WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!

CHAMPIONS!

Well, my idea of updating this blog every month went by the wayside on the 31st January, after 28 games of the regular season. So, is there any point in listing the scores for the remaining 18 games of the season. Of course there is! I’m not going to go into a full breakdown of each game, but I will try to put in a few key points as they come up.

02/02/2013 - Leeds United 0 Cardiff 1. Notable for a goal-scoring debut from Fraizer Campbell just 2 minutes after coming on as a substitute. Its a pity Leeds didn’t get promoted with us as that would be a guaranteed 6 points towards our season!

09/02/2013 - Huddersfield 0 Cardiff 0. Another point gained away from home. Huddersfield were on a good run at this point, so an away draw was very welcome.

16/02/2013 - Cardiff 2 Bristol City 1. Fair play to Bristol City, they were obviously trying very hard. But the lack of quality that eventually saw them relegated was evident here. Could have been a lot more than 2-1.

19/02/2013 Cardiff 0 Brighton 2. One of only 2 home defeats this season. Brighton were a pretty good side, and in fact we played quite well and should have been ahead before Brighton scored. However, we didn’t convert our chances and a late breakaway goal when we were pushing for an equaliser sealed our fate.

24/02/2013 - Wolves 1 Cardiff 2. Wolves were just beginning to show their relegation form at this point, but Malky felt that this was one of our better performances.

02/03/2013 - Middlesborough 2 Cardiff 1. Mark Hudson missed this game, and at this time we hadn’t really learned how to play without him. First defeat in 10 away games.

05/03/2013 - Cardiff 1 Derby 1. This wasn’t really a very good performance against a workmanlike Derby team. All looked lost when Derby took the lead in the 76th minute, but an equaliser from Craig Noone from an outstanding Andrew Taylor cross saw us gain a point. Not a very fluid performance, but a point dug out from a difficult position.

12/03/2013 - Cardiff 1 Leicester 1. Leicester came into the match after a dreadful run of form which had seen them slip from favourites to go up automatically with us. Another late equaliser was needed, this time from Rudy Gestede following another excellent Andrew Taylor cross.

16/03/2013 - Sheffield Wednesday 0 Cardiff 2. After a couple of home draws, this away win went a long way to calming the nerves. The game also marked the debut of Leon Barnett on loan from Norwich. Leon was to have a vital role in the run in to the season, with the team keeping 5 clean sheets in the 8 games that he played. In those games, only 2 goals were scored in open play.

30/03/2013 - Peterborough 2 Cardiff City 1. Congratulations to Peterborough! The only team to do the double over us this season. They really seem to have become a bogey team in recent years. Unfortunately, the rest of their season wasn’t so good, and they ended up getting relegated.

01/04/2013 - Cardiff 3 Blackburn 0. A very comfortable win. Blackburn were outclassed and were in danger of relegation at this point, but soon after this performance they gained some form and ultimately avoided relegation.

06/04/2013 - Watford 0 Cardiff 0. This was a big test against one of our closest rivals. It was never going to be a flashy game, and the team put up a thoroughly professional performance against the only team that could stop us getting automatic promotion.

09/04/2013 - Cardiff 1 Barnsley 1. This was expected to be an easy win against a team in danger of relegation. A game we dominated came unstuck with a Barnsley equaliser deep into stoppage time, when they threw the kitchen sink at us.

13/04/2013 - Cardiff 3 Nottingham Forest 0. For me, the most important moment of the season came in this game. 1-0 up at half time, against a Forest team in form, was always a bit nervous, especially as they were down to 10 men. But a Rudy Gestede goal on 60 minutes finally made us think “when” rather than”if” we were going up. The whole atmosphere changed in that one moment.

