Cardiff City rounded off what must be one of their most successful pre season programmes of recent years with a 2-0 win at Bristol Rovers to follow up on another victory over a League One side in midweek when Reading were overcome by 2-1 at Cardiff City Stadium on Wednesday.
Bath City, Kortrijk, Pen Y Bont and Hamburg were also beaten and their were creditable draws with South African Champions Mamelodi Sundowns and Hertha Berlin along with a 1-0 loss to Kidderminster in the first open to the public game nearly a month ago.
So, results were good, but, encouragingly, so were performances generally speaking- as someone who was very critical of City’s style of play through the last two thirds of last season, I must say i enjoyed quite a bit of the football we played.
Of course, it’s one thing being easy on the eye when there are no league points at stake and as soon as results start to suffer, a change to a more pragmatic style is often not too far away, but I think there is definite intention to play in a more attacking and entertaining manner from Erol Bulut and his staff.
For now at least, there is a full commitment to playing out from the back in a way that there never was completely last season – I datesay Jak Alnwick did kick the ball long on Wednesday at some time, but I can’t remember it, while I’m pretty sure Ethan Horvarth didn’t do it today.
With this virtual total reliance on playing out from the back, comes an increase in the risks such an approach carries and it cost us a goal on Wednesday. On an afternoon where we were generally pretty comfortable in defence, Rovers’ better chances came from pressing the likes of Manolis Siopis and Joe Ralls and, particularly towards the end of the game, there were occasions when the opposition mounted potentially dangerous attacks after possession was carelessly lost around the halfway line.
I’ll make a prediction and say we could concede a sloppy goal or two in the opening weeks through the opposition’s press and because, as mentioned earlier, we seem a lot more committed to playing out from the back, hence the degree of risk increases, but, so far at least, we’re getting more bodies into the box when we attack and the early signs are that we’re a lot less rigid positionally when in possession.
Last season there was a feeling that even if the opposition got their press wrong, we didn’t have the attacking resources to take advantage of this, the early signs are that this might not be true this season. Of course Aaron Ramsey staying fit would help things greatly in that respect and there were signs today of an understanding between Rambo and Chris Willock forming already, add in an “on it” Rubin Colwill (as he was today when he replaced Ramsey for the last quarter) and we look to have more creativity and flair in us.
There still has to be doubts as to whether we have the strikers to fully take advantage of what appears to be more attacking quality in our midfield mind. Yakou Meite was an effective attack leader against League One opposition today, but, too often, he wasn’t against higher level defenders last season. There is still the hope that Kion Etete’s* game can develop to a higher level, but he’s not even been on the bench in three of our last four games and, unless he’s injured, it seems like a move, either temporary or permanent, is on the cards for him.
In addition, there is Isaak Davies* fresh off a season on loan where things went well at Kortrijk, Callum Robinson has scored six times in pre season and looks like he has his mojo back and there is a newcomer who I’ll come to later, but is there anyone in those five who’ll represent “the complete package” at this level? I’m not sure there is.
City were good today though and would have won by more but for the heroics of Griffiths in the home goal. The keeper had no chance though with either of the spectacular goals we scored either side of half time. The first was arrowed into the top corner of the net from twenty five yards with great force by Ramsey after neat work by Willock and the second placed into the same corner to the keeper’s right by Ralls from twenty yards.
On Wednesday, City weren’t as impressive against a Reading team that I thought had the better of a first half which saw them fall behind very early on when Robinson cashed in after robbing the Reading keeper of possession. The visitors were level within ten minutes when Andy Rinomhota lost possession twenty yards out and was punished by a good finish by Azeez and they would have fancied going home with a win at various times in the next hour before Robinson had scoring made easy for him by a cross from sub Luey Giles that I genuinely believe bettered anything City came up with in that department all through last season. We could have had further goals after that as, just as we had done against Hertha a few days earlier, we finished the stronger team, but we had done enough to gain what I thought was a just about deserved win over a team that had beaten both Watford and QPR in warm up games already.
I mentioned we had a new striker, twice capped Ivory Coast forward Wilfried Kanga joins us on a season’s loan from Hertha Berlin (he wasn’t involved in our game with them a week ago). Kanga’s CV is mixed with unsuccessful spells at most of his clubs mixed with a good one with Swiss club Young Boys of Berne and a decent one with Standard Liege of Belgium on loan last season. Kanga played in the last twenty minutes or so today without making much of an impression, but, to be fair, with the game won by then, much of the earlier intensity had gone out of City’s play.
We’ve also signed twice capped Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi (pictured) on a free transfer. El Ghazi has signed a one year contract, but it will take a bit of time for him to get fully fit because he has not played since late last year after being sacked by Mainz – see the Mainz 05 section here for a full explanation of his dispute with the German club. He has played, with varying success, for Villa and Everton in the Premier League and, again, his CV is mixed, but, he’s still only 29 and, rather like with Willock, we’ll have a very good player on our hands if we can get him fit and firing.
Another signing is imminent it would seem as we are strongly rumoured to be bringing in the number 8 type midfielder that has been a target all summer. It’s likely that the player is 21 year old Australia international Alex Robertson whose successful loan spell with Portsmouth last season was ended by an injury around Christmas time. It has been said by Pompey fans that Robertson was the best player in League One last season before his injury and they’ve certainly been keen to get him back, but it’s been reported that we’ve agreed a fee with his club Manchester City and he is keen to come here.
There’s also talk of a centreback coming in next week to be a regular starter in the senior team. Even if this is not true though, there is clearly now a need to cut the wage bill – all that has happened on that front this week is that Joel Colwill joined Cheltenham on a season’s loan. There is talk that Stoke have pipped Blackburn for the signature of Ryan Wintle and the absence of the aforementioned Etete and Mark McGuinness makes me wonder if there’ll be departures for two of our younger players.
Below first team level, an under 19 team beat Oxford United 3-1 with goals by Cody Twose and a couple by Tanatswa Nyakhuwa and it was the same score line for the Under 21s last night against Pontypridd United in the Nathaniel MG Cup at Leckwith – all of our goals coming from summer signing from Norwich, Michael Reindorf.
*Since I wrote this, it’s been confirmed by Erol Bulut that Isaak Davies is out for four months with a hamstring injury picked up in Austria. Isaak missed the start of the 22/23 season with a similar injury and has had rotten luck when it comes to trying to make progress at City lately. There’s more bad news in that Kion Etete, who had hamstring injuries that eventually led to his season finishing a couple of months early in 23/24, is out for three months with a similar injury. They say it comes in threes and there was also confirmation that Jamilu Collins will be absent for eight weeks with an injury as well.
The loss of Davies and Etete rather takes us back to square one when it comes to strikers – it seems to me that a second new striker this summer now becomes more of a priority than another centreback.