Readers of one of the Cardiff City messageboards and the Feedback section of this blog may have seen that I’ve been a bit sniffy about the last of our loan signings in the January window, Uche Ikpeazu – I still am to an extent, because I’m not sure we needed another target man type centre forward even after the sale of Keiffer Moore to Bournemouth, I would have preferred a centre back.
However, I think I may have been a bit unfair on the player we’ve loaned from Middlesbrough, because I had him down as nothing more than a bruiser of a centre forward who offered little else but brute force, but the winning goal he got tonight in an awful game at Oakwell, Barnsley demonstrated he has more to offer than that.
Yes, much of it was about power as he outmuscled a couple of home centrebacks, but there was also a nice touch to work himself the room to send a cleverly manufactured shot (I should add that manager Steve Morison called it a bobble like Jordan Hugill’s debut goal on Sunday mind) rolling slowly past keeper Collins for what could be a huge goal in our season.
This was the latest in what seems to be a large group of 1-0 wins at Oakwell in matches that have little to commend them but the result – actually the 2-0 and 2-1 wins we’ve got at what is a happy hunting ground for us down the years have, with the exception of the one that opened the 06/07 campaign when Joe Ledley scored what was voted the Football League’s goal of the season, have been nothing to write home about either.
This must have been the worst of the lot though – where City had been lively and mentally right on Sunday against Forest, they looked jet lagged and sloppy here as the old curse of poor ball retention reared its ugly head again.
In mitigation, Bournemouth, also 1-0 winners at Oakwell on Saturday, left there moaning about how long the grass on the pitch was as they struggled to play their normal passing game and so City may well have an excuse for the fact that they struggled so much to gather any attacking momentum.
The problem I have with the blame the pitch argument is that Barnsley didn’t find it that difficult to retain possession tonight, even if they did so to little effect, so I’m not sure that the conditions can be held solely responsible for ourr poor performance with the ball.
I use the qualification “with the ball” there because there was a fair bit to take heart from if you look at how we fared when not in possession. For a start, after twenty six games I think it was without a clean sheet, we finally managed one!
True, I believe luck was on our side when sub Leya Iseka put the ball in our net after four of the five added minutes at the end of the game, only for the goal to be disallowed for offside when TV replays showed that Mark McGuinnesss was probably playing him onside, but we were more disciplined and alert when balls were coming into our penalty box than we usually have been this season.
For all that Barnsley had a marginal edge in my book for most of the match even if there were only four incidents I can think of when we were seriously tested at the back. The first came within the first five minutes when Josh Benson forced Alex Smithies into a routine save from a volley from the edge of the penalty area. There was also a low cross which flew dangerously across the face of our goal in the first half, while the home side were kept quiet until beyond the ninety minute mark in the second half before Leva Iseka nodded just wide from a free kick and then had his goal controversially disallowed.
Mind you, that was four times more on the serious goal attempts count than City had, because Ikpeazu’s goal apart, I can’t remember another worthwhile from them – Will Vaulks, in for the injured again Joe Ralls in the only change from Sunday, had a well struck effort from just outside the penalty area which flew not far wide, but far enough for it to be clear that it was never going in, but I can’t recall anything else and we didn’t force a single corner.
So, should there be concern that we were lucky to win, while playing hardly any of the more progressive football Steve Morison, seemingly, wants, against what is the weakest team in this season’s Championship or was it always a night where the result was everything?
While I think the former applies to an extent, I believe it was far more to do with the latter tonight – this was a game which Barnsley surely had down as an absolute must win. After all, they’re no twelve matches without a win, they’ve lost their last five, they’re seven points behind Reading, the team just outside the drop zone, and have won just two matches out of twenty eight now. For City, I would say that it was a more of must not lose occasion given that we had a six point cushion over Peterborough in twenty second along with a considerably better goal difference, so, by winning, we have effectively put a ten point gap between ourselves and the bottom three.
This was a match between two poor Championship teams this season in a fixture which, as I mentioned at the star,t has a history of tight, low quality, encounters and it was played on what, apparently, was a poor playing surface by modern standards – all things considered, it was never going to be a classic!
Yet, it was a match that engendered real passion on the benches, too much of it in fact, when you consider that some would argue that the chaotic scenes at the end were more memorable than anything seen in the ninety minutes which preceded it!
The Barnsley version of events is that Steve Morison (who was yellow carded about thirty seconds after the final whistle), said something to the Barnsley bench which provoked one of their coaching staff into having a face to face encounter with Mark Hudson which soon calmed down.
However, it was obvious that the Barnsley man was still raging and when Morison celebrated in front of the City fans as he was leaving the pitch (the tunnel is in the corner of the pitch right by the stand away fans are housed at Barnsley), he gave our manager a push which developed into what looked like a shoving match inside the tunnel with some City players and security staff also getting involved.
Morison, who is probably looking at a misconduct charge and possible touchline ban as a punishment for what happened, was of the ’s view was that Barnsley had been “at it” all game with the towels Vaulks uses to dry the ball before his long throws being hidde. There was also particular anger at a tackle by home captain Mads Andersen, which looks more nasty with each viewing, that forced Alfie Doughty off. Andersen could easily have received a red card for that rather than the yellow one he was shown and with further fouls committed by him after that, it was only referee Geoff Eltringham’s leniency which kept him on the pitch for the whole game.
Judging by how he left the field of play, Doughty, who, one error apart, was secure in the left wing back role, could be out for a while and the same applied to Sean Morrison who was forced off after just ten minutes. Morrison was replaced by Aden Flint, who could claim an assist for the goal with what was little more than a hoof downfield, but, like the rest of City’s back and midfield threes and wing backs defended manfully all night without doing a great deal when in possession.
With Isaak Davies coming on for Max Watters in the same ten minutes into the second half substitution as Sunday, the choice facing Morison when Doughty was injured seemed straightforward – replace him with Joel Bagan. However, with Jordan Hugill’s energy levels virtually at zero due to his lack of match fitness, that would have left us with very little up front for the last half an hour, so our manager took the braver option of sending Ikpeazu on and the rest, as they say is history.
So credit to the manager for that and also for singling Davies out for praise for, once again, showing that he has something to offer at this level particularly when he has the chance to run at tiring defences, but, if anything, it was his defensive discipline and willingness to work for the team that shone through here.