Rudy Gestede heads us into a 2-0 lead against 10 man Forest. This was the moment that became “when” rather “if” we get promotion.(Great pic by Jon Candy)

16/04/2013 - Cardiff 0 Charlton 0. The big night finally arrived, and promotion was duly clinched. It was a surprisingly nerveless performance. Charlton came to play football and had been on a good run of form coming up to the game. We knew that one point would be enough, but when news filtered through that Watford had gone behind at Millwall with 8 minutes left, the crowd began to celebrate. And then, the final whistle, and after a gap of 51 years we were back in the top flight of football.

Grown men cried, including this one.

 

We are Premier League, I say “WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!” (pic by me!)

20/04/2013 -  Burnley 1 Cardiff 1. Off to the wilds of Lancashire where a point was needed to clinch the title. And so we did! It would have been a final away win but for a late Burnley equaliser. Grown men cried again, although this time I was at home watching the game on TV!

27/04/2013 - Cardiff 1 Bolton 1. At the end of the game, the Championship Trophy was presented. Bolton were still in the hunt for a playoff spot themselves, and I thought they may have put more effort into holding on to an early 1 goal lead. But a cracking Craig Noone free kick gained us another draw.

Grown men cried again!

Craig Noone lines up the equalising free kick against Bolton (pic Jon Candy)

04/05/2013 Hull 2 Cardiff 2. It was all done for us, but Hull needed to win to clinch promotion with us. What a finish to the game. With Hull leading 2-1 into stoppage time, they won a penalty, which they promptly missed. Still no drama for them, except we went straight up to the other end of the field and got our own penalty. Nicky Maynard, out for most of the season with a cruciate injury stepped up to score his first goal for the club. Hull had to sweat for another 10 minutes until the Watford v Leeds game was over, but Watford lost and Hull joined us in the Premier League.

CHAMPIONS!

A big celebration and open top bus tour through Cardiff on 5th May for the people of Cardiff.

Pic by Jon Candy.

Don’t Rely on me for predictions!

At the start of the season, I tried to predict the top 6 and the 3 relegation candidates. Only Cardiff and Leicester made it into the top 6, (and Leicester did their best to mess it up). Blackpool stopped performing when their manager left, and Middlesborough disintegrated in the second half of the season for the second year running. Charlton put on a good late run, but finished 3 points short, and Bolton, who I thought were certainties, only started performing late on in the season and missed the playoffs on goal difference.

I was more successful with my relegation predictions, with Bristol City and Peterborough going down. Ironically, 3 of our 10 league defeats this season came against those 2 teams! Wolves were the other team to go down, at the expense of my guess Barnsley. I don’t think anyone thought that Wolves would drop straight through from the Premier League to League 1, but after 4 different managers in the course of the season, that’s what they did.

PREMIER LEAGUE BLUEBIRD.

In honour of our promotion to the Premier League, I have started a new blog called Premier League Bluebird, which unsurprisingly can be found at premierleaguebluebird.blogspot.com .

Even if its only for one season, this is where I will be posting from 19th June 2013, when the new season Premier League fixtures are published.

January and sunnier climes!

Off to Sunnier Climes!

As I sit down to compose my January blog entry, the team have had a well earned rest in Dubai. Actually, that’s not true, as they were out there for warm weather training. Mind you, you would have thought they would have been better off going somewhere for cold weather training to cope with the wintry blast which has been passing through the UK recently!

2 NEW PLAYERS plus 1

Generally speaking, most observers of the club felt that we needed to sign a new striker and a full back during the transfer window, and that is just what we have done. The arrival of Frazier Campbell from Sunderland is particularly exciting, as he is a class player who has been playing regularly at Premier League level (15 games this season).

Less spectacular but equally important is the re-signing of Simon Lappin from Norwich as cover for Andrew Taylor at left back. Lappin played 2 fixtures on loan before Christmas (both wins), and when released by Norwich Malky moved swiftly to offer him an 18 month contract. It was always going to be difficult to sign a player of the right level of quality who knows that they are only going to be a back-up to the first team, and Malky seems reluctant to put the promising but inexperienced development squad player Declan John into the first team squad at present.

