As we reach the end of February, we once again find ourselves is second-place in the championship. Amazingly, we are now only six points behind leaders Wolves, and are four points clear of third placed Aston Villa. This seems to be quite an unlikely position following the disastrous Christmas period where we lost four games in a row. But we have not lost since New Year's Day.
Indeed, the month of February has been particularly kind to us with five league wins and one draw. But despite this success, there seems to be a general reluctance within the media and from fans of other clubs to acknowledge what Neil Warnock and the team have achieved. People want to describe “the Warnock way” as boring, uncultured football. But there is much more to it than that. It is based on hard work, teamwork but also a fair amount of skill. There is a lot of skill involved any defence keeping a clean sheet, as well as there is an attack which schools a lot of goals. We're just different skills.
The team has also acquired a number of unflattering adjectives, such as “uncompromising, dour, bruising, and downright dirty!”. This has mainly been as a result of one rash challenge in a high-profile televised FA Cup fixture against Manchester City. Undoubtedly Joel Bennett’s tackle on Leroy Sane was easily deserving of a yellow card. Indeed, slow motion replays made a good case for a red card. But there were a few other major incidents of note within that game. Neil Warnock has been seen as an old-fashioned relic of a previous era. But he gets results at a fraction of the cost of what other teams spend on players. I'm pretty sure that all negative comments he and the team receive is as much for jealousy of his achievements rather than the way that the team plays.
Joe Bennett 'mistimes' his tackle on Leroy Sane.
Things are a little more optimistic since my last post. From the depths of despair over the Christmas period, there is now a new era of positivity about the club. Neil Warnock did some good trading before the end of the transfer deadline and brought in some needed new faces in to the squad. The defence has tightened up, and a number of players are no regaining full fitness following injury.
Results since last post:
CARDIFF 0 MANSFIELD TOWN 0 (FA Cup 3rd Round)
CARDIFF 4 SUNDERLAND 0
MANSFIELD TOWN 1 CARDIFF 4 (FA Cup 3rd Round replay)
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 0 CARDIFF 0
CARDIFF 0 MANCHESTER CITY 2 (FA Cup 4th ROUND)
LEEDS 1 CARDIFF 4
MILLWALL 1 CARDIFF 1
CARDIFF 2 BOLTON 0
CARDIFF 1 MIDDLESBOROUGH 0
IPSWICH 0 CARDIFF 1
CARDIFF 1 BRISTOL CITY 0
New players arrive.
Five players were brought into the club during the January transfer window to bolster the strength of the squad:-
MARKO GRUJIC. A 21 year old Serbian midfield player from Liverpool on loan until the end of the season.
Marko Grujic wrestles with Kevin de Bruyne in the Manchester city FA Cup tie.
ARMAND TRAORE. Full back signed from Nottingham Forest
JAMIE WARD . Utility forward signed from Nottingham Forest on loan
YANIC WILDSCHUT . Wide player signed from Norwich on loan.
GARY MADINE . A striker from Bolton, signed in a deal with a value up to £6million
Our first home match of the New Year was an FA Cup tie against league to Mansfield Town. The main encouragement for this game was the return of club captain Sean Morrison, who had been missing from the team during the Christmas period when we lost all four games. Kenneth Zohore also returned from injury in this game. Although the score was a little disappointing, there were some subtle signs of improvement. A week later the home game against struggling Sunderland also went someway to restoring the confidence of the team. To be fair, Sunderland are a poor, struggling side. Also, they were reduced to 10 men early in the second-half. But Cardiff clearly outplayed them for a comfortable 4-0 victory.
Sean Morrison scores the winner against Middlesbrough.
The following week saw the replay in Mansfield where no mistakes were made and we comfortably came out 4-1 winners. Following this was a tricky trip to Sheffield Wednesday, where we seem to have had little luck in recent years. However, we managed to achieve a 0-0 draw against an improving Sheffield Wednesday side who seem to be getting over some of their early season struggles.
We then had a break from league action for a match against the best team in the world! A home FA Cup fourth round tie against Manchester City. Unsurprisingly, this match at the Cardiff City Stadium was a sell-out with more than 33,000 present. The media only remember this match for the reckless tackle made by Joe Bennett on Leroy Sane. However, my memories of the match will always be of Manchester City breaking from within their own half with players running in all directions in beautifully choreographed moves. It is truly impressive to see that live, rather than just on a television screen. A 2-0 defeat was a respectable performance against what is probably the best club team in the world at present.
Then it was back to league action and two difficult away trips. Firstly, to Leeds. Since 2001, our record against Leeds United has been exceptionally good. This was another excellent performance resulting in a 4-1 victory for Cardiff. This is also resulted in the sacking of the Leeds manager Thomas Christiansen! A week later we travelled to Millwall for another difficult away trip. An early Junior Hoilett goal gave us hope another away win, but Millwall equalised just before half-time and ultimately a draw was a fair result for this game.
The versatile Callum Paterson scores the first goal against Leeds. Although nominally a full back, Paterson has found a role for himself in central midfield.
Our next home game was against Bolton Wanderers, who were still struggling near the bottom of the Championship. In fairness, Bolton were very poor in this game - in fact, I would say that their performance was even worse than that of Sunderland two weeks previously. It was an average performance by Cardiff, but this was easily too good for very poor Bolton side. Our next home game 4 days later against Middlesbrough proved to be more of a test. Middlesbrough continue to hope to get into a play-off place themselves. They will clearly a much better side than Bolton, but Cardiff also put in a much improved performance, and the final 1-0 scoreline does not do justice to the way that Cardiff dominated the game.
Our midweek fixture was then away at Ipswich town. This is another venue where we always seem to struggle. However, this time we managed to come away with a 1-0 win, despite Ipswich having much of the play.
And finally, to yesterday's match against our closest geographical rivals, Bristol City, in the "Severnside derby". The atmosphere was good, despite the kickoff being moved to 12 noon on a Sunday. Bristol City have been struggling recently, especially since Christmas. Many of us expected some free-flowing football from the visitors, but in fact they tried to take us on at our own game, and were not good enough. We were easily the better side, but fans were beginning to wonder whether we would manage to get a winning goal. Thankfully, this came in the 82nd minute, when Kenneth Zohore scored his second winner within five days. It is good to see him returning to form and scoring goals again!
Kenneth Zohore - 2 winning goals in 5 days! This one against Bristol City.
The big question is, can we maintain this form for the final 12 league games of the season? Can we achieve one of the automatic promotion places? Will we just make it into the play-offs?
As a football fan more than 50 years, my natural position is still pessimistic! But I will go as far as to say that I am more confident of achieving a top 2 finish than I was two months ago. However, three of the teams that were expected to challenge at the start of the season for promotion have began to show some good form themselves. Particularly Fulham and Aston Villa. Also, Derby are doing very well. These three teams and Wolves who are at the top of the table have all spent considerably more on players than Cardiff. I am pretty sure that we can easily make the play-offs. I am less sure about finishing in the top two, but I now feel that it is a possibility whereas two months ago I felt it was unlikely. I feel that 8 wins from our final 12 games may well see us into second place, but I realise that this is a big ask.
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