There’s a game I refer to occasionally on here where QPR came to Cardiff City Stadium in 2019 under Mark Warburton’s management and played us off the park only to head back to London with a 3-0 defeat. It was, possibly, the oddest game I’ve ever seen as the visitors sliced through us so many times but never had anything to show for it, while we picked them off with very isolated attacks to net three times and leave our opponents wondering what they’d done to deserve such rotten luck.
Now, I’m not saying that this lunchtime’s 4-0 win over Plymouth Argyle was Cardiff 3 QPR 0 revisited. It was a somewhat strange affair though in which the visitors must have been very pleased with what was happening up to the forty minute mark as they had kept their top of the table opponents quiet for almost all of the first half, only to then concede three times in the ten minutes either side of half time! Two of those goals coming via big deflections off the same player, Brendan Wiredu, who has already managed to score an own goal and collect a red card in his first month as a Plymouth player following his summer signing from Fleetwood.
Wiredu could not be blamed for either goal today because both shots were on target and so neither of them qualify as an own goal, but the deflections were substantial and the goalkeeper may have been able to make a save without them.
By the end, I don’t think Plymouth could have any complaints about the outcome, there were plenty of opportunities for City in the last twenty five minutes or so and they might easily have conceded one or two more, but 4-0 flattered us – I’d say 2-0 would have been a fair scoreline.
So, these two teams that were separated by two points last season as they accompanied each other into League One continue to head in vastly different directions in this formative campaign. Plymouth had been able to convince themselves they were over losing their first four league games when they beat Blackpool 1-0 last weekened and followed it up with a draw at Swansea in the League Cup in which they were, reportedly, unlucky to lose through a penalty shoot out.
However, here they came up against a vibrant and confident young team that appears to have total faith in their new Head Coach’s approach – they also have a goalkeeper who has not conceded a league goal yet despite having played in our last five games in that competition and two teenagers in their back four who have been called into the Welsh senior squad for next week’s game in Kazakhstan.
City have also just signed a player who, in many of the media stories I’ve read on the transfer, is reckoned to be a Championship level player, someone who the Luton (his former club) fans are saying is better than any centreback currently at their club – furthermore, they’re asking why didn’t they try to sign him themselves?
Well, if Gabriel Osho really is too good for this level, then I suspect that it was the BBM influence that persuaded him to come here. Osho played under our Head Coach during a loan spell at Rochdale in 2021. Osho is someone BBM clearly rates as he is one of the players he insisted on bringing in when he first arrived (a major reason for `our almost non existent inward transfers in the last three months) and the feeling is mutual based on what Osho had to say about his former manager after his signing was completed yesterday.
It was somehow typically BBM that Osho was not in the match day squad today because BBM is an unusual manager/Head Coach. He’s someone who doesn’t just talk about giving youngsters their chance, he actually does it. He talks about wanting a small squad when so many this summer have been determined to have a huge turnover of players and, as someone who has consistently argued we need more signings to provide the on field leadership that I felt was lacking, I’ve got to admit that I’m coming around to thinking that just two, possibly three, more by Monday will be enough.
I still believe there was a lack of leadership last season, but BBM decided to tackle it by the unusual step of letting the players decide who should captain them and so, we find ourselves in the position where Rubin Colwill, of all people, is our captain for most games and yet is anyone saying we lack leadership now?
For me though, BBM’s biggest triumph is that he somehow managed to create a feeling of momentum almost before a ball had been kicked in competitive action. You think back to his team selection for the season opener with Peterborough- a debutant keeper, a back four barely averaging twenty years old, a midfield that contained someone who, at 28, was five years senior to any of his team mates and younger players preferred to their seniors up front.
We went in at half time 1-0 down that day and, forget about a drop in standards, I’m doubtful if last season’s side would have been able to turn things around, yet we came out and proved ourselves to be better than our opponents as the victory margin this time was harsh on us rather than flattering us. What could almost be called a bunch of kids had turned things around and, even if last season’s team had been able to do the same thing, I’m sure they wouldn’t have done it with the verve and panache that Turner, Kpakio, Lawlor, J Colwill etc. did.
Increasingly, the serious examination they had at Port Vale in their second game looks to be a positive part of the team’s development and, tellingly, the two away matches that have followed have been won while achieving clean sheets.
There’ll be bad days to come, I’m sure there will, but , even at this early stage, we’ve proved we can be successful at this level. Six games in, we have the most points, have the best defensive record and only two teams can match our total of eleven goals scored – let’s be honest, the Manager of the Month award is BBM’s already isn’t it and who can claim with any justification to have been better than us in August?
