This morning, I was pronouncing that Erol Bulut was very much a four at the back man and would not be changing to a three any time soon. It was a bit rich me pontificating like that about a manager I’d never heard of three months ago and I’m eating humble pie tonight as our manager proved me completely wrong by picking a side playing 3-5-2 some twelve hours later!
Not only that, but he picked a team which you looked at and thought “where’s the defenders?”. Here’s the team Bulut selected;-
Rúnarsson, Ng, Romeo, Rinomhota, Sawyers, Adams, Wintle, Colwill, Tanner, Etete, Grant.
Getting a workable 3-5-2 out of that lot would have tested most supporters I would think, but not only did Erol Bulut manage it, he also produced one of the best Cardiff City Cup performances of the past decade as they returned from St Andrews with a 3-1 win over a Birmingham side which has taken ten points from their first four league games as well as winning at Cheltenham in the First Round – they had not been behind in a game all season..
City were “stylish” and bright, took the game to their opponents and were well worth their win, in fact it could have been a bigger victory.
I should say here that the above description is based entirely on the commentary on the club website I listened to. All I’ve seen of the game are very brief highlights because it seems that unless your team is selected for coverage by Sky, you’re not going to be able to watch League Cup games live these days unless you’re at the ground.
Radio coverage is very limited as well- Radio Wales has not covered our first two games in this season’s League Cup (all you could listen to tonight was the Newport v Brentford tie), so at a time when the phrase “wall to wall football”has never been more appropriate, it seems the League Cup is the exception which proves the rule.
Therefore, I’m forming my views on tonight’s game based on what I heard from two club employees on the Cardiff City website and I think it’s fair to say that you’re talking about very biased reporting generally if you have to rely on club websites..
From what I’ve heard, our lot are better than most when it comes to possible bias (although one of the two tonight was not backward in coming forward when it came to showing his Cardiff allegiance!). The point is really that there has to be a possibility at least that City we’re nowhere near as good as they sounded tonight – it also needs to be recorded that Birmingham made six changes from their team that beat Plymouth last weekend.
However, the match stats tended to back up what the commentators were saying. For a start, City had seventy one per cent possession (when do we ever have over seventy per cent possession and it was above eighty per cent at one time), we had thirteen goal attempts to nine with a six three lead in on target efforts, nine corners to three and a frustrated Birmingham side committed seventeen fouls to our six.
Let’s not forget that if it was a much changed Birmingham side that was even more true of us with only Perry Ng surviving from Saturday’s starting line up against Sheffield Wednesday.
We all know what tends to happen when we make ten changes for Cup games – we get embarrassed. Not this time though in a match which certainly sounded as if it was played with more urgency and intensity than supporters are used to seeing from us in early round Cup ties.
Bulut was very pleased after the game saying that no one in his side had a poor game and that they had played without centrebacks.
Our manager is right there, Ng has experience of playing,,and playing well, in a back three, but, him apart, there was no one else who could say it was his natural position. Alongside Ng was Mahlon Romeo, no surprise really when you look at what was available in that starting line up and, intriguingly, Ebou Adams who was in the middle of the three.
One name stood out in the Birmingham team, Lukas Jutkiewicz. He may be at the veteran stage now, but I had visions of him making mincemeat out of our back three in the air in particular, but it never happened, quite the opposite in fact.
With Tanner and Grant as a pair of very attack minded wing backs and a midfield three of Rinomhota, Wintle and Sawyers, with Colwill pushed forward to support Etete, plus a subs bench containing plenty of youngsters, it was certainly a bold looking selection and this was reflected in the start the team made.
City had already almost opened Birmingham up when they took the lead in just three minutes with a lovely goal as the ball was switched from right to left by Wintle who fed Grant. The West Brom loanee apparently made his marker Marcel Oakley’s life a misery all night and here he went past him on the outside before picking out Colwill who finished beautifully as he let the ball run across him before beating ex City keeper Neil Etheridge from about twelve yards out.
One thing Championship sides have not expected to experience in recent years is to be chasing around trying to get the ball off a Cardiff City team, but that’s certainly what it sounded like tonight.
All Birmingham had to offer in reply was a free kick by Leandro Bacuna’s brother, Juninho that brought a great save by the debut making Alex Rúnarsson.
City, notably, Kion Etete, had chances to put us two up and my worry at half time was that we’d not cashed in on what sounded like our clear superiority,
Birmingham had enjoyed their best spell of the first half in its closing minutes and made a change at half time amid expectations that we’d face some fierce pressure in the early minutes after the break, but instead it was City who were again forcing the issue.
It sounded like Colwill, Tanner and Grant were all having very good games while Etete was effective even if his finishing could be criticised, but equally there were plenty of times where it felt like the quality, game experience and real cutting edge wasn’t quite there for City as final balls were not quite precise enough to really open up the home defence..
Adams had attracted plaudits for his performance in his unfamiliar position and he could definitely be described as the winner in his dual with Jutkiewicz when he won possession with the striker claiming he’d been fouled. The angry Jutkiewicz then flew in with a challenge on Romeo who happened to be the first City man who had the ball when he got up and, by all accounts, was fully deserving of the red card which followed. Birmingham manager John Eustace thought differently and called the decision harsh, but, having now seen the incident, I can only say that I’m sure Mr Eustace would have been complaining if a City player had made such a tackle and had not been sent off..
City then came up with another classy goal as Tanner picked out Colwill with a cross that was back flicked into Wintle’s path by the Welsh international (who was described as a “man possessed” by the Wales Online reporter at the match and the captain on the night guided his twenty yard shot into the corner of Etheridge’s net.
Sub Scott Hogan got the home team back into the game within two minutes as he nutmegged Rúnarsson as the striker got the wrong side of Adams, but City were safe when in the fourth of seven additional minutes, Etete scored from six yards from a cross by another sub Keiron Evans.
Evans had replaced Grant on the hour, while Ike Ugbo was brought on for the last few minutes for the impressive Tanner.
Besides that, Mark McGuinness was part of a double substitution for the last twenty minutes or so when he replaced Ng, but it was the other player brought on who epitomised City’s enterprising approach – Cian Ashford had got a token three minutes off the bench in the First Round tie with Colchester, but here he was trusted enough by his manager to come on just a couple of minutes after Birmingham had scored to replace Wintle – I don’t expect the talented Ashford to be involved on Saturday at Ipswich, but, all of a sudden, Erol Bulut has selection issues of the best type and you have to think that there should be some sort of reward for a few of those involved tonight when it comes to Championship football on Saturday.