Well, at least City scored I suppose which means they’re up to averaging half a goal scored a game again, but Romaine Sawyers’ late consolation effort apart, this was another reminder that, for all of the clear improvements that have been made in some areas of the pitch, they’re not going to count for much while what has to be accepted now to be a really significant weakness in the squad is not, or is unable to be, addressed.
For forty five minutes, Cardiff City and Luton provided a watchable contest that was evenly matched, but towards the end of the half, the tell tale signs were appearing that the belief was draining out of the home side when they were getting close to the opposition goal.
As the clock ticked towards four hundred minutes without a goal for City, the anxiety levels began to rise and the number of wrong options taken and misplaced crosses into the box grew. Luton by contrast, were beginning to get more dangerous crosses in and, having started the match with a very strong first five minutes from the visitors, the writing was on the wall in the final five before half time for the home team as well.
For the thirty five minutes in between, City we’re probably the better team. Having seemingly gone with physique and running power by leaving the likes of Sawyers, Rubin Colwill and Jaden Philogene on the bench, City were still able to play some nice stuff at times with Mark Harris, given his first start of the league season and Sheyi Ojo making promising starts, as did Andy Rinomhota who was recalled in central midfield.
Max Watters forced Luton goalkeeper Ethan Hogarth to turn his snapshot from twenty yards aside for a corner with about ten minutes played, but, tellingly, City’s ratio of on target efforts to off target ones was far too low again – apart from the goal, this was the only on target effort out of their seventeen goal attempts in the game.
So, that’s five times in seven league matches that we’ve had two or less attempts on target and we only had three of them in the Bristol City and Portsmouth matches as well. Put in that context, our feeble goalscoring record shouldn’t come as a surprise.
To be fair, City we’re not far off target with quite a few of their “wayward” attempts tonight – Ojo and Joe Ralls went close in the first half, but the former should have done better when the ball broke to him eight yards out than lift it over as he stretched.
It was Luton who came out the stronger after the break as well and within two minutes, City’s record of not conceding at home in the league had gone as Fred Onyedimna got past Niels Kwounkou too easily and crossed for Luke Freeman to leave Ryan Allsop helpless with a crisp finish from eight yards. It was noticeable how many players Luton had in the box as targets for Onyadimna as well – too often a City player in a similar position looks up to see just one of his team mates to aim his cross at.
After that, the gap between the sides grew, Luton are no strangers to leading away from home and are well versed now in how to maintain such advantages against more threatening attacks than we possess.
As City’s confidence in front of goal declined from what was never a very high starting point anyway, so the visitors sensed that they could cash in further without taking too many risks. After the playing out from the back policy almost cost us a first goal of the season as Luton shut us off successfully to give Carlton Morris a chance to shoot no more than a foot wide, a cheap free kick conceded from a throw in on our left gave James Brie the chance to swing in a superb free kick which any one of three players in white could have touched in as it flew across the six yard box and it was another sub, Gabriel Osho who applied the finishing touch.
Brie’s dead ball delivery was very hard to defend, but that shouldn’t exonerate the City’s backline – they’d conceded a similar type of goal at Ashton Gate, but this was worse as it seemed all most of them were doing was standing with their hands up appealing for offside.
The introduction of Sawyers for Rinomhota ten minutes after the substitutions of Watters and Ralls by Colwill and Philogene gave City a bit of poise which the first two earlier replacements didn’t really provide – Colwill was some way below Saturday’s performance levels and Philogene missed the two best opportunities City had in the second half.
In saying that, it was more a case of a very good block by Wales international Tom Lockyer with the first one as he diverted the winger’s shot from around the penalty away for a corner and I’ll come to the second one shortly.
A goal never really looked on for City going into the closing minutes because, in terms of constructing a chance and then trying to take it, they looked devoid of belief on both counts. So, it was no surprise that the opportunity for our goal came about via an “assist” by a Luton defender who diverted a Mahlon Romeo cross into the path of Sawyers whose technique proved up to the task of taking the chance he was presented with as he fired a low shot into the corner of the net past Hogarth from twenty five yards.
There were about ten minutes left to play when Sawyers scored, but Luton were able to survive them comfortably apart from one incident in the eighty sixth minute when Colwill drove over a cross which was half blocked by a defender, this intervention caused the ball to clear Harris and his marker and also bounce over the defender supposed to marking Philogene, but, sadly, the loanee rather made a hash of what was by no means an easy opportunity – it was the sort of chance a natural finisher would have at least forced the keeper into a save from though and in that moment, as Philogene nodded tamely over, it came through loud and clear how important it is for us to move heaven and earth to bring in a striker in the two days left in the transfer window.
That said, it is very much a double edged sword of problems City face when analysing why they’re scoring so few goals. Just bringing a striker or two better than what we have at present will improve the situation, but I don’t think it will cure it completely.
Putting it in most basic terms, Luton won because, first, they produced a couple of crosses of a quality that we could not match and, second, they had the bodies in the penalty area to profit from them when they came.
They say you shouldn’t make too many judgements before any team has played about ten games, but it only needs eight to show that this City squad, while improved in some ways, do not get enough players into the opposition penalty area in open play and we’ve not seen enough of wingers or full backs on the opposite flank from where an attack is coming getting into the sort of position Philogene was in for his goal against Birmingham.
At the moment, the way Sawyers scored his goal stands out like a beacon because, firstly, it highlights the inadequacy of so much of our work in and around the opposition penalty area and, second, it offers some hope that all of the others who get into similar positions can show that they have the ability to come up with something similar.
We can all pick on individual players as much as we like and it may be that some of them are are generally not up to Championship standard, but they’re professional footballers who should have the natural ability to strike a ball better than they are doing when they see the whites of the opposition’s goal. For now, it’s all a little too frenetic and anxious and it becomes a vicious circle as players try that bit too hard to get things right. Sawyers trusted his ability with a chance that was harder than so many that have been wasted this season – a bit of composure can take you a long way, but I appreciate it’s so hard to think like that when confidence levels are low and you’re heading down the table rather than up it.
The under 21s could have few complaints about their 2-1 loss to Burnley at Leckwith this lunchtime. To be fair, it was a young side with few players who will have been playing at this level last season and a Burnley team that had lost their first three matches were worth a bigger win, particularly after a dominant second half showing.
City had led at half time thanks to a lovely goal scored by Raheem Conte, a new arrival who was with QPR previously. His chip from the edge of the penalty area ended City’s best move of the game as they patiently went from left to right and Jay Semenyo crossed deep to Cian Ashford who rolled a pass back into Conte’s path.
Burnley would have felt unfortunate to be down at the break, but they were able to force the sort of mistakes out of City as they tried to play out from the back that we’ve rarely seen from the senior team up to now and that’s how the winning goal came as Helm was left with a simple finish after the ball was turned over about twenty yards from our goal. This followed on from a route oneish equaliser when a header was glanced on to Richardson who calmly got the better of the covering centrebacks to roll the ball past keeper Turner.