Eight league matches since my last post, resulting in 5 wins, 2 losses and a draw. Not a bad set of results with a new manager in place, trying to sort out his team.
However, the bare results do highlight a disturbing anomaly - 4 consecutive away games where we have failed to score, and only 1 point for our trouble. Over the course of the season, we have 6 wins and 2 defeats from 8 home games, and 0 wins, 5 draws and 4 losses from our 9 away games. 4 of our 6 defeats this season have been where we lost 1-0, and we failed to score in 5 of our 6 defeats. However, that run finally came to an end last Saturday with our first away win 1-0 at Watford.
As my American friends might say "Go Figure!"
New manager Russell Slade has brought in a new 4-4-2 formation, and used a remarkably small number of players since properly taking over at the Nottingham Forest game, and the team has looked comfortable in the 3 home victories that followed. We must remember that at the time of beating Forest, they were unbeaten this season, and when we beat Ipswich they were on an 8 match unbeaten run. But to counteract that, we have played and lost at Blackpool, who were without a win this season, and followed that with an away loss at Millwall who hadn't won for 8 games.
Surely at some point the win away from home will come? At least some encouragement can be taken from the Birmingham game where we claimed a point and kept a clean sheet.
Results since last post:-
CARDIFF 2 NOTTINGHAM FOREST 1
CARDIFF 3 IPSWICH 1
MILLWALL 1 CARDIFF 0
CARDIFF 3 LEEDS UNITED 1
BOLTON 3 CARDIFF 0
BIRMINGHAM 0 CARDIFF 0
CARDIFF 2 READING 1
WATFORD 0 CARDIFF 1
Federico Macheda in action against Forest.
CARDIFF 2 NOTTINGHAM FOREST 1
The first game of the new Slade era. It was hard to believe that this was the same team that we had seen only 2 weeks earlier. There seemed a greater urgency, and a new 4-4-2 formation with Federico Macheda and Adam Le Fondre up front. At this point, Forest were unbeaten and were expected to be a stern test, but the whole body language of the team was much more positive, and the 2-1 scoreline does not do justice to the Bluebirds performance. Even Peter Whittingham looked rejuvenated!
CARDIFF 3 IPSWICH TOWN 1
Well, we all went to this game 3 days later trying to work out whether we had witnessed a mirage on Saturday, or whether Slade had turned us into the real deal. I think we had our answer with a comfortable 3-1 win over an Ipswich Town side who were unbeaten in 8 games.
Adam Le Fondre celebrates his first Bluebirds goal against Ipswich. Unfortunately, it was later ruled as an own goal because of an outrageous deflection!
Despite going 1-0 down, the Bluebirds soon equalised through Peter Whittingham, and 2 early second half goals from Kiko Macheda and Adam Le Fondre sealed a comfortable win against one of the Championship's better sides.
MILLWALL 1 CARDIFF 0
Not a very good performance which I watched on TV. Adam Le Fondre has to take some of the blame here, missing a glorious first half chance. If that had gone in, it might have been so different, but another old foe of the Bluebirds, Danny Shittu headed the winner from a corner after 51 minutes, and we never really looked like getting back from there.
Danny Shittu scores for Millwall, with Bluebirds keeper Marshall controversially knocked to the floor.
CARDIFF 3 LEEDS UNITED 1
We love playing Leeds! In the last 15 meetings of these sides since 2002, Cardiff have won 11 and 4 games have been drawn. And this one was no exception! Leeds had reinstated manager Neil Redfearn that morning - the fourth managerial change this season - but were hopelessly disorganised for most of the game. A first goal for Cardiff for Bruno Ecuele Manga, followed by another from Kiko Macheda, and a tap in from Kenwynne Jones saw the Bluebirds win by a comfortable margin.
Bruno Ecuele Manga scores his first ever goal for Cardiff.
BOLTON 3 CARDIFF 0
A dreadful performance - lets not talk about it!
BIRMINGHAM 0 CARDIFF 0
Finally an away point! And a clean sheet! Unfortunately, we had many chances over a struggling Birmingham team who had recently been revitalised by their new manager Gary Rowett. Cardiff had more of the play, and probably should have won, but in the end had to settle for a 0-0 draw before the international break.
Close but no cigar against Birmingham.
CARDIFF 2 READING 1
To be completely honest, this was a dreadful game. The only good thing about the game was the result! An unforced error of an own goal gave Cardiff the lead, followed by a Peter Whittingham penalty. Reading were 2-0 down at half time and down to 10 men, but Cardiff couldn't capitalise on this in the second half and had a nervy last 10 minutes when Reading pulled the score back to 2-1.
Peter Whittingham puts away the penalty against Reading (pic by Jon Candy)
WATFORD 0 CARDIFF 1
Finally an away win! And this time a goal for Adam Le Fondre which was allowed to stand! Mind you, he could hardly miss when he only had to push it into the empty net from about a foot away!
"ALF" scores his first league goal for Cardiff!
Cardiff were under pressure for much of the game, but a stout defensive performance saw another clean sheet in consecutive away games, and a first away win since the 12th April! I have to rely on others for their opinion on the game, but it seems that for the last 20 minutes we held on quite comfortably.
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS?
Well, we now find ourselves up to 8th in the table. One point from the playoff places, and only 6 points from the top of the table. Its definitely the time to push on. Russell Slade really seems to have steadied the ship, and upcoming matches away at Bournemouth and home to surprise package Brentford will provide a good yardstick about how the team are doing. I still think we have the best squad in this division, and I'm beginning to think that perhaps Russell Slade is the man to get that squad to perform. Let's hope so!
