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I decided to give my full attention to the game I would be watching as I travelled to Cardiff City Stadium today to watch this afternoon’s Third Round FA Youth Cup match with Ipswich, so it was only going to be the very occasional look at my phone for the score as far as the senior team’s game at table topping Leeds was concerned.
That plan went out of the window when the match I was watching was about seven minutes old and a steward stood close to where I was sitting said to someone “2-0 to Leeds already”, a remark followed within a second by a muttered “that’s what you get for picking Morrison”. At this time, I did not even know that Sean Morrison had returned to the starting line up after his recent spell on the bench and so assumed that one of Aden Flint or Curtis Nelson must be injured.
At half time, I checked my phone and saw that the score was still 2-0, found out about the side Neil Harris had selected (more on that later) and listened to the half time words of Kevin Ratcliffe, who was Radio Wales’ summariser at Elland Road. In fact, most of what he said didn’t really register, because one word,”embarrassing”, rather drowned out the rest of it.
Some time into the second half, the same steward appeared to tell whoever it was he was keeping tabs on the score for that it was 3-1 and then, within three or four minutes of that, I heard the words “5-1 now” from over my shoulder.
That was it, I didn’t want to know any more as memories of Luton 7 Cardiff 1, Preston 6 Cardiff 0, Preston 9 Cardiff 0 etc. etc flashed through my mind. However, during a break in play in the last few minutes of the City v Ipswich match, I dared to look at my phone to learn the worst, only to see it was now 3-2 with the self same Sean Morrison, having added to a Lee Tomlin effort which had made the score 3-1.
I’d barely got back to watching my match, when the steward appeared again and said the magic numbers “3-3”, so it had to be back to the phone to find out who had scored, but the bloody app I was using decided to stop working. Therefore, my radio made a reappearance and I was greeted by an almost incoherent Rob Phillips talking about one of the most remarkable matches he’d ever seen.
It turned out that Robert Glatzel, something of a forgotten man in recent weeks, had scored the third one and that Morrison’s incident packed day had ended with him being red carded when the score was still 3-2, but that’s enough about the amazing events at Elland Road today for now.
My plan was always for the Academy team’s game to be the main focus of this piece, so I’ll return presently with some thoughts on our unlikely point against a team that, just like the Nottingham Forest side we beat a fortnight ago, must be sick to the back teeth of Cardiff City!
Anyway, there was a decent sized crowd at Cardiff City Stadium to see our Academy team take on Ipswich in the Youth Cup having beaten the same opponents 3-0 at Leckwith last week. However, both sides showed plenty of changes from seven days ago and, tellingly, the youngster who played the biggest part in bringing out about that victory, Taz Mayembe, was missing from the City squad – could be be involved for the Under 23’s at QPR on Monday I wonder?
The game had a misleading start as City began by knocking the ball around with confidence and enterprise as they completely dominated possession, but they rather lost their way after ten minutes or so and spent the rest of the half somewhat on the back foot.
However, they could easily have been a goal or two to the good during that spell when they were playing well. Isaak Davies was the first to threaten when he did well to work himself a bit of space and got in a shot from the edge of the penalty area which was not quite hit well enough to seriously trouble Jake Alley in the Ipswich goal who made a comfortable save.
Alley was a central figure on ten minutes when his poor kick enabled City to attack with pace and Keiron Evans had the chance to shoot from a similar distance to Davies. Alley was only able to parry Evans’ well struck shot into the path of Ryan Kavanagh who looked sure to score, but the keeper did superbly to keep out his shot and then had one of his defenders to thank as Davies’ follow up effort was blocked.
Ipswich got their bearings after that torrid start and, rather like last week, began to look the physically stronger side as the second balls and 50/50 challenges invariably went their way. However, also like last week, this advantage and the consequent dominance in possession it gave them, did not really transmit itself to many moments of danger for the City goal.
Probably the closest Ipswich came to finding the net in the first half was when City keeper Jaimie Cogman turned a shot by Gibbs into the side netting as the Ipswich player tried to beat him on his near post.
I can also remember a very well struck effort from distance from visiting right back O’Reilly that Cogman held on to comfortably and there were one or two decent efforts that did not miss by too much,but, for all of the fact that play was tending to be towards the City goal, there was no great threat that it would be breached.
Ipswich were much the more purposeful in terms of attacking intent during this time mind, because their opponents were offering little or nothing in that direction.
Perhaps it had something to do with playing at Cardiff City Stadium for what may well have been the first time, but there were plenty of the City team who are better players than they looked today.
City were not passing the ball as they usually do both as a team and individually and for much of the game were forced to rely on the sort of qualities the first team are so dependent on (you know the sort of thing, grit, determination, work rate etc.) but the pace and attacking wit which Ipswich could not cope with last week was in short supply.
Taylor Jones at centreback was someone who rose above the general mediocrity, but the one City player who was head and shoulders above the rest was Isaak Davies, who was probably the difference between the two sides in the end.
It was Davies who conjured up a goal out of very little on forty one minutes as City won the ball in a dangerous area for the visitors, but there was still a lot to do for the striker when he received it and he responded really well by outmanoeuvring the Ipswich centrebacks and working himself into a shooting position similar to the one he was in after a couple of minutes, but, this time, the low shot was across Alley and finished up in the back of the net.
Davies was also on the scoresheet last week, so, with two from two games, he is, hopefully back in the scoring groove after a start to the season where he has found goals hard to come by.
