Close but no Cigar. Season End Review.

It's back to the Championship for the Bluebirds. Our fate was sealed with the 3-2 home defeat to Crystal Palace on the penultimate weekend of the season. However, the season had a bright end with a 2-0 win at Old Trafford against Manchester United. Of course, we will never know if the team would have won that game if the pressure had been on where we had to get a win but I like to think so. Manchester United are playing poorly at the moment, so a win was not as much of a surprise as it might have been a couple of months earlier. 

Ultimately, we were only 2 points away from saving our Premier League status. There is a case to be made where we did not get the vital decisions in our favour, especially over the latter part of the season. However, I'm very much a believer that you make your own luck over the course of a 38 game season and poor refereeing decisions even themselves out. We can have no real complaints (except perhaps the first Chelseas goal at the Cardiff City Stadium). 

The final home game of the season against Crystal Palace was the perfect example of why we were ultimately not good enough to stay in the Premier League. Crystal Palace is a team mainly made up of players who are of the same standard to our own. However, they also have 2 players in Wilfred Zaha and Andros Townsend who are a class above the rest. They are players who are capable of an extra special moment of skill and expertise which can create a goal out of apparently nothing. They are players who are probably worth a much in transfer fees on their own as it would cost to buy our whole team. It is this class player that we don't have in our squad, and this for me is the key reason we were unable to survive.

RESULTS SINCE LAST BLOG:

CARDIFF 2 CRYSTAL PALACE 3

MANCHESTER UNITED 0 CARDIFF 2

There was plenty of hard work and general endeavour against Crystal Palace, but ultimately goals  from their "skill" players of Wilfred Zaha and Andros Townsend finally sealed Cardiff's relegation. A bizarre own goal which drew Cardiff gave the Bluebirds some hope, but a Batsushayi goal before half time and another classy goal from Andros Townsend in the second half waste much to overcome.

 Aron Gunnarsson played his last home game for the club after 8 seasons at the Cardiff City Stadium.

On the last day of the season we went to Old Trafford for a now irrelevant game against a struggling Manchester United. Cardiff played well, and 2 goals from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing gave us a comfortable win. This was our only win against a 'Top 6' opponent all year - although we came close against Chelsea and Arsenal at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Nathaniel Mendez-Laing slots home the second at Old Trafford.

THE GOOD THINGS FROM THE SEASON:-

• The performances of Neil Etheridge in goal - I'm pretty sure a Premier League team will come in for him this summer and he will be back in the top league next season.
• The togetherness of the fans, and their loyalty to Neil Warnock. Despite the season long struggle against relegation, the fans remained united and firmly behind the team. Such a contrast to our last trip 5 years ago.
• The Junior Hoilett winner against Wolves - I still can't believe how he managed to keep that ball under control!
• We had 4 more points than our last trip to the league. Also, 3 more wins, and 4 more clean sheets.

THE NOT SO GOOD THINGS:-

• Clearly, the Emiliano Sala incident. This spoilt the mood of the club for well over a month.
• That offside goal that Chelsea scored at the Cardiff City Stadium.
• The gap between the top 6 clubs (especially the top 2!) is now much greater than our last trip to the PL 5 years ago.
• The diabolical home loss to Watford.
• The home loss to Man Utd (although we did at least get revenge for that!)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Well, its a return to the 4th biggest league in Europe - the EFL Championship. Manager Neil Warnock has confirmed that he will be staying for another season, hoping to achieve his 9th promotion. It seems that the board have agreed to back him financially, as we will probably need about half a dozen new players, especially a striker and two new central midfield players.

Obviously, our loan players Arter, Camarasa and Niasse have returned to their home clubs. Victor Camarasa was particularly impressive, and I have a feeling he too will be back in the Premier League with one of the bigger clubs next season. Rumour has it that Harry Arter will be playing tin the Championship with Fulham next season. But , Neil Etheridge aside, I'm not sure we will lose many other players to the Premier League. There is talk of perhaps Bobby De Cordova-Reid being brought into the Premier League, or Josh Murphy, but I'm pretty sure that unless someone offers silly money that they will be with the club next August.

