Have City poured good Claret down the sink?

By: Martyn | April 14th, 2009

I wasn’t able to attend Saturday’s clash against Crystal Palace due to my Darren Purse being emptier than a banker’s heart (or Christmas 2009 bonus cheque in the supposed new world of more stringent finance sector regulation) at present. Some useful links to get your teeth into for action, analysis, comment and post-match fall-out (a phrase that has a strange habit of following Mr Warnock about):

- Johnson hospitalized
- Warnock defiant
- Palace filthy
- McCormack the hero
- Vital 2-0 away win

To both summarise and conclude with a haiku:

Palace were horrid/
City were flippin’ awesome/
Result and clean sheet!

Yesterday, the Easter double-header was concluded with the much stiffer prospect of a Burnley side arriving at Ninian Park. As we’d failed to secure a victory over anyone in the top 7 this season, most held out for or suspected a draw was the inevitable result. However, such predictions turned out to be as false as Christian Bale pretending to be buddies with the crew on a film set. A 3-1 victory was not exactly entirely deserved – City were as awful as the last few seasons of Family Guy for large stretches of the game – but then how many games has it been now this season where we’ve said bollocks to aesthetics and done our best Charles Peace impression? Dave Jones flirts with reflecting on this.

Here was how I saw the game unfold: my men of the match for either side, duds of the match, crowd watch and the systems/expressions played out by either side.

Systems employed

Cardiff City

The formation differed little from the one in operation recently; Chopra and Bothroyd up front with either McCormack or Ledley coming far forward when we were on the attack to make it a 4-3-3. We started the game with the usual slow and long ball rubbish that plagues the English game. Players were looking to delegate responsibility on every occasion and with the wind picking up, Jesus made the right idea coming back two millenniums ago rather than entering a world in which people pay to watch this nonsense. After having a go at young Rhys Williams down the left hand side and finding him if not excellent but comfortable, the right flank was the one we looked to exploit a little more because Kalvenes was shakier than a stick being brandished by a bloke with many options. In defence, Kennedy was struggling against Eagles, so Ledley was forced to drop back and double up on the ex-Manchester United starlet. This continued for the rest of the game (not always Ledley but always someone) and shut him up and out. The centre-backs were in great form and restricted the space, thus forcing the possession-dominating Burnley to shoot from tight, pointless angles. Our first decent shot on goal took 36 minutes to arrive, thus crowning our wimpish not impish start. With McCormack and Ledley now swapping sides on several occasions, we gave Burnley a little more to think about and as they dropped the tempo of the high-energy game they had been playing, the Bluebirds finally got into the game and on the ball. We began dictating proceedings in the second half, even if we didn’t always get our own way. Poor finishing was threatening to make this one highly frustrating afternoon, but Bothroyd and McCormack linked-up brilliantly to lift the crowd, the team, and the zero on our side of the scoreboard to uno! As Burnley began surging forward once again – it seemed like they would reap the benefits of doing so after Purse’s atrocious backpass allowed them to level – we began to counter-attack. With Chopra now off and McCormack pushed up front (Bothroyd dropped a little to give us a 4-4-1-1 feel, similar to the Hasselbaink/Parry partnership of last season), we began not just operating but relying on the counter-attack game. This works stupendously with someone as gifted at it as our no. 44. 2-1 eventually became 3-1, the slender advantage being achieved after Bothroyd returned the favour for goal 1 and set up McCormack, the cushion after some fine solo work from the Scot. The job was very much done.

Burnley

Burnley were set-up in a formation more ambitious than usual 4-5-1 line-up’s we’ve seen at Ninian Park this season. Sure, it could be interpreted as being exactly that, but it was veering more towards a 4-3-3 with Blake and Eagles offering support to Rodriguez. Eagles is a rather old-fashioned sorta wide-man, the type who must re-enter the changing rooms with paint on his jersey and shorts having heard the conversations of the fans in the front row down his particular side of the ground. Despite Burnley having width about them, they began the game – with an incredible amount of zip and energy, pressing from the front and attacking with urgency – by playing no more than 2 or 3 passes before looking to unleash the ball goal-ward. Unfortunately, Rodriguez was without options on too many occasions as the midfield trio behind him were a negative bunch and Blake/Eagles were not in reach, so many attacks petered out or saw the Spanish-Lanc resort to hitting fans in the Grange End in the face. This was soon amended and Chris Eagles coming alive was the deus ex machina! Only great centre-half positioning and poor set-pieces from the Lancashire lot saved City. The Clarets defence never looked impenetrable however, both nervy and mistake-ridden. We could have gone ahead earlier had we taken advantage of this. Another tactical innovation of Owen Coyle’s introduced during the middle half hour of the game and one that incorporated the centre-halves (Clark Carlisle in particular) was whacking the ball viciously in the air towards our box; presumably with the aim of targeting/chancing upon an advancing and slow Blues back line. This failed to work as numbers 5 and 6 (how refreshing, DC’s with *proper* numbers on their backs) were on form and the pace of Kevin McNaughton is enough to serve 3 individuals. After Burnley had failed to seize the initiative, the tempo dropped and they began to resemble a 4-5-1, a lop-sided 4-4-2 if you were being kind but Eagles was no longer getting any change from being doubled up on by blue shirts. Everyone tucked in and attempted to plug the gaps and offer City no room to thread that match-winning pass. It was seemingly working too (aided by our profligate strikers), until great movement and a lethal strike put this season’s Championship cup success story 1-0 down. Coyle used his bench options, bringing off the more defence-minded Alexander for Joey Gudjonsson. Blake was pushed up front, Wade Elliot out wide (switching sides with Eagles in the process) and a 4-4-2 was more conservatively formed. After getting an equalizer after re-upping the tempo, they nodded off and conceded just seconds later. On came a defender to play up front, and up in the air went the ball. Up came their back-line and out came the gaps. 2-1, maybe, 3-1, game over.