In addition to the above signings, the club has also signed 18 year old Rhys Healey from Welsh Premier side Connahs Quay Nomads. Rhys is seen as a hot prospect for the future, and will take his place in the development squad for the time being.

CARDIFF 0 IPSWICH 0

As a result of our early exit from the FA Cup, there have only been 2 further league games in January. This was our first home draw of the season, and the first time we have failed to score a goal at home. On a positive note, we hardly looked like losing, (although the closest the game came to a goal was an excellent shot from their number 8 which really rattled the crossbar). But, we rarely troubled them either.

Ipswich defend doggedly against the Bluebirds (Pic Jon Candy)

All things considered, it could have been worse. We weren’t at our best, and Ipswich have a good record against us in recent years. Other results went in our favour that day, and as a result we maintained our 10 point lead at the top of the table.

BLACKPOOL 1 CARDIFF 2

A Saturday evening kick off for the benefit of the TV cameras gave us our 5th win in our last 6 away matches. The pitch was truly awful at Blackpool, incredibly bumpy. However, it seemed to affect both sides equally. It was never going to be a footballing spectacle, but Cardiff showed enough class to complete their second home/away double of the season. Particularly impressive was the performance of Kim Bo-kyung, who is looking more and more a class player.

Kim Bo-kyung on the ball against Blackpool.

A late illness meant that Craig Bellamy was unable to play, and skipper Mark Hudson twisted an ankle late in the first half which meant a substitute appearance for young Ben Nugent again. A goal from Kim was followed by a quick equaliser for Blackpool from the long-serving Gary Taylor-Fletcher. But the game was won a few minutes later with a first goal for the club from Tommy Smith, a superb volley which would have gone in even without a deflection!

This was our usual workmanlike performance, with one or two moments of class which was the difference between the sides.

10 points clear at the top of the League!

FEBRUARY BECKONS

5 games now coming up in February, starting with Leeds away on Saturday. We have an amazing recent record against Leeds, and have won 11 and drawn 4 of the 15 games dating back to that FA Cup tie in 2002. Leeds have a decent side, with Neil Warnock in charge. I feel we should get at least a point here, but sooner or later Leeds will win against us. Let’s hope its not this week.

We have the new players, we are top of the league, surely we can’t mess up promotion now, can we?

Now That’s What I Call Christmas!

Let’s face it - the busy schedule of Christmas and New Year fixtures hasn’t produced a glut of points for us in recent years. That’s what makes 4 wins and 12 points over the festive period so amazing and exciting! The disappointment of losing to the team at the bottom of the league was soon wiped away, (although Peterborough have been on something of a revival since then anyway), and we now find ourselves 7 points clear at the top of the table, and 9 points clear of the playoff zone!

Although most of us fans hope for the best and hoped for 4 wins, only the most one-eyed of us thought it would really happen! I would have been happy with 7 or 8 points, but this was something special. It appears that this is the first time the team have achieved this feat over the Christmas and New Year time, although we apparently got 3 wins and a draw over the season 2007-8. Our last 10 games have produced 8 wins, one draw and one loss, and its amazing to think that we have won 18 of the 26 games played this season.

For the last 7 years, the team top at Christmas has gone on to take automatic promotion. Let’s hope we don’t break that run.

NOT UP FOR THE CUP

We followed 4 wins over Christmas with a defeat to non-League Macclesfield town in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. Malky put out the reserves and development squad, and although the team should have been good enough to win, they fell by giving away 2 late  goals.

The cup competitions have been good to us in recent years - I never thought I would get the chance to see us play in 2 Wembley finals - but our priority this year is clearly promotion. It would have been nice to win, but ultimately a removal from the cup and the extra fixtures it involves can only be good in the long run. We have 20 cup ties left this season - the remaining League fixtures!

LEICESTER 0 CARDIFF 1

There is no doubt that Leicester remain one of our closest rivals, although we are now 12 points clear of them in the table. Leicester have similar resources to ourselves, and have already been active in the January transfer window. Although doing well, they are clearly underachieving by the amount of backing they have.

