I said on the messageboard this morning that, looking beyond all of the extra stuff that goes with the south Wales derby, all we’ve done so far this season is beat two sides in the bottom three of the Championship.
I did qualify that by saying that a virtual second string side were very impressive in beating Birmingham in the League Cup and that we appear to have a goal threat of a kind we never came close to having last season, so I accepted it was a harsh judgment, but, for me, there was a degree of realism to it- it was still too early to start thinking in terms of top half finishes or anything better than that.
Although I would still urge caution, it does become harder to think things could all fall apart in a similar manner to the last two seasons after tonight’s breathless 3-2 win over beaten Playoff finalists Coventry at Cardiff City Stadium.
The first thing to say is that City don’t do two wins from a midweek/weekend or weekend/midweek pair of home games or at least they don’t do it very often – I’ve no idea when it last happened, but I remember spending some time a few years ago going back to the turn of the century checking on this and, as I recall, I didn’t have to use the fingers on two hands to count them.
Since then, our record in this respect has probably got worse if anything, so to do what we’ve done in the last few days is impressive, especially when a month ago it was hard to see where the next home win was coming from – now we have three straight victories on our own ground, something we couldn’t manage last season.
It will be the Swansea game that will live longer in the memories of supporters in years to come of course, but I must say that I thought we played better tonight – we were up against better opponents and yet although there were nearly twelve frantic minutes of added time to endure, I don’t think Coventry could have too many complaints about the outcome.
City were without the in form Aaron Ramsey who was not even in the match day squad and Ollie Tanner, the hero of Saturday came in for Yakou Meite as Joe Ralls took over the captaincy on his return to the starting line up.
Coventry, on a run of four successive draws, have spent a lot of money during the summer and, on this evidence, will need time to bed in fully with all of the changes to their squad, but I’m pretty confident that they will be Play Off challengers this season – put it this way, anyone saying we’d not beaten anyone of any substance yet will have to revise that opinion now!
City made an uncharacteristically bright start to a home game as the confidence gained from the derby win shone through with the ball being moved crisply and well. One such example of this good interplay led to a corner on eight minutes taken by Ralls which was nodded in from six yards out by an unmarked Dimitrios Goutas for his first goal for the club and our first set piece goal of the League season – for all that Ramsey has been very good since returning here, I think I’d rather have Ralls taking corners than him for a few reasons, one of which being that Joe is better at taking them!.
Quite how City’s centreback was left in such glorious isolation is hard to figure out, but I’m sure Coventry boss Mark Robins will be spending some time talking about set piece defending in the coming days.
City were on top for a good twenty minutes after that as good work down the flanks led to crosses from either wing that Ike Ugbo was very close to reaching.
All the while though, Coventry were working their way back into the game. Certainly, the visitors’ share of possession began to rise (it ended up 65/35 in their favour), but, although our goals against record would not suggest it, it seems to me that we’re a lot more organised out of possession under our new manager.
Although the balance of power was shifting, there wasn’t much to suggest an equaliser was coming and Ugbo was about a foot away from making it two when he connected well on the half volley with a cross by Ryan Wintle.
However, the game soon had its second set piece goal when Jak Alnwick got a decent punch on a corner,but the ball went straight to a Coventry player some thirty yards out who fed Liam Kelly on the edge of the penalty area. What happened next could have been pure luck as the contact from Kelly found its way to Matt Godden who shot home from eight yards, but I reckon it was a a clever, perceptive pass from the Coventry captain not some sort of mishit shot or flukey rebound – it was Godden’s fifth goal of the season and he’s an experienced goal scorer at this level, so you could be critical of the defending which left him with that much room I suppose, but I don’t think we did too much wrong really.
Coventry, buoyed by being on level terms, had the better of the rest of the first half as City found themselves pushed back more, but there was no more scoring in an entertaining forty five minutes which had seen City score their first home goal in the opening half in five league games.