Men of the Match

Cardiff City

This was a tie between Ross McCormack and Gabor Gyepes for me. The former shades it for impact and 3-points bagging alone. The latter was magnificent for the entire game and didn’t deserve his partner allowing Burnley to deny him his clean-sheet bonus. 2 goals and an assist means Super Ross really is THOOOOPER (thanks for asking) but the Hungarian’s reading of the game, strength, composure and positional sense were also match-winning assets yesterday afternoon.

Honourable mentions – Darren Purse was phenomenal save for the Burnley goal, Eddie Johnson is really starting to excel in his role of coming on late on and keeping possession, and Kevin McNaughton kept Robbie Blake subdued until the tubby knicker-flasher moved into a more central role.

Duds of the Match

Cardiff City

Stuart Taylor may well make a few handy stops, but his refusal to ever come off his line and clear or collect scares the crowd and his defence to death on too many occasions. Correspondingly, his kicking is abysmal. Is there a curse on goalkeepers in the Cardiff City strip this season?! By heck. Maybe we need a Somalian pirate in goals. They go out of their way there to make a claim for objects stranded in big, open areas. Other duds in blue were Darren Purse for the split second that saw him offer the worst back-pass in the history of back-passes (I’m sure a company has commissioned and released a DVD of these somewhere, probably with Danny Dyer offering smart-Alec remarks and non-smiles for the duration of the non-football clips. If said company has put this DVD out on the market, they now need to release version 7.4 or whatever to include hapless Darren’s dithering), Mark Kennedy was/is a dud for the first half in which he was tormented by the speed and ambition of Chris Eagles, as was… Jay Bothroyd. Some may deem this as a controversial choice given the fact that he got an assist and a goal. Equally, I’ve had one too many Bothroyd love-in’s this season and would go as far as saying that he has been our most significant player in 08/09 (although McCormack’s late spree of goals is changing that opinion by the day). However, Bothroyd was well, a bit dud-ish yesterday. His finishing had been atrocious, he was guilty of going over and over and over and over every time he went for an aerial challenge, he wasn’t linking up with Chopra or the centre-midfield (not that they were having much of an impact on the game), and he was losing his temper big-time at the opposition for the most innocuous provocations or cleanly-won wave-breakers. Perhaps he was lucky to stay on the pitch given his penchant for confrontations and dodgy tackles in this encounter. But then came the late show, and all was redeemed I suppose. Nevertheless, the slumber of a performance that prefaced this awakening must be eradicated.

Burnley

As for the Clarets, the lot of ‘em were culpable for falling asleep after netting an equalizer, and too many of them in general were guilty of going missing for large periods of the game. However, if you’re looking for a dud who had 90 minutes of pure stink, look no further than full-back Christian Kalvenes. He conceded needless corners, could not keep up or deal with McCormack, looked shaky and easily hassled, and ultimately, was part of a defence that leaked three goals.

Crowd Watch

After an early bit of argy-bargy, the curtain was drawn on the traveling and local fans, but thankfully this did not kill the atmosphere. Burnley’s support were in good voice (and numbers) for the remainder of the match, but a 19k-strong Cardiffian support were in even finer fettle with the crescendo being reached in the minutes preceding the man in black’s final peep!

By beating the Clarets, we may well have opened the play-off door for Swansea City, 3-1 victors at Oakwell. Or Preston North End, a side we face on the weekend. It may still be mathematically possible for us to flounder and exit the elite band that is spots 3-6, but after our third consecutive win on the spin for the first time this season, every Bluebird is looking up the table rather than down! Could we really go up automatically? I’d say no, if only because of the shocker the ref had in the Sheffield United game at Ninian Park. The feelgood factor surrounding the club at present is palpable mind and you sense that this team is on the verge of something special (if only because of its incredible result-grinding ability), and what a send off to our beloved but decrepit old ground promotion would be, albeit clinched at Hillsborough!