Top 7 Theory.

The Top 7 Clubs and the rest of the Premier League.

By the top 7 clubs, I mean the big money established Premier League clubs - Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Everton. I know that Southampton are in the top 7 at the moment, but they are the only team to challenge the "establishment".

So, I have tried to work out how important games really are for the other 13 teams aginst the top 7. Even at this early stage of the season, its amazing how little the rest of the league gets - it is almost as if there are 2 divisions within the Premier League.

So far this season, there have been 45 fixtures between the top 7 and the rest. The record for "the rest" is :-

Played 45 Won 6 Drawn 8 Lost 31

No wonder we see any points against the big teams as a bonus! I didn't expect this level of domination. Perhaps when we have another wet Sunday afternoon I'll go through the stats for a whole season!

When you break things down club by club, our 1 win, one draw and 2 defeats is pretty good. Hull have lost all 4 of theirs, Sunderland all 3 of theirs, and Fulham both of theirs. Southampton are the only team to be unbeaten, but they have only played 2 games against the top 7 - this could also explain why they found themselves in 3rd place! Villa must have really upset the fixture list gods as they have had 6 of their first 9 matches against the top 7. 2 wins and 4 losses seems pretty fair in the circumstances for them.

So, Villa have take 6 points from 18, West Brom 5 from 12, us 4 from 12 and Southampton 4 from 6. Not too bad, really. So the other 9 teams have a worse record than us. Avoiding relegation will be achieved against "the rest". So lets not panic at the end of November when we have consecutive home games against Man Utd and Arsenal!

So Far So Good.

So Far So Good.

Was it really little more than 2 months ago that I was writing the season preview? And here we are now, an established Premier League club! Well, perhaps not as established as all that, but the team has shown enough ability and won enough points so far to give the fans a little confidence. I don’t think anyone is taking anything for granted, but 8 points from our first 7 games, and a solid 14th place in the league is encouraging at the very least. As an added bonus, at the moment we are even a point ahead of our greatest rivals from 30 miles down the road!

The difficult fixtures come thick and fast, with an away trip to Chelsea coming up on Saturday, followed by an away trip to Norwich. Any points away from home are vital, but realistically Chelsea have got to be serious favourites, and we never seem to do that well in the far flung reaches of East Anglia.

HULL CITY 1 CARDIFF 1 - 14/09/2013

As Hull were promoted with us last year, this would have been one of the away games we would have hoped to get something from. They were certainly considered to be one of the favoured teams for relegation with us before the season started. Reports suggest that it wasn’t much of a game, with an excellent Peter Whittingham volley in the second half cancelling out Curtis Davies’ first half opener.

Peter Whittingham celebrates a classy equaliser with Fraizer Campbell.

I think I should emphasise the importance of this point. You can be sure that Hull would have had this marked as a winnable game where they were hoping for 3 points. In the long run, it was probably just as important to deprive Hull of 3 points as it was for us to gain our first away point.

CARDIFF 0 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 - 22/09/2013

Now this really was Premier League football! Spurs were excellent - their running, passing and constant pressure had us on the back foot from the start of the game.Spurs had 29 attempts at goal, but we managed to stop them from scoring until 2 minutes into injury time at the end of the game. A combination of luck, dogged defending and an outstanding display by David Marshall in goal kept the game level for so long.

A Man of the Match display from David Marshall against Spurs. (Pic by Jon Candy)

Strangely enough, nobody really had a bad game for us. It was a good team effort where we nearly “stole” a point, but nobody could begrudge an excellent Spurs team their win. If they can get some consistency (which they never seem to manage), then they could challenge at the top of the league this year.

FULHAM 1 CARDIFF 2 - 28/09/2013

A first away win, with nearly 4,000 Bluebirds fans making the trip to West London! Reports suggest that by half time we should have been well ahead, but an outstanding goal by Fulham’s Brian Ruiz just before half time cancelled out Steve Caulker’s debut goal for the club after 12 minutes.

However, the best was yet to come. Jordan Mutch was brought on to replace Kim Byo-kung in the second half, and 2 minutes into injury time scored with an outstanding left foot shot. Nearly 4,000 delirious travelling Bluebirds erupted!

Jordan Mutch celebrates “Goal of the Season”!

A stunning left foot shot, voted goal of the month on BBC Match of the Day. Described as an early contender for goal of the season, there won’t be many better than that!

CARDIFF 1 NEWCASTLE 2 - 5/10/2013

Just for once, the first half performance from the Bluebirds was poor. None of the players seemed capable of passing to one of their own. Even the ever reliable Gary Medel seemed to lose his bearings. At this level, you can’t afford to play like that, and Newcastle punished us with 2 clinical strikes from French international Loic Remy.

Peter Odemwinge scored his first Bluebirds goal against Newcastle (pic by Jon Candy)

For a while just before half time, I thought the team was going to cave in completely. But Malky managed to get them re-organised in the second half, and a first goal for the club by Peter Odemwinge gave them some hope. Indeed, we would have been worthy of a draw had we managed another goal. However, it is to be hoped that the team learned from this, particularly to realise that the class of players against you in the Premier League means that you always need to be at the top of your game.

ANOTHER EXCITING 6 GAMES COMING UP!

To be fair, they are all exciting at the moment! Our next 3 home games are Swansea, Manchester United and Arsenal, with away games at Chelsea, Norwich and Aston Villa. I really hope we can scrape at least 6 points from those games, but its a big ask!

I’ve been impressed with Peter Odemwinge since his arrival. I think the time has come for Malky to rethink his strategy - you can only get away with strong defensive formations for so long. I think that the recent performances of Jordan Mutch would justify a start for him against Chelsea. Also, if we are going to play a 4-5-1, then I think that Odemwinge is a better option for the central striking role than Frazier Campbell. Presumably Andreas Cornelius would be an option there when fit.

Lets all get behind the team and the players!