Given City's dreadful results and performances in recent live games and a run of four matches without a goal, it was hard to be too confident of the outcome against a struggling Sheffield Wednesday team, but City turned on a real show for the cameras with a first half performance that added style and panache to their usual spirit and hard work. The performances of Koumas and Jerome in particular epitomised City's complete domination of the first forty five minutes as they looked threatening whenever they got the ball in attacking situations.
One of the characteristics of the team in those opening months of the season was their ability to score early goals and they did it again here when Koumas found the net on nine minutes - it was the eighth time City had scored in the first quarter of an hour of a league game so far. Koumas' well placed header from around the penalty spot came from an excellent first time cross by Rhys Weston and, not for the last time during the season showed he could add “good finisher with his head” to his long list of qualities, but, after that, it was Cameron Jerome who terrorised the home defence. Jerome scored twice, with a header from a Koumas cross following a short corner routine and with an easy finish after he raced on to Whitley's lobbed pass, around the half hour mark and could easily have had a couple more as he showed exactly why he had earned a place in the England Under 21squad, but a 3-0 half time lead was about a true reflection of the team's superiority.
Around six weeks earlier City had found themselves three goals clear at half time at Stoke and had easily seen out the second half to claim a comfortable victory, it wasn't such a cakewalk this time around though as they, understandably I suppose, chose to sit on their half time lead after the break. Indeed, if Chris Eagles' shot had gone in instead of hitting the post shortly after he had reduced the deficit in the 65th minute, City could have really been under the cosh - as it was, they still had to rely on a couple of fine Neil Alexander saves to preserve their two goal lead, but at the end they could look back on a job well done and a 3-1 win which meant that they had already got as many away victories as they managed throughout the whole of the previous season.
After yet another break for International football, City travelled to Deepdale in a seasons high position of fifth but with two enforced changes made to their team. Kevin Cooper had been putting off an operation on one of his knees for weeks, but the week off for Internationals presented an opportunity to get it out of the way without him missing as many games as he might have whilst Cameron Jerome was also suspended after picking up five bookings.
Neil Ardley came in for Cooper and Michael Ricketts for Jerome but the ex England striker was to give another of those listless away displays which tended to characterise his stay with us. Having said that, it would be unfair to pin the blame for City's defeat solely on Ricketts' shoulders - Preston were now running into form after a sluggish start to the campaign and when they lead 2-0 through goals by Sedgwick and Agyemang at half time they were threatening to repeat the hammering they had given us towards the end of the previous season.
However, City, whilst still not playing well, rallied a bit after the break and pulled back a goal with a Glenn Loovens header from a corner, but there were to be no further goals as the game finished 2-1, a scoreline that hardly did justice to Preston‘s dominance.
Having climbed six places after their Hillsborough win, City now dropped four, but successive home matches against sides in the lower half of the table offered them the opportunity to break into the top six again.
Brighton came to Ninian Park in the bottom three, but an away record that had seen them lose just two of their nine matches should have alerted City to the fact that the game would be no pushover. As it was, the team , with Jerome back for Ricketts and Parry in for Ardley, gave a stuttering display which probably didn't deserve any more than the point they got from a 1-1 draw. Koumas hit the woodwork early on with a shot from the edge of the box following a fifty yard run, but Swansea bound Leon Knight also bounced a twenty five yard shot off the crossbar not long afterwards and the longer the game went on, the more it looked like one of those that would be decided by a single goal.
That goal arrived on fifty seven minutes when a lovely cross field pass from Ledley found Koumas in space on the right and he laid a goal on a plate for Alan Lee who easily netted - both of Lee's goal so far had come against Brighton and, in fact, he left the City a couple of months later having not scored a league goal against any other team for fourteen months! With Brighton having to come out more now, it should have meant further chances for City, but that never really happened - instead the visitors went on to edge the last half hour of the game and, four minutes after coming on, sub Colin Kazim-Richards equalised with a fine long range strike on 76 minutes.
City now had to wait until the following Monday evening to play another televised fixture, this time against Ipswich. After playing a few teams who came to Ninian Park content to soak up pressure, Ipswich's traditional attacking approach promised to give the few supporters who turned up in cold and dry conditions an entertaining evening.
Skipper Darren Purse now began a period where disciplinary problems meant that he missed four out of the next seven matches and he was replaced as both captain and centre back by Neil Cox in a City team that wasted a great chance to take a decisive hold on the game after just thirteen minutes when Fabian Wilnis was adjudged to have brought down Jerome in the box. Referee Marriner's decision seemed a bit harsh and Wilnis was then, given the double punishment of a red card by the over zealous ref. However City weren't complaining, well they weren't until Ricketts, standing in for the absent Purse, took a penalty that was almost in the Andy Campbell against Leeds class which enabled keeper Lewis Price to make a simple save!
To be fair to him, Ricketts did atone to some degree when he scored on the half hour mark as Price elected to stay on his line instead of trying to get to Ledley's pass before the City striker and after the break he was one of a group of City players foiled by a series of great saves by the young Welsh keeper. Price's heroics kept his ten man team in the game and with City getting nervy in the last few minutes, it looked like they had snatched an unlikely point when Juan's free kick flew past Alexander in 86th minute.
Lennie Lawrence's City teams were useless at scoring late winners or equalisers and, on the evidence of this season anyway, so is Dave Jones', but they managed it against Ipswich that night when Neil Cox's long pass in the last minute found man of the match Jason Koumas in space on the left, Koumas beat a couple of players as he cut in from the touchline and seemed to have created a great chance for himself only to slip over. However, he had the presence of mind to spring back up immediately and place a fine right footed shot beyond Price to score a terrific goal which was fit to win any game.
City were now up to sixth, but, in a way, this was as it good as it got for the team as the Ipswich game represented something of a turning point in their season in terms of home games. Up until and including that game the quality of football at Ninian Park had been perfectly acceptable as far as I was concerned - true, there had been some poor games (e.g. Watford, Coventry and Brighton), but these were outweighed by entertaining matches such as Leeds, Wolves, Palace, Preston, Crewe and Ipswich but, after that night, the entertainment value of our home matches went down a lot. There were one or two decent quality games from then on, but, by and large, matches at Ninian Park became occasions to be endured not enjoyed!
The Ipswich game was a turning point in terms of attendances as well for me. A seasons low of 8.724 watched the match which meant that, when you consider just 9,595 had been there to see the Brighton game, the great Cardiff City attendances 2005/06 debate was at it's hottest on here and in the media around this time. However, from here onwards, City's gates were to show a marginal improvement which meant that we had seen the last of the sub 10,000 crowds - that's not to say the team and the manager were getting the support they deserved from people of the area by any means, but, at least, their far better than expected showing had attracted a few people back to the club.