The build up to today’s return to Cardiff City Stadium after a long absence to take on Mansfield revolved around the question “who replaces Rubin Colwill in the number 10 position?” Once the confirmation had been received that he would, in all likelihood, be out for ten weeks if he did not have an operation following the ankle ligament injury he suffered last week at Northampton and twelve weeks if he did, it seemed everyone was coming forward with their own answers to the question.
Chris Willock, Joel Colwill, David Turnbull, Omari Kellyman, Alex Robertson, Cian Ashford and Callum Robinson were all mentioned as contenders. However, in the end, Brian Barry-Murphy opted for what was probably the most attacking option and picked the last named to play behind Yousef Salech and also captain the team.
Robinson, who did not get on to the pitch at Northampton, was far from the only change from last week as Perry Ng, Dylan Lawlor, David Turnbull and Cian Ashford, who did not even make last week’s match day squad, came into the starting line up..
Ashford was to the fore early on with a dangerous cross across the face of the visitor’s goal and, after a quiet spell following that scare for Mansfield, City gradually took charge of proceedings. This coincided with someone who, as far as I’m aware, was not suggested as our new number 10 becoming a big influence on the game with some lovely passing which opened the opposition’s defence up on quite a few occasions.
I’m not going to say we would not have gone down if Ryan Wintle had been with us last season, but when he plays like he did today, the decision to loan him out looks ludicrous. Okay, I get there was a seeming clash of personalities with Erol Bulut and I’ve heard the rumours about him being a disruptive influence, but when you think that Bulut was sacked six games into the campaign, maybe whatever grievances Wintle had were justified?
Anyway, Wintle is an important member of this season’s squad and today he showed an uncanny knack of being able to find Salech with defence splitting passes. There must have been four or five of them and, while none of the opportunities the striker was given from them could be called sitters, you do feel that something tangible should have come from at least one of them.
The best chance for me was from a far post header which Salech put into the side netting when he should at least have forced the goalkeeper into a save. With other misses in the second half to be taken into consideration, you could see why Salech is the one out of the top scorers in the division who is rated as having missed the most “big chances” this season by the statisticians and analysts. Salech got his goal today, but he should be celebrating at least a hat trick tonight.
Besides the Wintle to Salech supply line, David Turnbull produced two pretty outrageous shots which forced keeper Liam Roberts into the first two of what became a series of good saves.
For the first one, the Scot tried a a Whittingham like shot from a free kick out close to the bye line not too far from the corner flag which Roberts kept out, but the ball bounced free across goal with Lawlor and Salech just unable to turn it home from no more than a yard out. Turnbull’s second effort was from about thirty five yards and was destined for the top corner only for Roberts to keep it out with a flying save.
City were not to be denied though and from the resultant corner they got the goal which, in truth, had been coming for ten minutes or more.
City owed a debt to Mansfield for some poor defending of the set piece, but Joel Bagan’s corner to the near post was beautifully delivered and Will Fish got himself free of his marker to nod in from eight yards.
The remaining ten minutes or so of the first half was seen off comfortably by City who had dominated with Bagan, playing his hundredth game for the club, and Ashford turning in strong performances alongside Wintle.
For their part, Mansfield played through City nicely on a couple of occasions with our press lacking the snap it can possess with Rubin at the heart of it and, although Robinson certainly didn’t play poorly, I don’t think he made an overwhelming case to be the older Colwill’s replacement.
There was no end product behind Mansfield’s neat passing though and they needed to find a cutting edge after the break if they were to have any hopes of getting anything out of the game.
To a small degree, the visitors did that as ex City youngster Deji Oshilaja forced Nathan Trott into his one serious save of the afternoon and former Newport striker Will Evans turned a header from a corner wide from inside the six yard box, but, rather like at Northampton, a triple substitution around the hour mark changed the nature of the game in City’s favour.
Isaak Davies, Robinson and Ng (all of whom turned in solid seven out of ten performances) made way for Willock, Joel Colwill and Ronan Kpakio. Willock and Kpakio went into their normal positions, but the younger Colwill became the second one to play in his brother’s position and, although he didn’t do anything really eye catching with the ball, our press improved no end as Joel applied his running power and stamina to good effect and the chances came thick and fast as Mansfield struggled to cope.
Clearly, tiredness on Mansfield’s part had something to do with it, but there were plenty more goals to be had than the two we managed in the last half an hour of the game.
In saying that, Mansfield were definitely still in the game going into the last twenty minutes, but then a truly outstanding goal created by our two teenage Welsh internationals gave us the breathing space we needed.
Lawlor looked in danger of losing the ball as he dwelt on it looking for a pass forward, but I should have had more confidence in him as he picked out Kpakio with a superb ball knocked down the right. For a second time, I was fooled by a City youngster as, for a split second I thought Kpakio’s first time connection with the ball was an attempt to lob Roberts that was going wide, but no sooner had that thought formed than I realised it was a cross to the unmarked Salech who headed in his eighth goal of the season at the far post from six yards.
It really was a superbly constructed goal which showcased the facets of their games which make Lawlor and Kpakio so special at this level especially. In the case of the latter, Ng showed at times while he was on that he is a better option in some aspects of right back play, but we don’t score that goal with Ng in that position.
Within seconds, Roberts presented Salech with the ball twelve yards out for what seemed to be an inevitable goal only for the keeper to redeem himself by remarkably getting down to turn Salech’s shot aside, but it really should have been 3-0 and would have been if Salech had lifted it a yard or so over the prone keeper..
Salech probably should have buried Bagan’s fine cross a few minutes later as well, but, again, Roberts denied him. Then Lawlor’s header from a corner was turned aside by the keeper.
When Roberts was beaten for the third time, he must have cursed his bad luck. Sub Alex Robertson brought a twenty five pass movement to an end with a great ball which nutmegged a defender from five yards to leave Ashford through on goal, the keeper was able to block the shot only for it to roll towards the net allowing Ashford to nudge the ball home from about a yard for the goal his performance deserved.
So, City return to the top with one of their best performances of the season, admittedly against opponents suffering an injury crisis, and it was reassuring to see that we seem to have enough about us to cover for the loss of what many consider to be our most important player.
Defeats for both the under 21s and under 18s in the last two days, a Mannie Barton goal couldn’t prevent the former losing 3-1 at Burnley yesterday in the EPL Cup, while the latter followed up their heavy Cup loss to Swansea last week with a 3-0 away loss to the same opposition at lunchtime today.Paul Evans
