Back in our 1987/88 promotion season from what is now League Two we played Burnley at Ninian Park on 19 December. Although it’s nearly forty years since the game was played, I have two very strong memories from it. The first one is irrelevant to this piece, but I’ll just quickly mention that it was played the day after the Companies House Christmas party, an occasion that always became notorious through its pay a fiver and drink all you want policy – suffice it to say that the game features in my top five worst hangovers at a City game table!
The reason I mention this match today though was that it was of a type I’d seen very little of in what was even then nearly a quarter of a century of watching us play. Burnley took the lead quite early on and held on to it through what must have been an hour or more so that they were less than ten minutes away from a win that would keep them in the promotion hunt.
There were about three minutes left when City finally equalised through Jimmy Gilligan, who then only went and scored the winner about three minutes later. For decades after that game I recalled it because it was so rare – I’d seen countless examples of us scoring late on to turn a defeat into a draw, but I struggled to remember a match where a defeat had been turned into a win with a couple of goals so late on.
Now, if you’d have asked me to rate the year 2024 in terms of entertainment and enjoyment when it comes to watching City, it would not be that highly, the football has been mostly boring because the manager set us up so negatively and, not only was it like watching paint dry, it was usually unsuccessful. However, despite all of the dross and the misery, this year has seen three repeats of that Burnley game from the 80s and, not only that, all three of the victims of these late turn around wins have been high quality Championship teams.
In fact, the first two teams to see three points turn into none very late on at Cardiff City Stadium this year are now playing the Premier League. Ipswich and Southampton suffered what looked like serious blows to their promotion hopes at Cardiff City Stadium in the spring, although quite how we did it, I’m still not sure.
Truth be told, I think there was a fair bit of dragging Ipswich down to our level in the first of the games. They never showed the superiority that the league table suggested they would and were looking as if they were content to “win ugly” against a City team that had begun brightly, but then it had become a pretty typical Bulut fare until we equalised and, once that had happened, there was only one side which was going to get a winner and it duly arrived late, late in addedtime through Callum O’Dowda.
Southampton was different, they scored early on and had the chances to put the game to bed against what was an experimental City team, but got careless and complacent causing the game to turn in favour of us in the last quarter when we brought a group of youngsters on. We equalised with about a quarter of an hour left and the winner came in added time through Cian Ashford who was making his first start.
I find it remarkable that having had lightning strike in the same place this year, it now has done again today. This time the victims were an impressive Norwich City team that were on a seven match unbeaten run which had almost taken them into the top six after a slow start to their campaign. Norwich, missing important players through injury and suspension, generally had the better of things against a City team that also had to make changes themselves because some important members of the team during the recent improvement under Omer Riza were unavailable.
City replaced Perry Ng, who was serving a one game suspension with Andy Rinomhota and, despite Omer Riza making no mention of this, during his press briefing on Thursday, it seems Alex Robertson was suffering from a knock which meant that he had not trained all week – predictably, Manolis Siopis came in to replace Robertson. Finally, Callum Robinson had gone off with an injury at West Brom and was only considered fit enough to be a substitute, so Chris Willock came in to play alongside Rubin Colwill through the middle almost as a pair of false number nines.
The game looked like a decent one on paper as both sides had been scoring goals and winning games – including cup games, Norwich had been scoring at just short of two a game this season and their defensive record wasn’t too great either.
In their previous two games, Norwich had come back from 2-0 down at Preston to draw 2-2 and I’d watched a lot of their very entertaining 3-3 draw with Middlesbrough last weekend in which they’d trailed 3-1 at one time. For fifteen minutes or so, today’s game lived up to expectations as play swung from end to end with City coming closest to scoring when Ollie Tanner got past the highly rated Callum Doyle to cross for Willock to hit a first time shot into the side netting.
After that though, Norwich began to dominate possession and put us under more and more pressure. The division’s top scorer Borja Sainz was largely contained by Rinomhota through the first half, but he got clear once to run twenty yards, accelerating away from the oursuing Dimi Goutas in the process, before hitting a shot from twenty five yards that Jak Alnwick dived to save.
