Remember when we used to be crap at local derbies? Cardiff City kept their first clean sheet since they beat Bristol City 2-0 at Cardiff City Stadium in early March tonight when they came out on top in the south Wales derby by the same score.
That triumphalist line at the start was in jest. I may say that I think of Bristol City as our main rivals, but anyone reading my pieces on the previous four games, and quite a few of the ones before them, against Swansea will know how annoyed I’ve been after the recent humiliations (I don’t think that’s putting things too strongly either).
The last of the four wins for the jacks could be called a little unlucky I suppose because we’d fought back from 2-0 down and were then beaten by a goal deep into added time. However, we had momentum behind us at 2-2, but only seemed interested in holding out for the draw, whereas Swansea went after the game and, as such, deserved their win.
Even the one game we won since the derbies were resumed after our relegation four years ago was devalued a little by the fact there were no fans in the ground because of Covid restrictions and it was very much a case of scoring early and then hanging on for the win.
The truth is that before tonight, it’s only just short of a decade since City we’re deserved winners over the jacks. That was when Steven Caulker’s goal decided the first ever Premier League meeting between the teams, but now, Cardiff fans can point to 16 September 2023 as a night when City went some way towards redressing the recent balance between the teams – 2-0 didn’t flatter City in the slightest either, in fact, the margin of victory could have been greater.
Despite the victory was a pretty comfortable one in the end, the fact of the matter was that for three quarters of the game it looked like City would not be able to cash in on what had been a growing domination of the second half after a non event of a first period, but then a superb career transforming intervention by Josh Tanner completely altered the mood of the night as he scored within forty seconds of coming on and then won the penalty which gave City a 2-0 lead which, this time, they did not lose!
Before going on to describe the game, a few words about the jacks. On this evidence, their position in the bottom three is a true reflection of the way they have been playing – I’ve not seen a Swansea side of the last fifteen years make passing the ball look as hard as this one did.
There’s no doubt that we made life easier for Swansea in the previous four meetings between the teams, but going back before that, in games at Cardiff City Stadium in particular they’ve been good and have made strong, fast starts to games epitomised by the fact they had scored inside the first ten minutes in their last three visits here before tonight.
That had to be in the minds of the City players who’d been here for some time in particular, but it seems it wasn’t when it came to new manager Michael Duff and his coaching staff. I’m still not sure what the plan was tonight for the jacks. First of all, I thought their tame start and use of long balls forward (they weren’t a route one team by any means, but they did hit passes of a type you would never have seen under most of their.managers since Roberto Martinez).
The longer it went on though and the more slipshod their passing got, the more the penny dropped that they are a team going through what I’ll call a double crisis – that is, one of confidence and one of identity. It seems that the transition, which seems pointless from the outside, that the appointment of Duff was always going to trigger is one that those who were there during the Russell Martin years are either unwilling or, more likely, unable to fully take on board.
From memory, Jak Alnwick, restored in goal after being left out at Ipswich, had only a first half cross that he punched decisively away to deal with in the first eighty minutes. Swansea did force Alnwick into a couple of saves late on and sub Josh Ginelly had an air shot when the muted Matt Grimes’ best pass of the night found him unmarked twelve yards out, but they were two down by then and showing very little sign that they would be joining Leeds, Colchester and Ipswich in the teams who have come back from two down to Cardiff club.
The fact that Swansea were so toothless did them little harm in a poor first half which had nothing noteworthy happen in front of goal in it until well past the forty five minute mark when Ike Ugbo did well to head an Aaron Ramsey cross into the path of Yakou Meite whose crisp snapshot from ten yards was well held by a diving Carl Rushworth in the Swansea goal.
City, with Ryan Wintle in for Joe Ralls and Ugbo for Tanner in the two changes from the Ipswich match were slightly the better of two out of form looking sides in the first period with Aaron Ramsey’s quality offering some hope that he could engineer something to break what was an attritional deadlock, but not for the first time since his comeback, it felt at times like most of his team mates were not on the same wavelength as him.
Meite, like most in the City team, had been ordinary in the first half, but his shot right at the end of it, seemed to act as an inspiration to him because within thirty seconds of the restart he had won possession forty yards from the Swansea goal, made about ten yards ground forward and then cracked a left footed shot which drew another good save from Rushworth as he turned the swerving, dipping effort over the bar. Soon afterwards, Meite was shooting again, but this time the keeper was not troubled as much as he been be the first two efforts from the former Reading man.
Nevertheless, Meite’s transformation was the clearest evidence of an improvement in quality and approach by City as, for the first time, a team began to take control.
While calling it an onslaught would be going over the top, Swansea were wilting as City stepped up the pressure and Ramsey’s influence grew – a superbly improvised cross from the right by the Wales captain presented Ugbo with a chance he appeared slow to react to and then in the scramble which followed, Karlan Grant’s shot looked to have beaten Eastwood only for Jay Fulton to clear from close to the Swansea goal line.
Ugbo was withdrawn shortly after this to set the scene for the cameo from Tanner which earned him a place in City folklore. Tanner had hardly got out on to the right wing when the excellent Jamilu Collins, one of the few men in blue to play well in the first half, pinged a forty yard pass across field to the young winger who controlled the ball well and in one movement, cut back across new Swansea signing Josh Tymon and smacked a low left footed shot beyond Rushworth from the corner of the penalty area.
The ground erupted as City took the lead in a home game against the jacks for the first time since Caulker’s header from Craig Bellamy’s corner hit the net in November 2013. Perhaps predictably, a hyped up Tanner was booked soon afterwards for a foul, but he was soon back tormenting the left side of Swansea’s defence, although it was Ramsey who skinned his opponent on that flank next before knocking over a cross that the completely unmarked Grant headed over from six yards.
I thought that could be a big miss, but within a few minutes, Ramsey had found Tanner in space and the winger had, another new Swansea signing Kristian Pedersen where he wanted him as he jinked outside the defender who brought him down for an obvious foul.
The only question was whether the offence had occurred inside or outside the penalty area – referee Samuel Barrott pointed to the spot and Ramsey scored his second nonchalant penalty in four days with what I always think of as a Peter Thorne type effort where you wait for the keeper to commit and then roll the ball in the opposite direction.
Given the pressure of the situation, it was a great penalty by Ramsey and my mind went back a few months to last season as I recalled how hard we made scoring from the spot look in 22/23.
Callum Robinson came on for a few minutes after recovering from his back injury and forced the Swansea keeper into another save, while Wintle might have been disappointed to have shot over an unguarded net from forty yards as Rushworth was stranded well off his line, but, as the rain hammered down, City had done enough already and completed what was their most complete home performance in ages.
The BBC reported that it was the biggest winning margin by City in the fixture in fifty eight years! This appears to be true for league games, but, from memory, there have been quite a few two goal wins in various cup competitions since the 5-0 win at Ninian Park in April 1965 when Welsh football greats Ivor Allchurch and John Charles scored all of the goals between them and a couple of three goal wins in the Welsh Cup (by 3-0 in 1976 and 4-1 eighteen years later)..