It may only be five games into the season, but, after today’s 1-0 loss at Derby County, I’m struggling to find reasons why this campaign won’t turn into a long, very tough relegation battle. One point, one goal scored and eleven conceded are reasons enough to feel downbeat about what the next eight months will hold, but I’m starting to get very concerned about how some sides predicted to struggle are putting a substantial number of points between them and us so early into the season.
Pre season predictions tended to think that three out of he following five would be relegated – Derby, Oxford, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Blackburn. Well, today’s win takes Derby to nine points which is the same as Oxford (a certain Mark Harris was chosen as Championship Player of the Month for August) after their win over Stoke today. To be fair to Blackburn, they’re shaping up as automatic promotion contenders after their 3-0 win over Bristol City as they sit in second position with eleven points. Plymouth beat Sunderland, who had a 100 per cent winning record before today, 3-2 to record their first win and move to five points. Portsmouth entertain West Brom tomorrow and still await their first win, but they have had a tremendously testing opening sequence of games and three draws from four games so far suggests they are going to be very competitive.
All of those clubs have played at least one match so far to a standard we can only dream of currently and, like every other team in the division, would rate a game against us as eminently winnable.
Tonight, there are plenty of calls for Erol Bulut to be sacked. Now, I’m no fan of our manager and, to be frank, I would not have shed a tear if he’d left at the end of last season. Instead, the Cardiff Board decided to give him a two year contract and, although the sale of Mark McGuinness went a long towards balancing the books, Bulut was given the biggest transfer budget this summer of any City manager since Neil Warnock in 2019 following our relegation from the Premier League.
Whether all of the players signed in the summer were Bulut’s picks is doubtful, but, even so, this can be classed as his team now. Therefore, it was hard to have much sympathy with him when he complained on the day after the transfer window closed about a lack of pace in his squad.
However, I wonder what our manager thinks of the decision to sign a striker for millions and then loan him out to Vincent Tan’s other club? All of this of course in a team with that single goal scored in four hundred and fifty minutes of league football!
The breakdown in relations between Vincent Tan and then manager Malay Mackay back in 2012 might well have originated from the moment when Mackay described expensive teenage striker Andreas Cornelius as a “project” and now, a dozen years later, we have the club explaining away the mad decision (mad, at least, without a fuller explanation as to the reason for it) to loan Roko Simic to Kortrijk in a manner which strongly suggests that they see him as another project!
After the home defeat against Middlesbrough, our manager stated that the fortnight before his team played again would enable him and his analysts to study the stats from games played so far. Quite why they were unable to do that before then was not explained, but an emphasis on fitness was the order of the day and changes were promised.
Bulut was as good as his word when it came to the changes – there were six of them from the Middlesbrough game. Some of those missing out were due to injury (eg Aaron Ramsey and Jesper Daland), but Ethan Horvath, Alex Robertson, Yakou Meite (who wasn’t even in the squad) and Chris Willock were all dropped.
In came Jak Alnwick, Dimitrios Goutas, Joel Bagan, Joe Ralls, Rubin Colwill and Anwar El Ghazi, with Callum O’Dowda switching to the wing after previously featuring at left back. Another injury absentee was Callum Robinson which meant that Wilfried Kanga and youngster Michael Reindorf on the bench were the only strikers in the squad – have I mentioned before that loaning Simic to Kortrijk was barmy!
All of the changes made no difference, in my eyes anyway, in terms of dynamism, pace and fitness. Derby were better than us in all of those departments and were worth more than the one goal win which at least brought to an end that long run of losing matches by a two goal margin or more.
City fought hard, passed it quite nicely at times, but to no real effect in terms of adding to their miserable goals for record and it was telling that two of home keeper Zetterstrom’s most awkward moments came when keeping out potential own goals by team mates.
Colwill had an early sight of goal and shot powerfully from fifteen yards, but the angle was against him and Zetterstrom’s save was a fairly easy one. After that the game settled down with Derby looking the more likely largely because of their habit of making progress down their left.
It was through this source that the game’s decisive moment arrived just before the half hour mark as full back Callum Elder combined with former City winger Nathaniel Mendez-Laing to get the better of Perry Ng and El Ghazi and Elder’s low cross was knocked in first time by an unmarked Kenzo Goudmijn from ten yards despite there being three defenders pretty close by.
Fair play to City, they responded by quickly forcing three successive corners and from the first of them Eiran Cashin the Derby captain glanced his header towards his own goal, but Zetterstrom reacted quickly to keep the ball out and then got up in time to divert Goutas’ follow up wide.
Alnwick made the first of two or three good saves to deny Mendez-Laing and half time was reached with City yet again trailing (the’ve been in front this season for no more than the half an hour or so after Mark McGuiness’ header in the League Cup win over Bristol Rovers).
Will Fish came on to replace Ng at the interval and the centre back’s composed debut was the best thing about the second forty five as he suggested that he, Daland and Callum Chambers can be a trio of effective ball playing defenders who could improve our goals against record at least.
Ollie Tanner, Willock, Robertson and Cian Ashford all came on as well during the second period, but City still looked too ineffective and lacking in confidence to suggest they had an equaliser in them.
The one exception to this rule occurred with about twenty minutes to go when the ball was moved smoothly through the Derby midfield and defence and threaded to Tanner who took a good touch to come inside his marker. The angle wasn’t perfect, but it was a decent chance for the winger, yet the finish was wild as he opted for power and the ball flew well over the bar.
The one other half chance we had was when effective pressing by O’Dowda won him possession out on the right with an undermanned home defence in front of him. From here though, it became an illustration of why we’re going to find it so hard to break out of this goal scoring famine – the winger’s pass to Colwill was poorly placed and so all Rubin could do was nudge the ball slowly through to Kanga. The centre forward did well today in his hold up play I thought, but the poor guy must have forgotten what he should do in the position he found himself in now given the non existent service he gets and all he could do was dribble a shot into Zetterstrom’s hands from eight yards out.
Derby should really have got the two goal win they deserved right at the death when Alnwick and Manolis Siopis (who did really well defensively in the main in the closing minutes as City chased an equaliser) were unable to prevent former City midfielder Ebou Adams from having a run in from half way by himself to complete the formality of netting against his old club only to, inexplicably, shoot wide.
It was. perhaps, a fitting end to a game of no great quality. It sounded like the players were greeted by boos from sections of the away supporters as they went to salute them at the final whistle and you get the feeling that things are coming to a head as our beleaguered manager’s players did little to keep him in his job.
While the first team struggles, the senior age group sides are doing pretty well. The under 21s drew their Cup game at Ipswich 2-2 with Cody Twose and Trey George the scorers, while the under 18s were 2-1 winners against Crewe at Leckwith this lunchtime with Dan Ola and Jake Davies getting the goals.