This will be the shortest match reaction piece in the sixteen years plus history of this blog. We’re still being told what a good season City are having, but for this spell between the first and second international breaks of the season, we’ve mixed some very good performances (Burnley and Wigan) with some very concerning, poor ones (Stockport, Burton and, despite the result, Leyton Orient).
I’m not going to get too worked up about losing to a Newport team that were better than us tonight in the lower league. cup thingy we’re in apart from to record that on a night where we created a record for our youngest ever player only to break it about an. hour later, it was nowhere near a full strength side, instead it was a curious case of a mixture of experienced first teamers and largely untried youngsters.
So, it was not the losing at home to Newport, even a Newport at the bottom of League Two, that bothers me, it’s that, once again, the senior players failed to perform. In particular, Wintle and Turnbull didn’t work again in midfield, Chambers wasn’t terrible, but he was no more than five out of ten, while Kellyman and Salech, both so effective off the bench on Saturday both played as if they were going through the motions tonight.
What interest the game generated from a Cardiff point of view centred on the various youngsters that featured. Rob Tankiewicz became City’s youngest first teamer at the age of 16 years and 117 days, but on sixty three minutes, he was replaced by Axel Donczew who is just 15 years and 234 days old!
Although there was a bit of an Aaron Ramsey like desire to take two many touches, I thought Donczew was the second best of the youngsters on view, best for me was starting left back TJ Parfitt who I’m pretty sure I was seeing, like Donczew, for the first time.
As for the game, Newport were much the better team in the first half and finally gained the lead they deserved just before the interval when ex City man Tom Davies headed home on the far post – can’t help thinking he’d provide better cover at left back than we have currently if he was still with us.
City had to improve in the second half and they did but not enough to cause Newport too many problems. In fact, all I can remember in the way of chances for City was a flicked header by sub Callum Robinson which he should have got on target instead of sending way wide.
