Club football returned this afternoon with what I thought was a very entertaining 2-2 draw at Stoke for Cardiff City – although, looking at the messageboards, it appears that is a minority view with many talking about how crap we are.
At the risk of contradicting myself, I would say that I understand those views to an extent. The term Curate’s Egg springs to mind because, for a brief spell in the second half our attacking play was irresistible – as good as we’ve seen this season I’d say. However, to counter that, there were too many careless individual errors that I feel a better team than Stoke would have punished.
We started the game in nineteenth position a point above the bottom three, whereas Stoke, with a point more than us, were in seventeenth place.
So, this was a game between two flawed teams and I believe this contributed to why this was such an entertaining affair. Of course, excitement is often generated by the game being played brilliantly, but I would argue that probably as much, if not more, of the stuff that gets crowds off their seats comes from errors on an individual and team basis.
Therefore, it was both team’s fallibilities that that mainly produced the excitement today, but there were also flashes of really good play, especially in that second half period I mentioned earlier from City which were worthy of a higher level than low end of the Championship stuff.
Not for the first time this season, City looked a better footballing side than their opponents, but Stoke had an edge in size, power and, occasionally, determination – they also played some decent stuff at times.
Mark Hudson’s selection had a defensive look to it to me. Indeed, with many believing that Callum Robinson is not really a centre forward, it might be argued that it did not contain a specialist striker. I dare say that Mark Hudson would have called our formation 4-3-3, but, with the defensively responsible Callum O’Dowda and Gavin Whyte on the flanks, it had more of a look of 4-5-1 to me.
The central midfield three were Ryan Wintle, Joe Ralls and Andy Rinomhota, so it had a solid look to it on paper at least, while the goalkeeper and back four was much as expected.
I had visions of an isolated Robinson toiling away in vain as the ball kept coming back at us, but, right from the kick off, City took the game to Stoke in an enterprising manner that saw a couple of instances where passes were almost slid through the home defence in the first couple of minutes to runners who would have been in on goal.
Possession casually surrendered by O’Dowda on four minutes resulting in a chance Ben Willmott couldn’t take offered the first glimpse of those errors that were always not too far away, but two minutes later, City were in front thanks to a goal that was a bizarre mix of excellence and luck.
Niels N’Kounkou, who was his usual mixture of the occasionally inspired going forwards and the hapless when going backwards before his withdrawal about ten minutes into the second half, showed the positive side of his character with a fine cross field ball which found Whyte in a threatening position well inside the Stoke penalty area.
Now, I think Whyte played as well as I’ve seen him do in a Cardiff shirt today, but I’m pretty sure that his rolled back pass was meant for the onrushing Mahlon Romeo. However, it went wide of him and instead found Wintle whose superb, precise side footer from nearly twenty five yards left home keeper Jack Bonham helpless.
For a very short while, City looked well in control, but it didn’t last. In fact, Stoke seized the initiative to the extent that they were in front before the game was twenty minutes old.
Ralls’ best contribution of the match, a superbly timed tackle inside the penalty area when an equaliser looked imminent, preserved City’s lead for a short while, but the home team were level on eleven minutes when Romeo was drawn infield and Whyte couldn’t get back far enough to cover for him, thereby allowing Josh Tymon the room to chip a good ball to Tyrese Campbell who was given too much time by N’Kounkou to knock his shot wide of Ryan Allsop from around eighteen yards.
The tide had turned now and Stoke were taking control as City were starting to live dangerously to the extent that it was no great surprise when they fell behind – although any luck they have enjoyed in the lead up to their goal was more than matched by the slice of good fortune the home side benefitted from.
Stoke again moved the ball left to right towards the increasingly influential Campbell who came infield to hit a shot which cannoned off Ralls into the path of the unmarked Liam Delap who was left with simple task of jabbing past Allsop from six yards. City contested the goal thinking it was offside, but video replays showed that this was clearly not the case.
Behind now, City were the next to have good fortune on their side when Cedric Kipre twice brought down the powerful Delap in the penalty area only for referee Andy Woolmer to rule no penalty both times. For me, the second one was probably not a foul, but I’ll admit to being very surprised when the ref didn’t point to the spot for the first one.
Stoke boss Alex Neal conceded that 2-2 was probably a fair score line, but was adamant that his side should have been given the chance to go 3-1 up from the spot and he figured there would have been way back from City from there – he clearly wasn’t aware of what happened when we played at Stoke last season!
The Stoke manager was right really though because by half time City could not have complained too much if they had been one or two more goals behind.
While they knocked the ball around nicely at times, I found myself thinking that if none of the three selected midfielders were going to make a run beyond our striker, you’d like to think they’d at least be able to provide better cover for the defence than they had been doing.
The opening minutes of the second half provided no indication that City could come back into the game in the manner they eventually did. The passages of controlled possession they’d enjoyed had disappeared as hopeful and hopeless long balls up to Robinson, O’Dowda and Whyte became the order of the day – thankfully, Stoke weren’t doing much with the possession they were being presented with, but, significantly, Kion Etete, Romaine Sawyers and Mark Harris were being prepared to come on within about three minutes of the restart.
Ironically, a minute before he left the field along with N’Kounkou and Rinomhota, Ralls drew a good save out of Bonham with a twenty yard effort, but this was just the prelude to a period of play where the Stoke keeper was the busiest player on the pitch.
All of this came after Bonham first had to pick the ball out of his net a second time. Seldom could a flurry of substitutions had a more immediate effect than when Harris and Etete both produced flicked round the corner passes which sent Romeo into a huge gap down Stoke’s left and the full back, whose crossing had not been the best in the first half, found Etete who, probably inadvertently, nudged the ball to Robinson and what looked to be a somewhat scuffed effort went past Bonham from ten yards.
Harris and Etete, along with Romeo, transformed City by turning the left side of Stoke’s defence into something of a disaster area. First, Harris got by Tymon to knock over a low cross which Bonham could only divert into the path of Etete, but the striker jabbed just wide as the ball fell to him a little awkwardly. Wintle then picked out Etete with a cross that the tall striker headed powerfully towards the top corner from twelve yards only for the keeper to do really well to turn it aside.
There were other saves by Bonham during this period and all the home side had to offer in reply was a close range shot Jacob Brown after another fortunate rebound that was deflected clear by City’s best defender on the day, Perry Ng.
However, apart from a header by Harris which drew another diving save out of Bonham, City rather ran out of steam in the last ten minutes as they returned to their bad old ways of giving the ball away cheaply in very dangerous areas.
Still, my feeling after this is one of encouragement because, if he can maintain his current form, Etete is maybe going to add a different dimension to our play and, although the postponement of today’s under 21 game at Wolves means that Isaak Davies’s return to first team action may be delayed a little longer, it isn’t far away now. Harris was excellent here as well and you never know City might remember they have Rubin Colwill on their books sometime soon.
I know I keep on about Colwill a lot, but it’s galling to hear pundits talking about the Welsh team saying that it’s essential that he starts for Cardiff every week because players like him are the country’s future.
Yet, as his appearance off the bench on eighty seven minutes to play a defensive part as we held on for a point indicates, Colwill’s club still seem very reluctant to give him that opportunity despite what we were told was a more sympathetic manager in charge now – as Colwill’s appearance off the bench in the World Cup proves, his country clearly rate him, it’s a shame his club don’t apparently.