Given the nature of the game, I thought that goal might tgurn out to be decisive, but I was proved wrong in no time at all in the second half. Just two minutes had elapsed when Ipswich centre forward Colin Oppong, looking suspiciously offside, burst clear. However, the linesman, who had flagged City offside in a couple of first half incidents which looked touch and go to me, kept it down this time and Oppong calmly nudged the ball over the advancing Cogman and it slowly rolled into the net before the covering Joel Bagan could get back to clear.
There then followed a pretty long period which echoed much of the first half in which Ipswich looked to be edging the game without really doing anything to trouble Cogman in the City goal.
City finished the stronger though and Davies, now playing on the right to accommodate the introduction of James Crole, showed the turn of pace which transorms a situation where he looks to be struggling to have the legs on his marker only to suddenly burst clear with the ball to set up what looked a great chance for Crole, only for him to miskick badly.
Minutes later, one of City’s best moves of the game produced another good looking opportunity for Crole who did little wrong this time, but was denied by a very good block from an Ipswich defender which sent his shot away for what was an unproductive corner.
That was the last opportunity for either side during normal time and so the match entered an extra thirty minutes. Within the first one or two of them Crole had shown a lovely striker’s touch to almost send Davies clear, but when the same two players combined again a couple of minutes later, Ipswich were not so lucky and City had what turned out to be the decisive goal.
Davies was the provider this time with a strong run down the right that ended with a low cross pulled back from close to the bye line which was neatly converted from close in on the near post by Crole with a side footed finish.
The most noteworthy factor after that was the number of City players who needed to be treated for cramp as playing on a big, unfamiliar pitch for more than the normal ninety minutes began to take its toll.
While Ipswich were unaffected by cramp, there must have six or seven of the City team that fell victim to it – indeed, Kavanagh and Sam Parsons had to be replaced because of it. Cogman, Crole and Evans were others who were affected by it as well.
While you would like to think that at this sort of age there would not be an element of gamesmanship involved here, all of the stopping and starting did have the effect of breaking up the game a lot and Ipswich were never really able to build up the attacking momentum they needed.
Indeed, with Evans having his best spell of the afternoon, it was City who looked the likelier to score as the clock clicked down into four minutes of added time and, finally, some two and a half hours after the match started, City were able to celebrate a rare Cardiff cup victory – the Under 18s are not a team in the habit of “winning ugly”, but they did today and I’m sure it would have been of great benefit in the long run for the youngsters to have experienced another facet of the game.
So, back to the crazy senior team game today. As I’ve only seen very brief highlights of the match, I’ll limit myself to a few general comments on what I’ve heard and seen about it;-
- We were lucky and did not play well for most of the match – I’ve not heard a single person who claims anything different.
- Neil Harris made his first big mistake as City manager when he paired Aden Flint and Sean Morrison in central defence. Presumably, he was not aware of what plenty of City fans know for sure – they are too slow and static to play together, especially against a side whose forwards have the range of talents that Leeds’ front four do.
- Our manager got his post match comments exactly right as far as I’m concerned. He was honest enough to say that Leeds were “obviously better” than us and that we keep conceding “cheap goals” – we’ve “got to be better than we are”, but “I can’t do anything else but praise my players” because their character and desire is “first class”.
- The Flint/Morrison partnership is unlikely to be repeated in the short term because the former (who was badly at fault for Leeds’ second goal) had to be replaced in the forty first minute after picking up an injury and the latter received a straight red card which our manager said we will probably appeal against (it did look a pretty harsh, “homer” type decision to me)
- The penalty given a\way by Neil Etheridge for the third goal was completely unnecessary as Patrick Bamford was heading away from goal and practically on the bye line. Etheridge was also shaky in his handling when dealing with a header very late in the game when we were lucky not to concede what would have been a winning goal.
- It seems like we went for something like a 4-4-2 today with Nathaniel Mendez-Laing partnering Danny Ward up front and Will Vaulks and Joe Ralls recalled to the midfield with the latter stuck out on the left – it doesn’t sound like it worked in terms of the midfield especially.
- The use of the fit again Gavin Whyte off the bench (he did pretty well it seems) ahead of Josh Murphy makes me think that his time at Cardiff may be nearing an end. Murphy should be a top player in this league, but, instead, is probably our fourth choice winger at the moment based on today’s evidence.
- Could Robert Glatzel’s well taken equaliser be the moment to really kick start his Cardiff career? I hope so, because, like a lot of other City fans, I think he is the best of the different centre forward options we ‘have (although I wouldn’t put Danny Ward far behind him).
- After nearly two and a half seasons at Cardiff, Lee Tomlin is looking like the player who was probably the best number ten in the Championship when he was at Middlesbrough. I mentioned last week that Barnsley were unlucky in that the ball dropped to him out of all City players for the winning goal, well that’s even more true of Leeds with our first goal because it was an exquisite finish from the corner of the penalty area lobbed over the home keeper and about four defenders. However, it was as nothing compared to the outrageous back flick volleyed into Glatzel’s path to set up the equaliser – ladies and gentlemen, after years of sweat, power and grunt, we finally have a serous footballer in our team!
- Unfortunately, I don’t think we will be playing Leeds next season because it seems pretty unanimous that they were something special going forward today (Marcelo Bielsa said some of his team’s attacking play was the best he’s seen from Leeds), so they are likely to be a division above us next season. I say that because before today they had only conceded ten goals in twenty one games – something which makes what we did all the more astonishing,. However we can but hope that today’s events, which left Bamford “distraught”, can bring on the sort of decline we saw last season – coming back from 3-0 down away from home to draw is special, but it’s even more so when it’s against Leeds!