There was also a tremendous penalty area scramble following a corner where Callum Chambers got in a h couple of blocks of close range shots as Norwich knocked on the door and left City grateful to get to half time with their tecord of not conceding stretched to seven halves.
By contrast, the stats after forty five minutes showed City had not had an effort on target for a game and a half.
Turnbull, looking much more convincing than he did last season, ended that record soon after the restart by getting in a shot which goalkeeper George Long saved without too much difficulty.
Turnbull then blotted his copy book though with a pass out from the back which caught Colwill on his heels as the ball was nipped away from him and quickly moved on to Sainz – he’d scored a couple of beauties last weekend, but this one was perhaps better than either of them.as he left Alnwick clutching at thin air as his shot from well outside the penalty flew over the keeper and then dipped into the net.
City responded well for a while with Turnbull having a much fiercer shot than his first effort as Long opted to punch clear the Scot’s swerving effort. By and large though, Norwich’s defence looked far from suspect as they dealt with crosses pretty easily as City’s lack of a recognised striker was sorely felt.
Shane Duffy, who once scored two own goals and was shown a red card in a 2-1 defeat for his team, Blackburn, here eight years ago, almost made it three ogs in our stadium as he headed a Tanner cross narrowly wide, but, gradually, the match reverted to its first half pattern with the visitors looking the more dangerous.
Duffy had been left unmarked beyond the post from the first half corner from which Norwich had almost scored and, again, the centre back got his head to a deep flag kick to draw a good save from Alnwick.
The keeper’s best save though came from Sainz and then Goutas (one of the nominations for Championship player of the month for October) blocked sub Jack Stacy’s follow up.
Stacy had been brought on for Kelley Fisher – that was a full back for full back swap, but fellow defenders Grant Hanley and Ben Chrisene were brought on for a midfielder and a forward as the visitors opted to shut up shop.
There were distinct parallels between what Norwich manager Johanes Thorup did today and what Omer Riza did at Bristol where he made what I’d rate as his only mistake so far in his spell as interim manager.
Riza’s blunder arguably cost City two points, but Thorup’s handed three points to Norwich’s opponents. While I’d say City were helped along the way to victory by the opposition manager, that should not take away from the credit they get for their terrific late fight back during which they got right on top. Colwill and Tanner had not been able to exert the influence they had on previous games during Riza’s spell in charge, but now their right hand side partnership became more important as the game reached its climax. A clever contribution from Cian Ashford, on for Willock, added to the problems Norwich were now facing and the arrival of Robinson, for the largely ineffective Anwar El-Ghazi, gave the attack a much needed focal point.
It was on the left though where City’s improvement was most severely felt by the visitors as man of the match Callum O’Dowda , having switched to more of a wing back role with Jesper Daland brought on to give City a back three, was able to get to the bye line on several occasions as City forced a string of corners.
O’Dowda crossed earlier with the clock showing eighty nine minutes and he found Robinson who was able to worked himself a little space to get away a shot from around the penalty spot that got a slight deflection which left Long wrong footed as the ball rolled into the corner of the net.
I would happily have settled for the point at this stage, but Robinson’s reaction to scoring was telling as he chased into the net to retrieve the ball and head back to the centre spot.
Clearly, City felt they could win the game as Norwich’s defensive resolve showed signs of wilting, but I doubt it if anyone thought that the ninety third minute winner would come as the result of a Colwill header from a Tanner longish throw! Colwill’s flick found Robsinson who returned it to Rubin who went past a man and worked the ball to Robinson who looked to have again worked himself the space to get away a shot, but, this time, it was blocked and rolled free to O’Dowda who took a touch and then powered in an unstoppable shot from eighteen yards to bring about pandemonium in the ground.
There was no coming back from Norwich after that and so it’s now four straight home wins with ten scored and just the one conceded, while Riza’s record stretches to four wins, two draws and one defeat and you have to say that tactically, and in his substitutions, he got it dead right today .
There was also a very good win for the under 18s at Leckwith this lunchtime as they beat Brentford 3-1. Harry Watts gave City an early lead which Dan Ola restored after an equaliser by the visitors. The second half produced just one more goal, scored by Jake Davies at a time when City were down to ten men following a red card for Jac Thomas.