One More Time!

Well. Its still in our hands. One more win next Sunday against Reading and we have gained automatic promotion to the Premier League! I'm already a nervous wreck and there are still 6 days to go! At the start of the season I was looking forward more in hope than expectation to challenge for the play-off places and a shot at the Premier League. What I wasn't expecting was a chance at an automatic promotion place.A win from our final home game against Reading and we've done it.

Reports from Cardiff City this morning (Monday April 30th) are that the match is already a sellout, including the Upper Ninian stand. Lets hope the team can send the 30,000+ fans home happy! The natural position of any long term football fan is to try to play down excitement and expectation in case of disappointment, so I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground this week and be realistic - if it all goes wrong on Sunday we'll still have our original target of the playoffs to go for. But this is our big chance - the biggest one-off game since the Blackpool playoff Final at Wembley in 2010. 

Although I obviously enjoyed the promotion of 2013, the season ended in a bit of an anti-climax as we weren't really challenged having been top of the league since December. We also finished the season off with 5 draws which was also disappointing. But this year, we have the chance to achieve something with a big occasion. Lets hope we don't blow it. I'm naturally pessimistic and cautious when it comes to my football team, so the best you'll get out of me this week is "We should be able to win, as long as the luck goes our way".

RESULTS:

DERBY COUNTY 3 CARDIFF 1

HULL CITY 0 CARDIFF 2

There was an extra edge to the Derby match following the controversial postponement in March. In the meantime, Derby had been able to restore some of their suspended and injured players to the team, but they were in danger of missing the playoffs completely following 3 consecutive defeats. Things went well for Cardiff in the first half with Cardiff taking the lead from an impressive Calum Paterson volley - his 10th goal of the season. 

But at the 60 minute mark things started to go wrong, with former Cardiff striker Cameron Jerome sneaking in ahead of Sean Morrison to score when the ball should probably have been cleared. Two further individual defensive errors occurred resulting in a 3-1 defeat. 

Sean Morrison - more defensive errors in one game against Derby than in the 43 previous games!

It was a disappointing defeat, but we can hope that we used up all of our quota of individual errors in one game!

And so to Hull last Saturday. Our rivals for automatic promotion, Fulham, had shown some nerves on the Friday evening against already relegated Sunderland but had come through to win 2-1 after going behind. So, temporarily, we found ourselves outside of the promotion places. But after the error strewn evening at Derby 4 days earlier, Club Captain Sean Morrison more than redeemed himself!

Firstly, on 32 minutes, he did what he does best! He lost his marker at a corner and rose almost unopposed to head in from a corner. Cardiff had already shown the most enterprise against a recently rejuvenated Hull side who had scored 5 goals in their previous game.

Morrison heads the opening goal at Hull.

Then, on 80 minutes he decides to charge away from his defensive position to follow a break upfield. He then receives a perfectly timed pass from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, stepped inside the fullback and put an unreachable shot into the far corner! Finished like a striker! 2-0 - game over!

The BIG one!

Next Sunday, May 6th, 12.30pm UK time. It doesn't get much better than this!