By and large, I think the bowl that is Cardiff City Stadium has meant that, since 09/10, strong winds haven’t affected matches as much as they used to at Ninian Park. Today’s game with Leyton Orient was a bit of an exception though as the litter frequently seen blowing around the pitch at ground level was an indication that, even if it was not as strong as it was in other parts of the country, the remnants of Storm Amy made for conditions that had not been seen too often in the stadium’s sixteen year history.
For me, the strength of the wind offered a partial excuse for a City performance which was error strewn and sloppy as they luckily came out 4-3 winners in a game where they were indebted to keeper Nathan Trott for their win.
However, Head Coach Brian Barry-Murphy refused to use the conditions to try and explain away a City performance which could diplomatically be called mixed. For BBM, the main problem was that against an effective high press from the visitors, City were too slow in getting the ball away from their defensive third and too slow to get the ball forward.
Thinking about it, BBM was probably right. After all, although the O’s weren’t quite immune from Cardiff’s penchant for giving the ball away in potentially embarrassing positions, the wind didn’t seem to cause them as many problems as it did us.
The BBC’s stats show us losing almost all of the outcomes that tend to shape a game quite decisively
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c15kd750v08t#MatchStats
Sides that lose the tens of little battles that help decide a game as completely as we did don’t tend to win the war, but, although I’d place luck and fine goalkeeping near the top of any list of reasons as to why we won, there were also substitutions by BBM that worked and occasionally inspired attacking play in there as well.
However, the plain truth is that I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that in the first half, two of our back four (Osho and Kpakio) had a mare, our central midfield two (Wintle and Joel Colwill) were second best by a long way and Isaak Davies on our right couldn’t get going.
Kpakio, given more chance to attack, improved in the second half, but this was “compensated” for by Joel Bagan having his worst forty five minutes of what’s been a good season for him, while our midfield continued to splutter. The introduction of David Turnbull, poor against Burton in midweek, brought some order to the midfield Yousef Salech got a chance to play alongside Callum Robinson in what became a 4-4-2 and it proved to be an experiment worth repeating, while Omari Kellyman made his best contribution yet with some truly fiendish far post corners a highlight.
When City got into the lead for the third time, BBM made a defensive substitution by introducing Will Fish into what became a back three.
This brings me on to just about the only real issue I have with BBM at the moment – his rotation of centrebacks. I don’t get it and our defensive record has got a lot worse since we started doing it. Fish and Lawlor were doing a fine job in the middle of the back four and didn’t need to be broken up like they have been.
The game began scrappily, but, in a trend that continued throughout most of the ninety minutes, the goals, with one or two exceptions, were of a quality that was far superior to the quality of football on show.
City had generally been second best when a good cross from Chris Willock on twenty minutes found Callum Robinson in a bit of space and he did well to hold off a couple of defenders to guide his shot beyond Tommy Simkin.
The goal didn’t settle City down though, Trott had already made the first couple in the string of good saves that won us the three points. After the daft penalty he gave away on his debut against Bradford City, Gabe Osho had settled down pretty well, but here he was a mistake waiting to happen and City’s lead would only last eight minutes as Osho played a blind, seriously under hit back pass into the path of Aaron Connolly who easily beat Trott to level things up.
City stumbled in at half time lucky to be on terms and then proceeded to make a calamitous start to the second half. If the right side of our defence was a disaster area in the first forty five minutes, it was the left that was really struggling when play restarted – Bagan was all over the shop as the excellent Dom Ballard drew a great save out of Trott and then Connolly’s shot was deflected on to a post by Lawlor.
The young centreback was I thought one of only two City players who maintained their passing standards in awkward conditions (the other was Rubin Colwill) and it was wholly in keeping with his fairytale start to his career that, with his team under the cosh, Lawlor proceeded to score an outlandish first senior goal in keeping with this madcap game.
Lawlor, as had happened a few times, was under pressure from an aggressive Orient press about five yards inside his own half, but managed to work his way clear and was allowed to advance thirty yards before hitting a twenty yard shot that Simkin should really have kept out.
Having lost their lead within ten minutes first time around, could City protect it this time? No chance, within about ninety seconds the O’s scored a farcical equaliser. Lawlor, having maintained his standards so far, made two mistakes in a scramble which saw so many examples of poor defending from City. Ironically, Kpakio’s best piece of defensive play of the afternoon saw the ball deflect off him to Idris El Mizouni whose half hit twenty yarder took two deflections (the second off Joel Colwill) to roll into the net with Trott helpless.
The keeper had even less chance when Ballard scored the goal of the game with a lovely curling effort from the corner of the penalty area after a shot had been deflected into his path.
It was hard to see a way back into the game for City at this stage, but BBM’s subs helped get City playing again and within ten breathless minutes they were ahead again!
Dozy Orient defending played its part mind as they failed to respond to a ball boy swiftly retrieving the ball for Kpakio’s to take a quick throw in to Rubin Colwill whose cross found an unmarked Salech who headed in from six yards.
Two minutes later, City put together their best move of the game as Colwill, Robinson and Kellyman set Kpakio running to the bye line from where he pulled the ball back for Robinson to turn in what proved to be the winner from eight yards.
The Londoners’ substitutions didn’t work as well as ours did, but Osho blundered again to give Connolly a clear run in on goal only for Trott to come to our rescue again and he was also there to plunge forward and fall on the ball in added time when it looked like the visitors were in for a leveler.
City go into the latest international break in third place then with some wildly fluctuating performances in the last fortnight – the best thing about today was definitely the result!
Both the under 18s and under 21s are in better, more consistent form than their elders currently. The Academy lads beat Swindon 5-1 this lunchtime in the EPL Cup thanks to goals by Allmark and two each from Sykes and Hilaire-Clark.
After trouncing Millwall in midweek, the under 21s came out on top in a derby clash with Bristol City at Leckwith yesterday afternoon thanks to quick fire second half goals by Gabriel Keita and Noah Williams that left the wurzels with too much to do in the remaining twenty minutes or so.