City again started a half better as the game settled into a pattern which saw the visitors continue to have more of the ball without doing a great deal with it, while we were more direct (not in a long ball way) and urgent in possession which meant that Coventry’s defending had to be somewhat more “last ditch” than ours.
Coventry brought their Japanese international Sakamoto on to play as a more attacking right wing back. His arrival was greeted with great enthusiasm by the visiting fans and you could see why as his side did carry more of an attacking threat after his introduction.
However, Sakamoto had to be regarded as culpable to a degree when City regained the lead on sixty one minutes with a lovely goal which began as they neatly played through Coventry’s press and the ball was eventually worked to Wintle who clipped over a cross which Karlan Grant, stealing a few yards on Sakamoto, met with a diving header from twelve yards past former City keeper Ben Wilson to score his first goal in over a year.
According to plenty of West Brom fans, Grant is lazy and hardly a team man, but here he was tireless in his defensive work despite being, like a few of his colleagues, out on his feet in the closing stages and seemingly carrying an injury, yet he stayed on for the full one hundred and two minutes somehow!
Coventry came close to levelling for a second time as City failed to deal with a cross from their left and Alnwick was forced to make his best save of the night from Kasey Palmer’s low shot from pretty close in.
The match was now an entertaining watch for any neutrals present, but for City fans used to seeing their side lose leads this season, it became a fraught one until Kion Etete came on for Tanner and emulated the winger’s achievement on Saturday of scoring within a minute of taking the field. The young striker matched his tally of three from last season as he ran onto a Perry Ng pass (Ng was excellent tonight and my man of the match) as Coventry’s defence seemingly waited for a linesman’s flag to be raised (either for offside or for the ball having gone out of play before Ng played his pass) to impressively beat Wilson with an angled shot from twelve yards.
That goal should have given City some breathing space, but, as mentioned earlier, they were really struggling to last the pace having put in such a big effort on Saturday – indeed, even Mr perpetual motion Manolis Siopis (who has made such a difference to our midfield) had to come off to be replaced by Ebou Adams for the closing minutes.
Etete’s goal came on eighty four minutes, but it turned out that there was still almost twenty minutes left to play so Coventry would have thought that the game wasn’t beyond them yet and, with five of the signaled ten minutes of added time played, Godden got his second with a header from a cross by substitute Atari.
Although this made for a very tense finale, especially considering that the ten minutes of added time was extended well beyond that, Coventry never got themselves into positions to really threaten City again after it became 3-2 and the biggest talking points were whether referee Sam Allison, who I thought contributed to the entertainment by letting lots of things go that more fussy officials would not have tolerated, was right to only show yellow cards to Coventry defenders Latibeaudier and McFadzean? My opinion was that a yellow was right for the latter as there was a teammate close enough for him not to be considered the last man as he brought down Etete, but the former was lucky to escape a red card for a nasty tackle on Siopis while it was still 3-1.
So, with six more games to be played tonight which will almost certainly result in us dropping a few places, City currently find themselves in the giddy heights of ninth position for what it is worth at this time of the season. Anyone watching us play last season would be amazed that we’re currently averaging almost two goals a game and they probably would be a little surprised that we have conceded as many as twelve in seven games. However, I’d say our performances so far merit a top half position and, while it’s still too early to make too many predictions, you would have thought that things cannot deteriorate enough to see us struggle as much as we did last season – we have much more attacking pace and goal power this time around.
There were also matches played at under 18 and under 21 level today. The under 18s continue to struggle as they went down 3-1 to Bournemouth in what I think was a League Cup game – whatever it was, it was the first game played at the new Academy headquarters in Llanrumney.
Swansea were able to exact a small measure of revenge for their weekend defeat when they came out on top in a Third Round Nathaniel MG Cup game when they entertained City’s under 21s while both sides’ first elevens were in action. Swansea came out on top only because they won a penalty shoot out after the match finished level at 1-1 after ninety minutes with Keiron Evans scoring a second half equaliser for us. Unfortunately, the shoot out was one of those that is decided by a single miss from the spot and this time the player concerned was Fin Johnson.