We clearly have a strong team with a chance of promotion - including the nucleus of the side that was promoted last season. But the Championship is incredibly competitive and last seasons relegated clubs have not made it back to the Premier League this season. But with Neil Warnock has the experience and ability, and we know that his teams will always give 100% effort, so we should be in with a very good shout.

And so, around about the 3rd August when the new season begins, I'll Be There!

Thus completes this blog for now. Who knows if I ever get a chance to return to it. In the meantime, the "Life of a Bluebird" blog will continue this summer.

The Fat Lady Waits

The fat lady is warmed up and ready to perform, waiting for the knock on her dressing room door to make her way to the stage. And yet, will there yet be a last minute change of plans? 

Following our win in the 'must win' game against Brighton, when hope of avoiding relegation was rekindled, there has been the creditable (but inevitable) defeat at home to title chasing Liverpool, and a desperately disappointing defeat at already relegated Fulham on Saturday. It should all be over. But Brighton have made it hard for themselves too. Their superior goal difference is effectively worth an extra point in the struggle, but their continued poor form means that they have to continually worry. 

The number of scenarios in which we can avoid relegation remains small, but amazingly as we approach the penultimate game of the season we still have a slim chance of making it. But our fate is not entirely in our own hands. Firstly, we need Brighton to pick up no more than one point in their remaining two games, at Arsenal and home to Manchester City. Normally you could be quite confident about Brighton losing those two games, but Arsenal are on a terrible run having lost 3 games in a row, as well as being distracted by Europa League semi-finals. It looks like Manchester City may well need to win at Brighton to clinch the Premier League title, and as long as this is still the case then you have to be quite confident that they can do this at least.

If this happens, then all we need to do is win our final 2 games. At home to Crystal Place and away at Manchester United! On the face of it, this looks unlikely, but we live on in hope if not expectation. Statistics suggest that we're due a win, however lucky, against one of the top 6 teams. Now is the time to do it.

Matches since the last blog:

BRIGHTON 0 CARDIFF 2

CARDIFF 0 LIVERPOOL 2

FULHAM 1 CARDIFF 0

The game at Brighton gave us some hope. A stunning Nathaniel Mendez-Laing goal in the first half was added to by Sean Morrison's first goal of the season in the second half to give the Bluebirds a comfortable 2-0 win. Brighton were very poor but have managed to pick up 2 points since then to give themselves the edge. 

NML scores at Brighton.

Cardiff fought hard against Liverpool and held out until the hour mark of the game before a Wijnaldum goal settled the nerves for the Premier League contenders. Then last Saturday came a disappointing performance against already relegated Fulham when we didn't really start to play until we went a goal down with 10 minutes left to play. 

Its the business end of the season, so lets hope the team can get down to business!

Must Win.

As we begin to approach the business end of the season, there have only been 4 fixtures since my last post 6 weeks ago. This situation has come about following the FA Cup success of 2 of our opponents during that time. In that time, 2 teams are already relegated from the Premier League - Huddersfield and Fulham - and we are heavily odds on favourites to join them. Indeed, tonight's fixture at Brighton has become a 'must win' game if we are to avoid the drop, as it is difficult (though not mathematically impossible) to see any way out for us if we lose tonight.

Despite some great performances in recent weeks, some of our early season luck has begun to run out, and we have been on the wrong end of some poor refereeing decisions. Also, there have been to season-ending injuries to 2 of our talismanic players - Sol Bamba and Calum Paterson - to stretch our squad to its limits.

Results since the last post:

CARDIFF 2 WEST HAM 0

CARDIFF 1 CHELSEA 2

MANCHESTER CITY 2 CARDIFF 0

BURNLEY 2 CARDIFF 0

After the disappointment of the previous 3 performances, the fairly comfortable win against West ham was almost unexpected. An early Junior Hoilett goal relaxed the team. West Ham were not really at their best, and when Victor Camarasa squeezed the ball in at the far post early in the second half we were really under very little pressure from that time.

