It’s just over a fortnight since Chris Willock had an awful game at Port Vale and I don’t think it’s going too far to say that things came to a head regarding his underwhelming first season at the club as he copped some terrible stick on social media with some proclaiming that he should never play for the club again.
This lunchtime we saw proof of two things – first, the team that struggled so much at Port Vale before emerging with a goalless draw is actually quite good given an injection of confidence gained from being well coached, being encouraged to express themselves on the pitch and winning a few games.
Second, if Port Vale away represented the nadir of Chris Willock’s Cardiff City career up to now, then Luton away some sixteen days later was the game in which he finally really announced himself as a Cardiff player.
The signs had been there at AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday after he came on to replace the stricken Ollie Tanner (a scan confirmed ligament damage and a fractured fibula which is likely to keep Tanner out for about four months) that Willock would react positively to his likely elevation in the winger pecking order at the club. The ex QPR and Arsenal man became increasingly influential until he came up with the cross which led to Isaak Davies’ late winner, but this was a different level again as he scored the only goal in something of a statement win at Kenilworth Road, Luton.
It’s truly encouraging that, despite Willock’s fine performance he had plenty of rivals for the man of the match nomination and, if anything, I’m edging towards Nathan Trott who came up with a string of good saves to preserve our, almost, perfect defensive record five games into our season.
A bad late miss apart, Rubin Colwill contributed another non stop showing which made a mockery of the misgivings I used to have about his stamina a few years ago and I thought Cian Ashford did very well.
The fact is though that there wasn’t a weak performer today in a blue shirt – Ronan Kpakio’s errors came from, if anything, trying to play too much football and being too confident, the centrebacks got into trouble once or twice by letting long balls bounce, but it’s remarkable that they are so assured and effective when they have a combined age of just forty one. Joel Bagan was just solid, as was the reborn Ryan Wintle. David Turnbull was part of a dominant midfield until he to go off in the first half and Callum Robinson contributed fully to an excellent first quarter from City in which they really should have scored at least once.
This brings me on to the one criticism I’d have of City today – in fact I’d say it applies to most of our matches this season. Our finishing and final ball so far does not match the quality of our play in all other areas of the pitch. The statisticians tell us that we had one attempt on goal at Port Vale (still not sure what it was) and our goal at Wimbledon was our only effort on target of the evening. By most people’s reckoning, we murdered Rotherham last weekend, but, even then, there were only six on target efforts.
Today, while Willock’s finish was exemplary, there were too many examples of poor finishing. For example, Turnbull, a very good striker of a ball, scuffing a shot from eighteen yards wide which had been teed up perfectly for him. Robinson not getting a clean stoke away when unmarked about eight yards out, Joel Colwill bobbling a low cross straight at the keeper from six yards and, finally his elder brother shooting wide from a one on one when he’d done so well to win the ball and then run thirty yards with it before shooting a yard wide – again, it’s indicative of the physical transformation of Rubin that once he got clear in this incident, you knew no defender was going to catch him..
City were a joy to watch in the first twenty odd minutes as Luton just couldn’t get near them and although the home side improved as the half went on, a high quality League One match was scoreless at the break with us having been the better team. However, the only on target effort we’d managed was an outrageous shot from the half way line from Robinson that home keeper Josh Keeley just about managed to turn behind for a corner.
You have to contrast that with Luton’s mostly more accurate shooting, although City will be grateful that veteran Nakhi Wells did not have his shooting boots on as Keeley’s long punts downfield caused a problem for the first, but not last, time and he rolled his shot wide when he really should have scored.
Trott made a great save to preserve City’s lead on Tuesday after a quiet introduction to the club, but here he was called into action three times in quick succession to make some fine saves with the best of them being from a crisply struck twenty five yarder by George Seville and such had been Luton’s comeback from a rocky start that it would have been City who were grateful to hear the half time whistle.
Without Turnbull, City had lost some of the calm control they’d been showing, but his replacement Joel Colwill’s differing skill set became valuable as Luton came out to give City more of a physical challenge after the break.
Luton would eventually effectively decide that they couldn’t take on City in a footballing contest and would make their big side even bigger when introducing more physical substitutes,.However, they didn’t really come closer to scoring than they did very early in the second half when former City man Mark McGuinness met a cross eight yards out and I was expecting the net to bulge like it did quite often when he was with us, but Trott got down to his right brilliantly to turn the ball around for a corner.
In both of our away games we’ve had to endure spells of differing intensity where it looked like we could concede at any minute and it was the same here, especially when the ball bounced about crazily in front of our goal with Luton having three or four chances before the last one flew just wide from close range.
What was impressive here though was that City lifted their performance when the pressure was at its height and came out to first create a chance for Joel Colwill and then win the game through Willock. It was all the winger’s own work as well as he won back possession twenty five yards out, moved clear off an opponent then turned McGuinness inside out before calmly placing his shot past Keeley from fifteen yards.
City regained a lot of their poise after the goal and although Lawlor, who would eventually be replaced by Calum Chambers, had to put in a great block to deal with a dangerous low cross, the pressure of Luton being behind at home as title favourite was being shown in shooting which had lost much of its earlier accuracy. Indeed, City really should have left the last few minutes less stressful for supporters by killing the game off when captain Colwill did so well until his finish.
As a pleasant surprise, the referee stuck rigidly to the five minutes extra time shown by the fourth official as Rubin Colwill and Isaak Davies, on for Willock, made an effective job of running the clock down by Luton’s corner flag.
One moan while I remember, Luton kicked off the first half which I reckon means Rubin won the toss and, elected to play towards our fans in the first half. The same thing happened at AFC Wimbledon , but I’m not sure who kicked off there, so we might not have won the toss that night, but I’d much prefer us playing towards our fans in the second half of away games.
With Stevenage dropping their first points after losing 1-0 at Huddersfield, City go a point clear at the top and will, hopefully look to bring in some new recruits before their next league game – BBM is doing his best, can those who have got it wrong so often in the past do theirs?
Another win for the under 18s who beat Barnsley 4-2 at Leckwith at lunchtime with goals from Riley Hilaire-Clarke, Jack Sykes, Harry Watts and Leo Papirnyk.
