Cardiff City remain a team that, apart from the Derby outlier, cannot lose by less than two and cannot win by more than one, but, at least we now know that the latter applies to the 24/25 season as well as the 23/34 one, because, at the eighth time of asking, they have a league win, by a single goal to nil over Millwall at Cardiff City Stadium tonight.
It was not enough to lift City off the bottom of the table, but the sense of relief among all associated with the club will be palpable and it will feel like at least some of that great weight the team has been carrying in recent weeks will have lifted.
If someone ever does a statistical analysis into how sides come up with a win to end a horrific string of results they may prove my contention wrong, but, until then, I’ll maintain it is most likely to be with a scruffy 1-0 victory courtesy of a set piece goal. That’s how it was with us tonight, although, maybe, scruffy isn’t quite being fair because there was a little bit of quality to go with the grit (it was good to see that quality making a comeback after it had gone missing in our previous two games).
Statistically, there was little between the teams, possession worked out at virtually 50/50, Millwall had one more goal attempt and corner than us and on target efforts and goalkeeping saves were level. Therefore, you could deduce that Millwall might justifiably feel aggrieved with the outcome, but I thought City had the better chances in the second half in particular and, generally speaking, visiting keeper Lukas Jensen’s saves were more difficult ones than Jak Alnwick’s.
There was a scare for City in general and Callum Chambers in particular in the last thirty seconds when he tried to let the ball roll out for a goal kick, only to be nudged aside by sub Ivanovic whose low cross gave Duncan Watmore the chance to get in a back heel from four yards that Alnwick was able to block.
The closest Millwall came to scoring though was when teenager Romain Esse glanced on a far post header and Callum Robinson was on the spot to clear off the line. Those two incidents apart, Millwall didn’t threaten too much in a much better defensive showing by City which benefited from having Dimi Goutas back to something like his form during the first two thirds of last season as he seemed to gain confidence through being played on the right. In turn, Perry Ng also looked more like his old self and this may have had something to do with having the Greek international alongside him.
Joel Bagan also looked the part tonight at left back and, that one late slip apart, Chambers was more secure than he has been recently.
Hardly surprisingly, City started cautiously and the lack of confidence was clear to see, but they would have taken heart from coming through a testing series of corners unscathed as Millwall were able to play through them too easily.
Little of note happened at the other end of the pitch until Robinson cut in from the left to hit a shot that took a slight touch off defender Tanganga to force Jensen into a save he made look easier than it was as he held on with Ollie Tanner waiting to pounce on any fumble by the keeper.
That was the catalyst for City to enjoy a modicum of control of the game – they found it harder to fashion chances than they had done at Hull on Saturday, but they were forcing a few corners and when Joe Ralls swung one into the near post on thirty nine minutes, Ng got free to power a header from eight yards past Jensen before he could move, proving that City had not completely lost the knack of scoring from set pieces which served them so well last season.
Rubin Colwill had not been in the game that much in the first period, but he and Tanner seem to combine better when they are out on the right and playing toward the Canton Stand – the second half was no more than a minute old as Tanner ran sixty yards and the second of the one two’s the pair played left Colwill in a good position some fifteen yards out, but his shot was straight at Jensen who then blocked Rubin’s follow up effort into the path of Alex Robertson who blazed wide from just inside the penalty area.
That was a rare blemish from the Australian who became more influential as the game went on – it was his best game yet for his new team and he was my City man of the match. With Ralls much more like his usual self after his below par showing on Saturday, City just about held sway in midfield for the last two thirds of the game and they almost got the second goal which would have made things less fraught when Colwill skilfully dinked a free kick from twenty yards towards the top corner only for Jensen to pull off the save of the game to deny him.
The goalkeeper should have been beaten for a second time in the closing stages though as Robertson’s superb pass sent Tanner clear and the cross when it came was a good one, but sub Yakou Meite went for his shot with the wrong foot as he stretched to convert and ended up falling over as he missed the ball completely.
It was a miss which, again, highlights why we’re going to probably continue to find it very hard to win by more than one, but Meite deserves credit for the way he drew fouls and harried defenders in the closing minutes to help ensure that Millwall were unable to build up any attacking momentum.
By far the best football played by a Cardiff City team today came in the first half of the under 21 team’s game with Ipswich this lunchtime as they came back from falling behind to a very dubious looking penalty conceded by Tom Davies which Jake Dennis was unlucky not to save to lead through goals by Michael Riendorf and Mannie Barton, but such was their dominance, City should have been three or four goals clear.
Unfortunately, despite Reindorf hitting the crossbar late on with an audacious thirty yard chip, City never found the same fluency after the break and Ipswich’s equaliser had been coming f9r a while. I thought Dennis could have dealt better with the long shot he knocked into the path of the Ipswich centre forward who bundled the ball in from close range, but he made a fine save from a free kick in the final minute to ensure his team got a 2-2 draw in a game they really should have won.
Reindorf continues to look like someone who should be in the first team squad every week, especially when. you see how much other forwards are struggling, and I thought Cody Twose in midfield stood out, but overall, it was a game which, while not perfect, tended to show that the current batch of youngsters coming through are one of the more impressive ones oi the twetny years in which we’ve had an Academy.