Victor Camarasa squeezes in the second!

But perhaps the most important moment of the season came in the home game against Chelsea almost 3 weeks later. Its always difficult to get a result against the top 6 sides for the teams near the bottom, but this was particularly heartbreaking. Yet again, Chelsea were not at their best, and some of their very expensive stars were not performing. We hung on in there, and managed to go in front early in the second half. Chelsea were forced to bring on Eden Hazard, one of the world's greatest players, but still Cardiff managed to essentially keep him under control. However, with 8 minutes to go a Chelsea corner led to Cesar Azpalicuetta scoring from close range from a clearly offside position which the match officials managed to completely miss. A  second Chelsea goal in stoppage time was almost irrelevant. As the popular phrase goes "We wuz robbed"! 

Neil Warnock gives the match officials his very best Paddington Bear stare!

Following this result there have been the expected (though creditable) 2-0 loss at Manchester City followed by the more disappointing 2-0 loss at Burnley last Saturday.

I believe that if we are truly to stand any chance of remaining in the Premier League then tonight is a "MUST WIN" game. Ironically, our late winner at the Cardiff City Stadium against Brighton in the earlier part of the season was subsequently found to have been offside (although not blatantly so). Lets hope the footballing gods are back on our side tonight.

Tough times.

We head to the last quarter of the season with the threat of relegation still present. Two consecutive wins gave us hope, but 3 subsequent poor performances have once again put us into he bottom 3. The odds remain against us, but we aren't the only team worried and there must be similar concern from one or two other teams near us in the table. Despite the run of defeats, we are only one win away from getting out of the relegation places, so lets try not to get too despondent yet.


RESULTS SINCE LAST BLOG:

NEWCASTLE 3 CARDIFF 0

ARSENAL 2 CARDIFF 1

CARDIFF 2 BOURNEMOUTH 0

SOUTHAMPTON 1 CARDIFF 2

CARDIFF 1 WATFORD 5

CARDIFF 0 EVERTON 3

WOLVES 2 CARDIFF 0


The early part of this run of fixtures was interrupted by the Emiliano Sala tragedy mentioned in my post of 28/01/2019. However, in the weekend before the incident took place, we visited St James Park to face Newcastle United. this seems to have been one of the worst performances of the season (at that point) where we easily capitulated to a Newcastle  team not much higher in the table than ourselves.

There was then a 10 day gap until our next fixture at the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal. The Sala tragedy was still fresh in our minds at the time, and reports of a much improved Cardiff performance was largely ignored. Although a 2-1 win for Arsenal, a notable incident late in the game saw a stoppage time goal from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing. NML is one of only 2 active Premier League players to have scored in all 4 top levels of the EFL/Premier League in the last 4 seasons ( the other is Alfie Mawson of Fulham).

Nathaniel Mendez-Laing

The form continued into the next fixture at home to Bournemouth. An early penalty was put away by Bobby Decordova-Reid and Cardiff kept the game well under control until half time. Then, immediately after halftime Reid was put away again and calmly rolled the ball into the net for a 2-0. A large section of the crowd, myself included, were pretty sure that he had been offside when he received the ball. But subsequent replays on Match of the Day that night confirmed that he was fractionally ON side and the goal was correctly awarded. This ended up being a comfortable win against an infuriating Bournemouth team who look top 6 material one week and a bottom 6 a week later!

Bobby Decordova-Reid scores the penalty against Bournemouth.

Next was a trip to Southampton where we achieved one of only 2 away wins on our last trip to the Premier League. The points seemed to have been won when Sol Bamba gave the Bluebirds the lead in the 69th minute. A late onslaught from the Saints aw then break Cardiff hearts after a minute of stoppage time with a late equaliser. Except there was still more time left, and in the 93rd minute of play, Kenneth Zohore scored his first goal of the season and sent the Cardiff fans home extremely happy, having achieved our first "double" of the season.

