AFC Wimbledon gave Cardiff City a much more testing time tonight than Luton had done on Saturday, but you wouldn’t have guessed it by the scoreline as City scored four goals for the fifth time in a home league game this season to record a win on a night when Lincoln won again, but the chasing pack stumbled to an extent.
Bolton rescued a point at Reading with a goal six minutes into added time, while Stockport came out on the wrong end of a 1-0 scoreline at Bradford which propels them right back into the heart of the battle for a top six place. Meanwhile a bad few days for Huddersfield ended with them beaten 1-0 again, this time by Doncaster.
So, we continue to lead Lincoln by four points, but now it’s a gap of twelve to Bolton in third and, as of tonight, Bradford, fourteen points behind us, but with a game in hand, are probably best placed to catch us as they have now moved two points ahead of Stockport.
A scoreline of 4-1 probably flattered us somewhat against opponents who were deservedly level with us at 1-1 after forty five minutes. However, a couple of quick fire goals around the hour mark swung the match decisively in our favour and the chances were there after that for us to go beyond that four goal mark for the first time this season.
City brought in Will Fish (23 today) for Gabriel Osho and Ryan Wintle returned after his suspension for David Turnbull in the only two changes from the weekend and we were set back on their heels somewhat by a lively Wimbledon start which saw the ball bouncing about a few yards from our goal from a corner with barely three minutes played.
City took a while to get going, but, when they did, they started to pose a threat down the right with Oliie Tanner prominent while on the other flank, a subdued Chris Willock had a night when the ball just didn’t seem to head his way as much as normal.
Perry Ng shot wide from close range as Wimbledon struggled to cope with Tanner, while Omari Kellyman forced a diving save out of Nathan Bishop, but it was by no means one way traffic as Wimbledon showed more ambition than I for one had been expecting from them.
When the game’s first goal came on twenty two minutes, it was hardly as if it had a sense of inevitability about it, but as it came for City, I couldn’t help feeling that it was the signal for us to take charge.
It was one of those goals where you have to salute the scoring team for both cleverness and technique and yet the defending side’s coaching staff and manager would be fuming because they’d got caught out from a set piece. Alex Robertson went out to take a corner on our right which seemed a bit strange as Tanner had been taking inswingers up to then from that side. However, the reason for the change was made clear as Robertson played a low pass from the flag kick to Joel Colwill who was stood around the penalty spot and he swept his first time shot beyond Bishop. It was a quality goal in terms of both the assist and the finish, but, as I say, Wimbledon erred by leaving Joel with so much room.
The goal seemed to rock the visitors for a while, but they worked their way back into the game despite having to make a change up front when Matt Stevens replaced the injured Omar Bugiel.
Tanner was still the main threat for City, but he was becoming a bit more careless as the half wore on and this maybe gave the visitors the encouragement to push on a bit more after a short spell where we did look like we could take charge in the manner I was expecting us to.
City weren’t quite “at lt” in the way they’d been in their last two games though – although still dominating possession, they were sometimes unusually careless in their passing. Careless would be the word I would use to describe a pointless foul given away by Ng as well as the half went into the signalled two minutes of added time.
City were made to pay as Steve Seddon’s nicely flighted delivery was deftly volleyed in by Stevens as he got in front of Calum Chambers.
While it was hardly a case of BBM needing to read the riot act to his team at half time, it felt like City needed to wake their ideas up somewhat in the second half. Instead, it was a quiet first ten minutes or so which would have had Wimbledon feeling increasingly confident of heading home with at least a point, but City suddenly came to life in a five minute spell which had them looking almost certain winners by the time it was up.
Tanner almost cashed in on as a misplaced pass by visiting captain Ryan Johnson as he ran from half way only to shot a yard wide. Within another minute or so, Joel Bagan was worked into a great position only to see his shot deflected up and narrowly over the bar by a defender.
From the resultant corner, City regained their lead when Tanner’s inswinger was nodded in at the near post by Ng to make it three goals in three home matches for the full back.
Again though, Wimbledon had left the City scorer unmarked when defending a corner, but there was certainly no feeling sorry for themselves as they opened up our defence with some neat passing straight from the restart and Stevens shot across Nathan Trott, but also across the face of the goal as his effort rolled four foot wide.
With Tanner having provided an assist for Ng, the roles were reversed as a long period of patient City passing was ended by Perry playing a short pass to the winger who was able to burst inside and shoot low past Bishop from the edge of the penalty area.
It was Tanner’s first goal of the season and I’m grateful to blog reader Howard Jones for informing me that this makes eighteen players now who have scored for us this season which I’m told equals a club record that was set in 1999/2000 – a season when we got relegated!
Although Wimbledon ended up having one more goal attempt than us (16/17), they didn’t really cause us many problems in the second half and, apart from a header against a post in the dying seconds and the Stevens chance mentioned earlier, they never looked like scoring after the break.
On the other hand, we had plenty of occasions where the final ball wasn’t quite right when we’d virtually opened the Wimbledon defence. As it was, we were able to add one more goal when substitute Callum Robinson’s clever pass set Kellyman free and he calmly beat Bishop from twelve yards.
There was five minutes or so for loan signing Callum Scanlon as he replaced Kellyman, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t touch the ball as the game petered out rather gently as City made it twelve without defeat. They are probably in a position now where a mere point a game in their last fourteen games would be enough to guarantee a Play Off spot and a mid table type finish of a point and a half per game would see us equaling the club record of ninety points set in our 17/18 promotion season.
Finally, a first half goal was enough to condemn the under 21s to defeat this afternoon at Queens Park Rangers.
