only the second draw of the season).
CARDIFF 1 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 0
The return of our former manager Dave jones added a little bit of extra spice to this game. also, we were going for a record breaking 10th consecutive home win.
Ben Turner heads away (Picture Jon Candy)
Unfortunately, I had to miss this home game due to family commitments. It seems that it was possibly a good one to miss, as by all accounts Sheffield Wednesday “parked the bus”, doing their best to hold on at 0-0 and try to sneak a goal on the break. Considering their desperate form coming in to the game, it was quite understandable.
However, with 10 minutes left Craig Conway turned and shot into the far corner for a hard fought 1-0 win.
Much has been said recently about Craig asking for a transfer due to his lack of first team opportunities. He only played in this game as Craig Noone was suspended following his red card at Derby. However, it seems that he took his chance to impress. The ability to bring in decent replacements when regular first team players are missing shows the strength in depth we now have in the squad. This is something we haven’t had in recent years, and is another positive factor in our progress.
BLACKBURN 1 CARDIFF 4
It is always my perception that we don’t play well when we are covered live on TV. However, this was our third win in a televised match this season (plus one defeat), and it was a really convincing one.
Although Blackburn have been largely disappointing since their relegation from the Premier League last season, they still have a decent set of players. Quite simply, we controlled this game. It was an excellent all round team performance. The only negative was that we should probably have been more than one goal ahead at half time.
A Mark Hudson header from a Craig Noone cross gave us a first half lead, but even when Blackburn equalised early in the second half, the team didn’t panic or let their heads get down. Almost immediately we re-took the lead with a goal from Craig Bellamy (NB we seem to have a lot of “Craigs” at the club), and late goals from substitutes Joe Mason and Kim Byo-kyung (his first for the club) sealed an excellent victory.
At this point, we had really cemented our place at the top of the Championship table.
CARDIFF 1 PETERBOROUGH 2
Well, it had to happen eventually. The Championship is often described as a league in which any team can beat anyone else. This was a good example of that, where our 100% home record was lost to the team at the bottom of the table!
Cardiff go close against Peterborough (pic by Jon Candy)
In fairness to Peterborough, this game could have been 6-1 to them. Cardiff looked totally lost for long periods of the game. Basically, the Cardiff man-of-the match was goalkeeper Marshall, which gives you some idea of how bad the rest of the team were.
The absence of skipper Mark Hudson may have had some influence over this performance, but essentially it was a very forgettable performance, and surely we can’t be that bad again?
YOU DON’T WIN ANYTHING IN DECEMBER!
True, but you can put down a good marker for the rest of the season. And we remain at the Top of the League!
The next 3 matches are all against some of the top teams in the division, starting with an away game at Leicester this Saturday. Leicester have spent big over the last couple of seasons, and I feel that they could yet be one of our closest rivals for automatic promotion this year. Then we have the big home game against Crystal Palace on Boxing Day - who would have thought at the start of the season that this would be a clash between the top 2 teams in the division? (OK - I know both teams could lose matches before then, but either way its a top of the table clash!). Then its Millwall on the 29th December - who would have thought that they were going to be challengers for a playoff spot when we beat them back in September?
So - the big question is “are we going to get promoted to the Premier League this year?”. I don’t like to say yes, although we are clearly in a strong position. I will say that despite losing in the playoffs for the last 3 seasons we CAN make it this year. But the natural position of any regular football supporter is slightly negative and pessimistic, so you won’t catch me saying that we WILL get promoted until we mathematically can’t be caught.
It seems like Vincent Tan is making more money available for Malky to spend in the January transfer window, and rumours abound that there will be up to 3 signings, one of which will be a “big name”. If we are to push on, we certainly need a big name target man striker, and also at least 1 if not 2 full backs. Regular injuries and suspensions to the team over the last few months have shown that we have the squad to cover most positions, and we have (generally) kept winning despite the disruption. But a replacement for Maynard, now we know he is out for the rest of the season, is essential.
The current Championship table can be found via the following link:-
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers!