Kenneth Zohore celebrates the winner at Southampton

It was after this game that things started to go wrong. A disastrous home defeat to a decent Watford team by 5-1. We were still in the game just after halftime despite being a goal behind, when a classy break by Delofeu of Watford put them 2 ahead. Then, for the first time at home this season, the team folded badly.

What was more worrying was the 3-0 home defeat to Everton 4 days later, where we very much returned to our early season form of poor defending and no creative ability in midfield.

Then followed a 2-0 defeat at Wolves which could have been a lot worse, although at least there was some spirit shown despite going 2 behind after only 18 minutes. The more worrying factor from this game was a serious injury to Sol Bamba - subsequently found to be a routed ACL - which will keep him out for the rest of the season. Let's hope he can be the spiritual leader of the team from the sidelines!

Sol Bamba - serious injury at Molineux.

SO. Do we want to stay up?

Although it looks almost impossible, there are still 9 games left where we can possibly ensure our Premier League survival. But then what? Do we find ourselves in the same position as Huddersfield have been this season? Hopelessly outclassed and badly lacking in quality players? Or would we be better off returning to the Championship to regroup and get ourselves back up again, perhaps having learned a few lessons. After all, a number of teams - Watford and Crystal Palace  notably - spent a number of years bouncing between the Premier League and the Championship before establishing themselves. West Brom, too, were a yo-yo team who stabilised for a while before their relegation last season.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is to hope for Premier League survival. But (gasp!) we will need a new manager and substantial team investment if we are not to become another Huddersfield.

More to life than football.

How on earth do you start to write about the tragic events of the past week? As I sit down to compose this blog entry, it is 6 days since the light aircraft carrying our new Argentinian striker Emiliano Sala and pilot Dave Ibbotson went missing over the English Channel en route between Nantes and Cardiff. The main search was called off last week when the authorities confirmed that there was no sign of the aircraft or any chance of survival in the January sea temperatures in the English Channel. A public GoFundMe page has raised money for the search to be privately funded and restarted this week, but this is likely to be only a task which may eventually (hopefully) give closure to his family and friends.

I'm not going to speculate here on the causes and events leading up to the disappearance of the plane, or try to apportion blame. There will be time for that in the weeks and months (or even years) to come. Suffice to say that a young life has been lost at the peak of his career and abilities, having just signed the biggest deal of his career only 2 days previously.

Emiliano Sala signs for Cardiff City.

The club finds itself the centre of World football attention. The club management, particularly the Chief Executive Ken Choo and Chairman Mehmet Dalman, have dealt with the situation impeccably in the circumstances. The club supporters have also played their part in tributes to a player who they never met and will never see play. However, he is already considered as "one of our own" and will never be forgotten. The supporters of his previous club Nantes  are also grieving for a player they knew well.

The first team return to football this week but it seems a little unimportant at times like this. I'll resume my match reports soon. In the meantime, let's hope that Emiliano Sala is able to Rest in Peace.

Fan tributes outside the Cardiff City Stadium.

Hang on in there!

The busy Christmas period has been and gone, and as we approach the middle of January we are still outside the relegation places, albeit by one point. There have been some good performances and some indifferent performances, but we still mange to keep getting towards the total of  points we need. I'm pretty sure 35 points will be enough to keep us up this season - that means 16 points from 16 games - but 4 of those games are against the Big 6 teams, so effectively that means 16points  from 12 games. Surely that's possible? 

Yet again, scoring goals has been a problem. But, looking on the bright side, we have kept a clean sheet in 3 of our last 4 games, so we are half way there!

Results since last blog entry:-

CARDIFF 1 SOUTHAMPTON 0

WATFORD 3 CARDIFF 2

CARDIFF 1 MANCHESTER UNITED 5

CRYSTAL PALACE 0 CARDIFF 0

LEICESTER 0 CARDIFF 1

CARDIFF 0 SPURS 3

GILLINGHAM 1 CARDIFF 0 (FA Cup)

CARDIFF 0 HUDDERSFIELD 0

We seem to have a run of playing teams who have recently had a crisis in the week before their visit to the Cardiff City Stadium. Southampton sacked their manager Mark Hughes in the week prior to the relegation zone fixture against us back at the beginning of December. Their new manager, Ralph Hassenhuttl , was taking charge of his first game. A hard working performance against a newly revitalised Southampton saw Calum Paterson score the only goal in a valuable 3 points for the Bluebirds. Southampton appear a better team under their new manager, and so this appears to be a very important win.

