Following the disappointing goalless draw against Sheffield Wednesday on Wednesday night, I expected to see a different intensity and performance against Cardiff City and what I got overall was arguably worse. I was bored for large parts of the game and had Cardiff been more clinical in front of goal, they should have been two or three nil up and put the game beyond us.
This wasn’t a game high on quality. Cardiff have struggled so far this season and are bottom of the league for a reason. They have sacked their manager and current incumbent Omer Riza is currently only in a caretaker capacity but in fairness to him and his side for a large part of the game they looked like the side more likely to win and were the side playing with more confidence and intensity.
I had spent Friday travelling to Scotland for the wedding of my friends Angela and Craig in Loch Lomond on Saturday. With the Cardiff game being moved to the Sunday, it meant taking it a little easy on the alcohol front on Saturday, so that I could get up at 5am to make the drive back to Bristol in time for the 3pm kick off. I managed it with a couple of hours to spare but come 5pm, I wished I’d stayed up in Loch Lomond.
Following last weekend’s away fixture against Swansea City and the mid-week game against Wednesday, I expected to see one or two changes to the starting line-up. Liam Manning opted not to make any changes and even the bench was the same.
I’ll be fair and say that we did start brightly with Sinclair Armstrong causing the Bluebirds backline all sorts of issues with his physicality. The striker made a couple of opportunities for himself out of nothing, firing one just over the bar after cutting in onto his right foot and then a few minutes later trying something similar and forcing a good save from Alnwick in the Cardiff goal.
Omer Riza’s side started to find their way into the game with Colwill proving to be a bit of a handful, but it was really an injury to Cameron Pring just before the quarter of an hour that really seemed to affect us. Cameron seemed to get caught when challenging for a cross into the box and went down in considerable pain. At the time of writing this column, it looks as though it was not a break and is a soft tissue injury, suffering a nasty gash on the leg from the Cardiff attackers boot. There was no malice in the challenge and hopefully, if it isn’t a break, Cam’s recovery will be quicker. We wish Cam well.
From that point on we really struggled to get at the Bluebirds. There were a couple of moments, a good run from Ross McCrorie who with Haydon Roberts ruled out through injury came on for Cam and then another Armstrong chance after a ball was slid into him by Scott Twine. We know that Sinclair isn’t the finished article. He is getting these opportunities but just isn’t taking them at the moment. You can’t question his willingness and efforts, but the finish just isn’t quite there.
At half-time there were a few moans and groans with most hoping for a better second half. Unfortunately, we went behind and whilst it was a great strike from the Bluebirds’ Ollie Tanner, we have to defend it better. We give the ball away with a sloppy back heel just inside out half from Sinclar out to Anis Mehmeti. Anis just isn’t strong enough and is too easily dispossessed and then Twine was turned inside and out for Tanner to get his shot away.
The home fans in the main stayed with the team and Joe Williams stepped up and somewhat took the game by the scruff of the neck. I didn’t think anyone had really stood out up until that point but Joe showed the attitude that was needed and it was through his tenacity and desire to win the ball against ex City player Callum O’Dowda that we got back into the game.
Joe won the ball and whipped in a perfect cross for Luke McNally to rise high above Perry Ng in the Cardiff defence to head home. It was a good goal.
I expected us to go on and win the game but we didn’t. For me, Manning didn’t show the bravery that he so often talks about his players showing. We were all a little too deliberate and I get so frustrated with just how often we go backwards with the ball. I don’t mind going backwards if it is to switch the play or bring the opponents on to you and then get beyond them but we don’t.
It’s so slow and invariably ends with Zak Vyner launching a 50-yard pass out wide that goes into touch. It’s almost as if we can’t have an offensive move without Zak touching the ball. We have to move it quicker and play with a greater intensity. I don’t know what has changed from the early games of the season to now.
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As I say, I was bored during the second half. When Cardiff switched to a back-five, why didn’t we go two up top? Personally, I thought it was another quiet showing from Twine and I would have brought George Earthy on far earlier. Earthy looked good in that brief cameo and I also thought Mark Sykes had a positive impact. Sadly, Sykes picked up his fifth booking and I think will miss the next game after the international break against Middlesbrough.
Luke McNally showed improvements again, scoring a good goal and it was a performance of heart and effort from Ross McCrorie when he came on.
Frustration was very much the word of the day. We are a bit of a nearly team at the moment, if we take chances early on, it’s a different game but you also have to say that Cardiff City like Sheffield Wednesday and Oxford United, also missed some good chances.
With the injury to Pring likely to rule him out for a sustained period of time, what will Manning do? Will he go back to three at the back, something that served him so well at the back end of last season, or will he persist with the current shape. A shape that at the moment just doesn’t seem to be working.
Our 3 Peaps In A Podcast average player ratings were Max O’Leary 5.5, George Tanner 6, Zak Vyner 5.5, Luke McNally 6.5, Cameron Pring 6, Jason Knight 6, Joe Williams 7 *MotM, Anis Mehmeti 5 , Yu Hirakawa 5.5, Scott Twine 5 and Sinclair Armstrong 5.5. For the substitutes who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time) we went Mark Sykes 6, Ross McCrorie 6.5, Max Bird 6 and Fally Mayulu 5.5. A game average player rating of 5.83.
That’s an overall season to date average player rating of 5.91. For Liam Manning it’s a 4.5, Liam must be braver and has to show better in-game management. The game rating was 4.5. I was bored towards the end.