Clearly, it’s a case of one month down and nine to go, so this sense of momentum is not guaranteed to last, but, for now, we have it and I’d argue that it won us the game today.
Take away momentum and that was a could go either way game today for forty minutes – we were’nt any better than Plymouth, but the side that had negative momentum then conceded twice to give them an excuse to feel sorry for themselves. To their credit, I thought Plymouth coped well with going 3-0 down, they had a go at us and Nathan Trott had a few chances to show his ability, but did they really believe they could come back? Put us in that position when we next play at Stockport and, rightly or probably wrongly, we’ll be thinking we can turn it around.
City made two changes from at Luton with Joel Colwill replacing the injured David Turnbull and Yousef Salech coming in for Callum Robinson. Salech missed an early chance when he shot was deflected wide, but he’d already been penalised by a League One type referee and it all only added to the striker’s sense of frustration that the goals aren’t coming at the rate they once were. However, are we seeing the BBM effect here as well? It’s runners into the box and wide players that appear to getting the chances theses days, not so much the one up there leading the attack.
So, maybe we’re going to have to get more used to watching games like this where our main striker gets little or no chance to find the net, but, if we are, what I’ll say is that, just as on Tuesday, I saw a lot more evidence of good hold up play and an effective all round game from Salech.
With Cian Ashford having one of his periodic quiet matches, there was more threat down City’s left than their right as the in form Chris Willock and Joel Bagan combined effectively at times.
One lovely move saw Bagan pull back a cross that Joel Colwill was about a yard away from finishing off, but that was about it for forty minutes until a period of pressure which was more thud and blunder than blood and thunder was brought to an end by a perfectly delivered Rubin Colwill pass that Ryan Wintle didn’t have to break stride for as he fired high into the net from twenty five yards out for what has to be the best goal he’s scored for us.
The response to this goal was interesting – angry at an alleged handball by Ronan Kpakio (having now seen replays of the goal, I can’t see anthin wrong with it) being missed by the officials, the visiting fans (an impressive estimated 3.000 of them) burst into a chorus of “1-0 to the referee” which didn’t last too long as they were soon 2-0 adrift with no help from the officials involved!
At the same time, Rubin Colwill was getting biooked for whar I can only presume was protesting about him not by giving a penalty for an alleged foul on hm. So, the ref was getting it in the enck from both sides.
Did referee Scott Oldham deserve such stick? My first reaction is not really, he wasn’t as bad as some of the officials we’ve had, but a look at the match stats make for illuminating reading. Mr Oldham penalised City fourteen times for fouls and Plymouth six – this despite it being an open season for centrebacks to do whatever they like to the strikers they are marking, while the player being constantly fouled gets penalised for the moist trivial things as in. the incident I mentioned earlier when Salech had his only real sight of goal.
Every referee we’ve had this season in the league has allowed cenrebacks to constantly foul Salech when he’s played, yet, while I wouldn’t claim. that our centrebacks are not guilty of the odd foul, they showed again today that their preferred method of dealing with the striker they’re marking is to intercept the ball before it reaches him.
I feel it’s reasonable to say that Fish and Lawlor commit less of what I would call fouls per game than our opponents’ central defenders do, but, despite this, Mr Oldham awarded fouls more than twice as many fouls against.us – he also booked three City players compared to one from Plymouth.
So, when I say Mr Oldham didn’t do a bad job, I say that by the standards of the officials it appears we get week in, week out in League One – I don’t get why there is a big difference over how Salech was refereed in the Championship compared to League One, but there definitely is one.
Three minutes after the opener, a pass by Ashford found Willock with space to shoot from the edge of the penalty area and goalkeeper Luca Ashby-Hammond was left flat footed by the deflection off Wiredu.
Five minutes into the second half, Rubin Colwill was given far too much time in the Plymouth penalty area, but it was the deflection off the hapless Wiredu which provided the inadvertent touch over the diving Ashby-Hammond from the resultant shot.
The young Plymouth goalkeeper impressed with three saves to deny Rubin and Willock was twice just wide, while Lawlor might have done better with a header from a corner, but Ashby-Hammond would have been disappointed not to have kept out sub Isaak Davies’ effort in added time after he had cut in from the left to shoot from about fifteen yards..
I mentioned Ashford not being as effective as he has been recently, but no one played poorly with Wintle, Bagan and the two centrebacks being impressive, bit I think my man of the match would be Joel Colwill who was making important contributions at both penalty areas right up to his substitution on 87 minutes which saw Perry Ng go to right back and, intriguingly, Ronan Kpakio switch into midfield.
