Just two League games this weekend because of the Second Round of the FA Cup and a chance for Bradford City and Cardiff City to open up what could be seen, by the standards of this season, as quite a big gap over the rest in the struggle for the automatic promotion places.
Bradford did their bit by increasing Plymouth Argyle’s angst in the relegation zone with a 1-0 win at Home Park and when their match winning penalty went in early in the second half, they took over the leadership of the division.
At Cardiff City Stadium, two team’s whose thirty three matches so far this season had produced ninety eight goals fought out the goal laden tussle which many had predicted and the average number of goals per game in their matches has now risen just above the three mark following City’s 3-2 win this lunchtime over Huddersfield Town in an exciting affair involving two sides that look good enough for a top six finish on this form.
Given how much Huddersfield have spent in the two summer transfer windows since they were relegated at the end of the 23/24 campaign, I reckon their target when this season started would have been top two, not top six. However, although it’s too early yet to say that automatic promotion is out of their reach, they are conceding too many goals currently to make such a prospect realistic.
It’s now twenty eight conceded in eighteen matches for Huddersfield and that figure is undermining the healthy thirty they’ve managed at the other end. Indeed, with our three today making us the division’s leading scorers with thirty one, you can see that Huddersfield possess the fire power to be top two challengers.
However, trying to put my City bias to one side, I thought a win for us by a single goal margin was about right – we scored three lovely goals, two of which illustrated what sets us above many teams in this league and, although we weren’t faultless at the back, we tended to look the more secure of the two sides.
City retained three of the team well beaten by AFC Wimbledon in the Virtu Cup in midweek with, rather surprisingly for me, Dylan Lawlor continuing in central defence, Cian Ashford was on the right wing and Omari Kellyman given the number ten role.
Nathan Trott returned in goal with Perry Ng, Will Fish and Joel Bagan coming into the back four. Captain for the day Ryan Wintle and David Turnbull were the central midfield two and Chris Willock and Yousef Salech joined Ashford up front.
You can debate whether it was down to City making a very good start or Huddersfield seeming to be adversely affected by the early kick off time, but when City took the lead on just six minutes, it felt like a goal had been coming.
The truth is that it was probably a bit of both as City worked the ball from back to front in fluid fashion as Kellyman freed Willock who rolled a pass to the overlapping Bagan whose précise cross from the bye line was nodded in from six yards by Salech on the far post.
Huddersfield couldn’t continue to be as supine as they had been in the first quarter of an hour and they showed signs of attacking life as Bojan Radulovic was given the space to volley inches wide at a corner.
City were generally in control of proceedings though. Willock and Ashford, twice, were worked into threatening positions, but their shots didn’t overly trouble visiting keeper Lee Nicholls..
It was the Willock, Bagan and Salech combination that came closest to a second goal though as what would have been a carbon copy of the first one was denied because the cross this time was a little bit high for the striker who couldn’t keep his header down.
As I approach the age of three score years and ten there are still footballing mysteries that I am no closer to solving than I was at the age seven when I really started getting into the game. One of them is how come a team can start a match as well as City did and then look as careless and dozy as they did at the start of the second period?
I suppose the most likely answer to that question is complacency, but I don’t think this was the case here, it was more that City couldn’t wake themselves up after their quarter of an hour break.
You could see Huddersfield were beginning to fancy their chances and if it felt like a goal was coming after six minutes of the first half for City, the same applied but in reverse in the second one.
What made the Huddersfield equaliser all the more galling when it came was that it was from a move that Bradford had taken the lead from on their way to their win here in September. Marcus Harness rolled a corner into the path of Leo Castledine whose well struck first time shot from twenty five yards flew into the net with the aid of a deflection off Kellyman – Tommy Leigh’s effort for Bradford was not deflected, but that apart, it was identical to Castledine’s equaliser.
The next ten minutes or so completed the visitors best period of the game as City struggled to find their earlier fluency and, once again, it was BBM’s substitutions around the hour mark which changed the game.
This time, Turnbull, Willock and Kellyman made way for Alex Robertson, Isaak Davies and Joel Colwill and within a minute or two the changes had done the trick as we regained the lead.
Once again it was a fine goal, although, as it turned out, none of the newcomers were directly involved in it. Wintle’s great ball inside the full back gave Ashford the opportunity to beat his man and cross from the bye line. This time the cross was from the right, not the left, but there were clear similarities between our first two goals as Salech headed in at the far post from even closer in than he was for the opener.
City had now got their mojo back and took charge of the game again as Ronan Kpakio replaced Ng and, with four minutes left, they looked to have wrapped up the points as they went two goals clear with another marvellous goal.
This one was different in nature to the first two as Wintle’s long ball was skilfully back headed by Salech into the path of Davies whose shot from twenty yards was never going to be saved by Nicholls.
That should have been that, but Huddersfield kept on going and got themselves a lifeline when a cross from their right was turned goalwards by Robertson. It would have been an own goal, but sub Joe Taylor got a faint touch on the ball to claim the goal.
City brought on Callum Robinson for Ashford and had to defend a couple of corners in the six minutes of added time (Trott also had a corner awarded against him for holding onto the ball for too long – the first time I’ve seen this rule applied since it was introduced this season). However, there weren’t any major scares for them as they claimed their third straight league in which they have scored three times.
Keeping that run going at third place Stevenage on Tuesday will be a huge task as they have only conceded twice on their own ground in the league all season, but City have played well in their last two games and showed grit and fortitude at Northampton so there’s certainly no need to go there with any sense of trepidation.
Mixed fortunes for the age group teams this weekend. The under 21s’ rather underwhelming campaign in the EPL Cup looked set to continue last night at Leckwith as they trailed Stockport County 2-1 in the first half. Six unanswered goals after that though gave them a very comfortable win as they stretched clear in a second half in which they scored four times with some of the goals being real beauties that showed what I’ll dare to call the Cardiff Way to best effect. Cody Twose and Troy Perrett with two each (one of Perrett’s was a penalty), Matthews Apter, Trey George and sub Mannie Barton got the goals.
Barton achieved the rare feat of scoring twice in less than twenty four hours today, but his penalty was not enough to prevent the under 18s from another local derby loss this lunchtime as they went down 2-1 at Bristol City.
