I’ve not seen Sabri Lamouchi’s post game comments regarding today’s match at Hull, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were fairly positive because, despite following up a 1-0 loss at Luton in his first game in charge with another single goal defeat this afternoon, he would have seen his side compete well and he might be forgiven for thinking that, with a bit more luck, he could have been looking at a couple of draws from our two games this week.
Clearly, there’s not been the hoped for new manager bounce in results, but I’d definitely say we’ve played better in our games under Lamouchi than we had been doing immediately before he came here. However, that’s where any positives begin and end as far as I’m concerned – even if Lamouchi had not seen us play before he took the job, he will, I’m sure have been aware of our goalscoring record.
Yes, I know it’s overly simplistic to say that one stat defines a team, but in Cardiff City’s case, it could be argued that they are exceptions to that rule. Actually, while one would do the job adequately enough,, to hammer home the point, I’ll use two of them which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt why it’s becoming increasingly likely that we’re going to be relegated.
The first is the straight goals to games figure which now stands at a feeble, miserable and barely believable twenty one in thirty league games, but, if anything, it’s the fact that we’ve now failed to score in exactly half of those matches that is most damning.
I’ve mentioned before that, with seventeen new players arriving in the summer transfer window, you would expect there to be an initial “bedding in” period at both ends of the pitch as new team mates got to know each other’s game. However, while that was never a problem at one end of the pitch, it started badly at the other end and has just got worse – as evidenced by just the one goal scored in our last seven league matches.
So, while it wouldn’t be fair to say that it’s entirely negative under Lamouchi in that there’s signs he might just get it right eventually, I’m afraid that, with that one, overwhelming, reason why we are where we are, there’s little evidence that our new manager is succeeding so far.
Yes, I accept that two matches is a very small sample size, but watching us attack under Lamouchi is not much different to what it was like under Morison, Hudson and Whitehead. On second thoughts,that’s not quite true, because the return of Mark McGuinness and the arrival of Sory Kaba on loan means that we possess more of an aerial set piece threat than we’ve had all season and, with Kaba and Kion Etete on as subs for the closing stages to join McGuinness and Cedric Kipre, we had an aerial presence which, on paper at least, could match what we had in recent seasons.
Callum O’Dowda is useful aerially as well, but we’ll have to wait to see whether having four or five big lumps in the opposition penalty area will lead towards an improvement in our goalscoring, because all today did was to prove that there are two parts to the attacking set piece conundrum and merely having the height we’ve been lacking until now is only half of the story.
To put it bluntly, our set piece delivery this afternoon was abysmal. Time after time, the cross did not get beyond the first man and, then when it finally did, Ryan Wintle’s corner was so overhit, it went out for a goal kick not too far away from the opposite corner flag! Twice within a minute in the first half, short corners worked Sheyi Ojo into a position where he had the time and space to deliver a quality cross and both times, the first defender was unerringly found.
I promise this isn’t going to become a stat fest, but there is one more I heard in the week – it was claimed that we’d only scored one header all season. That’s not true, I can think of three pretty quickly – Callum Robinson’s last minute equaliser against Burnley, Cedric Kipre’s goal against Watford and Gavin Whyte got one in the home game with Hull. However, I think what the stat was referring to was headers from set pieces – I’m pretty sure that goal by Kipre is the only one we’ve managed.
Struggling sides get themselves into vicious circles and I think we’re seeing an example of that when it comes to our attacking play. What I mean is that although the delivery from set pieces and in open play was particularly bad today, it hasn’t been great all season, so I think you then start to see a situation develop whereby players waiting for a cross or a pass do not attack spaces as wholeheartedly as they would if they knew that eight or nine times out of ten, there be a good delivery coming their way – when that’s only happening once or twice out of ten the runs and/or jumps to meet the ball become less committed.
Having been so critical earlier, I thought we did put in two good crosses today and the first, by O’Dowda saw Robinson and Jaden Philogene not showing enough desire to reach the ball, arguably because they were surprised by its quality. The second one was different as Philogene, who I thought played well overall, received another short corner, beat his marker beautifully, got to the bye line and pulled back a low ball to around the penalty spot. Unfortunately, all of our attackers raced into the six yard area and none of the others thought to put themselves in what would have been a great position to be coming on to a ball that was begging to be hit.
That was City’s attacking afternoon summed up really, quite a few promising situations, but hardly anything to seriously worry Hull. There were two exceptions to this though, first when defender Alfie Jones diverted Ojo’s cross into Kaba’s path some six yards from goal, but home keeper Matt Ingram was no more than a yard or so away from him and so was able to make what amounted to a point blank range save – maybe if. Kaba had mishit his shot the ball may have rolled past the diving keeper, but he made a good contact and so turned it into what was a pretty straightforward save.
The second occasion came earlier on in the game when Philogene was brought down just inside the penalty area by a clumsy and unnecessary tackle from left back Callum Elder. It was a clear penalty, but, in a replay of his miss from the spot at Huddersfield, Robinson went to the keeper’s right after a stuttering run up and, although this one was hit better than his first one, Ingram was able to pull off a good save.
Robinson had scored from the spot in the replay at Leeds in the FA Cup when he went straight down the middle and the keeper dived out of the way, but it’s one thing taking a penalty with virtually the last kick of the game when you’re 5-1 down in a cup match and another completely when it’s 0-0 and your painfully goal shy team are in a relegation scrap.
So, in this season when they could least afford to be missing penalties, it’s none from three now for City and, if we get another one, whoever takes it is going to need nerves of steel.
The penalty award came in what was a rare City attack as Hull dominated the early stages, Regan Slater’s deflected shot came back off a post and Jones headed narrowly over as the home side looked to follow up their 3-0 win over QPR last weekend with another home win in a season that has not seen too many of them up to now.
Strangely, the penalty miss seemed to affect Hull more than City and we were the better side during the second quarter of the game, but the home team were always the more dangerous attackers and veteran right Cyrus Christie was within inches of opening the scoring early in the second half as his shot flew just wide.
However, when the exact same chance presented itself to Christie a few minutes later, he was able to get away with a less than perfect first touch, break through a weak tackle by Jack Simpson and hit a low shot across Ryan Allsop and into the net to win the game.
For reasons which elude me, City agreed to put themselves at the disadvantage of having played twice in a week when Hull (like every one else in the division bat Luton) had a free week. They could have been able to go into today’s game with a full week’s training under their new manager behind them, but chose not to and, although I’m sure it’s not really the case, when you put things like this together with our feeble January transfer window, I do sometimes find myself wondering whether City are trying to get relegated this season.