Saturday 14th February, ko 3:00pm
Match Officals:
Referee: Ollie Yates
Assistant Referee: James Tewson
Assistant Referee: Darren Wilding
Fourth Official: Matthew Mcquillan
The first of a home double with AFC Wimbledon at CCS 3 days later.
The same time Cardiff entertain Luton the teams in 2nd and 3rd, Lincoln v Bolton, play each other.
- Cardiff City have lost each of their last three home league games against Luton Town, just one fewer than across their prior 25 matches on home soil combined between 1936 and 2020.
- Luton Town have won five of their last six league games against Cardiff City (L1), though lost the reverse fixture 1-0 in August last year.
- Cardiff have made 98 changes to their starting XI so far in League One this season – the most of any side in the competition.
- When in winning positions in League One this season, Luton have conceded just three goals in total – the lowest amount in the third tier and seven fewer than opponents Cardiff (10).
Brian Barry-Murphy:
“Their quality is obvious. A Premier League team so recently. You can see in every single position, they have players who are exceptionally good at building up. So a test like that focuses us perfectly, and it’s what we want, and we’re all really excited about it.
“We love playing at home. Our home record has been phenomenal this season, and the pitch is in fantastic condition. So we’re looking forward to it immensely, and we want to try to give the supporters what they crave on Saturday.
"We've seen how powerful it the support is this season when we're at our best and even when we haven't been at our best, there's been some games where it's been a rollercoaster ride or we've been beaten, but the support from the fans to our players has always been there, you can almost feel it and our intention is to give them more of the best of ourselves."
Brian gave an update about those members of the squad who are working their way back to full fitness.
“Dylan Lawlor’s back in full training, so he’ll be available. Rubin’s [Colwill] back in full training, but he’s been out for a long time, so it’s just trying to balance when he’s actually to get back on the bench and play.
“Yousef’s [Salech] is continuing his rehabilitation, so he won’t be available. Yousef’s seeing a specialist to have an update on his injury, and he’s making good progress, but no time scale. It’s not a common injury for us, so we just have to be really patient with him.
“Isaak’s [Davies] following concussion protocol. He was struck off the ball in an incident against Rotherham, and he had a delayed concussion. So we didn’t know about it until after the game, but he won’t be available until at the earliest, I would say, a week.”