Reports suggest that for the first 25 minutes Leicester were all over us, hitting the woodwork on 3 occasions. However, a sublime Craig Bellamy volley after 35 minutes gave the Bluebirds the lead against the run of play, and after that we rarely gave them the chance to get back into the game. After the defeat against Peterborough, this win was really needed and gave the team the required impetus into the rest of the Christmas fixtures.

CARDIFF 2 CRYSTAL PALACE 1

Who would have though when the fixtures were announced at the start of the season that this Boxing Day game would have been a 1st versus 3rd top of the table clash?

Despite losing their talented manager Dougie Freedman to Bolton, Palace remain a good side, with new manager Ian Holloway making his second trip to the Cardiff City Stadium following his visit when in charge of Blackpool in September. But yet again, his team lost.

Palace went ahead after 8 minutes when scoring from a corner. For about 25 minutes, we seemed to be struggling, and if League top scorer Glenn Murray hadn’t mis-controlled a golden opportunity after 20 minutes then the game might have been different. However, Malky swapped wings for Craig Noone and Craig Conway just before half time, which seemed to improve the attacking options. A minute before halftime, Craig Bellamy broke down the left and cut back a cross for Craig Noone to smash the ball into the roof of the net.

   

Aron Gunnarsonn (17) heads the winner (pic Jon Candy)

The Bluebirds continued to press in the second half, and finally got their rewards when Aron Gunnarsson headed in from a Craig Bellamy corner in the 74th minute.

Another crucial win against one of our promotion rivals, although I’m not sure whether Palace have enough resources to see them through the second half of the season.

CARDIFF 1 MILLWALL 0

Millwall had been on something of a good run in the last couple of months, but the return of their loan striker Chris Wood back to his home club prior to a sale to Leicester weakened their attacking options. This time, we took an early lead, and for much of the rest of the first half rode our luck a little.

Veteran Millwall Centre-back Danny Shittu heads away a corner under pressure from the Cardiff big men.(Pic Jon Candy)

After half time, and particularly for the last 20 minutes, we were well in control and rarely looked in danger of losing the lead. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective, and gave us our 12th home win out of 13 games this season.

BIRMINGHAM 0 CARDIFF 1

The final match of the holiday season took place on New Year’s Day with over 2,000 Bluebirds fans travelling to St Andrews for the fourth game in 10 days.

This is another ground where we have had little luck in recent years. I was surprised to find that we hadn’t won there since 1966! It was another “grind it out” 1-0 victory, although I’m told that it was a little more comfortable than the bare 1-0 win suggests.

Remember how we all worried that our away form was going to let us down? Particularly after the bizarre 5-4 defeat at Charlton, our third consecutive away defeat. Well, since that time, our next 5 away games have produced 4 wins and a draw, and suddenly we aren’t so worried any more (I’m not mentioning the Macclesfield Cup defeat!).

A BIT OF A REST

Most of the first team players have now had 11 days break since the Birmingham game, before tomorrow’s home game with Ipswich. This means that Peter Whittingham has had a chance to recover from the knock he received against Millwall, and is available tomorrow.One of the positives to being knocked out of the FA Cup is that we now have a blank day on 26th January, meaning we only have one more game in January after tomorrow. I hope the players make the most of this as there are now 6 fixtures in February!

Also, after tomorrow, we have 3 consecutive away matches, followed by 3 home games in 8 days in the middle of February. A win against Ipswich tomorrow would certainly ease the pressure of the 3 away games coming up, but despite winning up there in September I always think that ipswich are a bit of a bogey side, and it seems a long time since we beat them in Cardiff.

The bookmakers think we are almost already promoted to the Premier League, but like most true football fans I keep expecting it all to go wrong! But it really is an exciting time to be a Bluebird!

Friday 11th January 2013 at 7.30pm.