Callum Paterson cooly slots home the winner against Southampton

The away game at Watford was notable for 4 absolutely top class goals. Unfortunately, the first 3 of those were scored by Watford! We didn't start to play until we were 3-0 behind, but the pundits suggest we deserved at least a draw from the game.

Junior Hoilett lines up his stunning first goal at Watford.

Manchester United came to Cardiff just before Christmas. Yet again, we were playing a team who had replaced their manager in the week before the game. Ironically, their new manager was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who had seen Cardiff relegated from the Premier League 5 years ago. An unfortunate early goal from a free kick made it very difficult for Cardiff, followed by a goal from a wicked deflection. It is always going to be difficult for us to get anything from the top 6 clubs in the league, but this was a particularly poor capitulation by Cardiff against a newly rejuvenated Manchester United team celebrating the departure of Jose Mourhino.

Given our performance last Christmas when we lost all four games over the festive period, fans could be understood to have quite a high level of trepidation approaching the next two away games. But these games turned out to be a positive experience. A dour 0-0 draw at Selhurst Park against Crystal Palace on Boxing Day was followed with a late Victor Camarasa winner at Leicester 4 days later! Our first away win of the season! 4 very welcome away points over the festive appearance.

Victor Camarasa scores the stoppage time winner against Leicester - our first away win of the season!

On New Years Day, we faced another top 6 side in Tottenham Hotspur. Unfortunately, this was another early capitulation by Cardiff who were 3-0 down after only 20 minutes of the game. It is rather a bizarre statistic that we haven't been ahead at half time in any game this season. I'm not sure if this was as a result of the away fixtures during the previous week, but this was a rather lacklustre performance.

The first Saturday in January was always looked forward to as the 3rd Round of the FA Cup. However, since the commencement of the Premier League and all of the promised riches that brings, the FA Cup has lost importance. Thus, Cardiff put out a much weakened team at League one Gillingham and managed to lose 1-0. Many of the most important players were rested. At one time, this would have been seen as a major embarrassment for the team. but in these more pragmatic days where the league is so important, this was seen as a 'blessing in disguise' by most fans. It is noticeable that many of the teams near the bottom of the Premier League and the top of the Championship managed to lose against lower quality opposition in the third round of the FA Cup, thus giving them more time to concentrate on the league.

Last Saturday saw another bottom of the table "6 pointer" against one of our relegation rivals Huddersfield Town - a team who find it even harder to score goals than we do! Therefore, it was no surprise that the match ended in a 0-0 draw. This point was of more use to us than it was to Huddersfield, who at the moment are 8 points away from safety. that single point keeps us out of the bottom 3 before another "6 pointer" away to Newcastle, the team immediately below us in the table.

STOP PRESS

It appears that we have signed Everton's Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse on loan until the end of the season - a definite upgrade on the striking options available to the team at present. 

The club is still rumoured to be pursuing Argentine striker Emiliano Sala from Ligue 1 club Nantes, but at present that deal is not near completion. It will be interesting to see by my next update whether these deals will have come off!

8pm Thursday 17th January 2019

A Tale of 3 Leagues within 1.

Some positives at home and some negatives away during the last month. At the time of composing this post, we find ourselves out of the bottom 3 in the table. 

However, the table is beginning to split into 3 distinct  'mini-leagues':-

• A top 5 of Man City, Liverpool , Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea (with a "sub group" of Man City and Liverpool at the top).
• A middle 8, of Bournemouth, Everton, ManUtd, Leicester, Brighton, Watford , West Ham and Wolves
• A bottom 7 of Fulham, Huddersfield, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Newcastle, Southampton and of course Cardiff.

