More of the Same this Christmas?

More of the Same this Christmas?

A mixed December so far as we hit one of the busiest times of the season - 4 games in 11 days! I think it is a bit much to expect 4 wins out of 4 as we did last Christmas, with the current top 2 Premier League teams to come away from home! However, despite one or two off-field distractions, Malky does seem to have the team in the right frame of mind, and lets hope for the very best. As a realist, the best we can hope for is 2 home wins and nothing from the away games. But the fan inside me keeps thinking that both Liverpool and Arsenal are due to mess up at home, and why shouldn’t we get a point at least at either of those games?

It is only a few short weeks since Arsenal comprehensively beat us at the Cardiff City Stadium, and the sight of Liverpool putting 5 past Spurs last sunday makes things a bit scary! Added to the fact the Luis Suarez is easily the best player in the Premier League at the moment and scoring goals for fun. Still, we can hope that either of those teams has an off day!

Our home games are more important, with 2 in 3 days against Southampton and Sunderland. Southampton have been struggling a little bit recently, after their excellent start to the season. They are a good footballing side, and I hope they will give us a chance to play too. Sunderland have been struggling so far, after sacking their manager early in the season. Gus Poyet is doing his best to sort them out, and their performances have been a little better recently, but this is a game that we really ought to win.

3 games since my last blog post - 1 win, 1 loss and 1 draw.

Stoke City 0 Cardiff 0

Crystal Palace 2 Cardiff 0

Cardiff 1 West Bromwich Albion 0

Stoke City 0 Cardiff 0

Always a difficult place to play, Stoke have found themselves near the bottom of the table since Mark Hughes took over as manager. Reports suggest that the game was by no means a classsic, but that we did not really deserve to lose.

Young full back Declan John and Peter Whittingham challenge England star Peter Crouch.

Crystal Palace 2 Cardiff 0

Reports suggest that this was easily our worst performance of the season, allowing Palace to win their second game in a row to ease some of their own relegation worries. Even former Arsenal striker Marouane Chamakh scored, after former Bluebirds star Cameron Jerome had opened the scoring for Palace. A poor performance and a game worth forgetting.

Peter Whittingham challenges with Chamakh at the Palace.

Cardiff 1 West Bromwich Albion 0

5 games without a win had seen us drift in the table to one place above the relegation zone. A win against another struggling team like West Brom was therefore essential. Since Malky Mackay took over as manager 2 and a half years ago, the rare bad performances by the Bluebirds have always been followed by a good one. This proved to be the case in this game.

Goal celebrations against West Brom - goal scorer Peter Whittingham is horizontal after a rare headed goal! (Pic by Jon Candy)

For the first time this season, Malky arranged the team into a more attacking 4-4-2 formation, with Peter Noone making his first Premier League start out wide on the right. I feared that this might result in more defensive worries, but in truth West Brom offered little attacking threat despite a number of star names in their line-up.

The only goal of the game was a rare header from Peter Whittingham, but in many ways it was a more comfortable win than the scoreline suggests. David Marshall pulled off an excellent save from a Shane Long header with 2 minutes remaining, but a goal there would have been an injustice to the Bluebirds. The result for West Brom was considered so bad that manager Steve Clarke was relieved of his duties later that evening.

And so on to Christmas - Seasons Greetings to all my readers!

Now the season REALLY starts!

The BIG One (and other stories).

6 games since my last blog entry, with one win, two draws and three defeats. We find ourselves in 17th place in the league, a position I would like to see us in at the end of the season. There is no disgrace in a 4-1 defeat to Chelsea, the 0-0 draw at Norwich was probably very important as an away point against one of our lower half of the table rivals. The win against Swansea was outstanding, of course, and only the defeat at Aston villa was really disappointing. As I have posted before, any points against the “top 7” clubs are a bonus, and a point against a poor Manchester United was still a bonus. 

Samuel Et’oo scores the opener for Chelsea.

An away point at Norwich was particularly important, not so much for the point gained by us, but the two points dropped by Norwich in a match that they would have pencilled in at the start of the season as one where they would have expected to take all 3 points. Their subsequent 7-0 hammering to Manchester City also did us a big favour as far as goal difference is concerned.

Fraizer Campbell gets on the end of one against Norwich.

Then came the big one - against our closest rivals Swansea. A lot of the readers of my blog are in the USA, and it must be hard for them to understand the full intensity of his fixture. The 2 cities are approximately 40 miles apart. However, away supporters are not allowed to travel independently to this fixture, even in the BPL, because of the risk of violence and other public order offences! There may be many fixtures nowadays which encapture a good family atmosphere, but this defintely isn't one of those!

The game itself was the main feature on Sky that weekend, and was therefore featured all around the world. It probably wasn't much of a game for the neutral, but for those of us who are extremely partisan the 1-0 win from a Steve Caulker goal was outstanding. The bragging rights are ours until the return fixture in February!

Steve Caulker heads the winning goal against Swansea.

The following week involved an away trip to Aston Villa. Despite an early season win over Arsenal, Villa have been struggling for much of the season. The match seemed to be heading for a draw until a stunning free kick in the 75th minute, and a second breakaway goal a few minutes later gave Villa a 2-0 win.

Peter Whittingham and Ben Turner in action at Villa Park.

Then game 2 more big home games against 2 of the biggest club sides in world football - Manchester United and Arsenal.

Manchester United are still a good team, although not quite as fearsome as they were under Sir Alex Ferguson. However, they lack strength in depth these days, and with the exception of Wayne Rooney they are a good, but ordinary, team (in my opinion). We were well worth our point from the 2-2 draw, and yet another fantastic moment of the season was the stoppage time header from Kim Bo-Kyung!

Kim Bo-Kyung heads a late equaliser against Manchester United (pic by Jon Candy)

And  so to last Saturday's game against Arsenal - a 0-3 defeat. We have played 5 of the top 7 teams at the Cardiff City stadium this season, and Arsenal were clearly the best of those 5 teams They have an amazing array of talented midfield players, including former Bluebird Aaron Ramsey who has arguably been the best player in the Premier League this season. After not celebrating against his old club when scoring the opening goal, the applause from the home fans was heartwarming and quite a rarity in this day and age.

The Bluebirds played well, but Arsenal were outstanding and a truly great team.

Cardiff vArsenal - (pic by Jon Candy).

The Real Season starts here!

Having played most of the top teams at home already, the season proper starts now. 10 of our next 12 home fixtures are against our rivals in the lower half of the table battles, and we have to take plenty of points from our remaining home games to make sure we stay up.

The next 2 away games are pretty imprtant too, against 2 teams threatened with relegation, in the form of Stoke and Crystal Palace. A win and a draw from those 2 matches would be welcome, but avoiding defeat in both games will probably be acceptable too!

Onwards and (hopefully) upwards!