I can't see these 3 'mini' leagues changing much before the end of the season. It is possible that Wolves may end up down in the bottom group, and that maybe Newcastle will make it into the middle group, particularly as there is the possibility of a new owner soon who may have the resources to move them up the table. But apart from that, I think the tables have been set.

This makes our results against the other teams in our mini league particularly important, continuing this weekend with a vital home game against Southampton. Including this Saturday, we only have 2 more home games against our rivals in the bottom 7, so a win is essential. So far we have taken 5 points off our closest rivals so an improvement is needed. On our last trip to the Premier League we finished bottom and were relegated with 30 points. With the current form being shown by the teams at the bottom, it is quite possible  that a team could stay up with 30 points this year! One of the main reasons behind this is the dominance of Manchester City and Liverpool at the top of the table - if their current form continues they are both on course to achieve over 100 points this season, thus reducing the number of points available for everyone else!

RESULTS SINCE MY LAST POST:

CARDIFF 0 LEICESTER 1

CARDIFF 2 BRIGHTON 1

EVERTON 1 CARDIFF 0

CARDIFF 2 WOLVES 1

WEST HAM 3 CARDIFF 1

This run of matches began with a home game against Leicester City. The occasion was made extra emotional as it was Leicester's first game following the sudden death of their owner in a helicopter crash near the Kingpower Stadium a week previously. 

The teams pay their respects before the game.

Cardiff gave a good account of themselves during this game, but continued to lack the creativity to put the Leicester defence under any sustained pressure. A second half Demarai Gray goal decided the game.

A week later it was a Saturday lunchtime kick off against mid table Brighton. As usual, we gave away the first goal after only 8 minutes. But perhaps the main turning point in the game came after 37 minutes when Dale Stephens got sent off for a reckless challenge. Cardiff had already equalised Lewis Dunk's early goal when Calum Paterson finished off an excellent Cardiff move. In the second half, Brighton made the mistake of trying to defend deeply, and their luck finally ran out in the 90th minute when Sol Bamba crashed the ball into the roof of the net for a late winner. He even managed to avoid a yellow card for excessive celebration as the referee didn't notice him taking his shirt off!

Sol Bamba celebrates the late winner against Brighton - he doesn't take his shirt off!

A week later came the trip to Goodison Park to play Everton. Cardiff haven't beaten Everton for more than 60 years  - and the run continues. A second half Gylfi Siggurdsonn goal ensured that another creditable performance went unrewarded.

Former Swansea hero Gylfi Siggurdssonn scores the Everton winner.

Once again our game was chosen by SKY TV for coverage, and so the game against Wolves was moved to a Friday evening. This brought back some nightmares, following 2 missed stoppage time penalties against our promotion rivals last April! But this time the game went our way! Once again, we gave away the first goal following some poor marking at a corner (we have only scored first in 1 of our 14 games!). But the endeavour shown by the players brought rewards in the second half, where persistent Cardiff pressure and a determination to win the 'second ball' finally paid off with an equaliser from Aron Gunnarsson !

Aron Gunnarsson gets the equaliser !

Continued Cardiff pressure brought an extravagant and instinctive shot from Junior Hoillet - his first goal of the season (subsequently awarded the "Goal of the Month" title on BBC Match of the Day). A very encouraging performance against a team thought to be 'better' than us - a victory for endeavour over skill!

I had to put this picture in - Calum Paterson celebrates Junior  Hoillet's goblin his own way!!!

Then came a rather unusual thing for the Premier League - a midweek game! This was away at the London Stadium to West Ham. This match turned after a missed penalty by Joe Ralls after 35 minutes when the scores were still level at 0-0. Cardiff started poorly in the second half and gave away 3 goals in the first 15 minutes, therefore ending the game as a contest. It wasn't one of our better games and probably best forgotten with the vital game against Southampton coming up this Saturday.

As we enter December, with 5 games to come (3 away), lets hope we can do better than last season when we had our worst run of the season losing 4 consecutive games! Then the January transfer window opens! Lets hope we can get ourselves into a fairly strong position before that happens!

12 noon. 6th December 2018.