Cardiff City were as poor tonight at Huddersfield Town as they were good against Bolton on Saturday, they deserved nothing from the game, but escaped with a point as the home team conceded an added time equaliser for the third home game in four.
Fair play to the City commentators tonight, they brought up the game at Stockport in September when we were awful for about ninety six minutes before Yousef Salech nodded the goal which made it 1-1 about two minutes before the Dane did exactly the same thing here!
The similarity with the Stockport match was uncanny. In saying that, it is a tribute to the squad that they’ve managed to play the BBM way (which I’ve said before on here is not easy for a League One team to do) so well for so much of the season. Tonight, just like at Stockport, we made playing the game in the way our manager wants us to look very hard indeed, but that’s not happened too often in our forty two matches so far.
Throw in as well that we got lucky to the extent that Huddersfield had a legitimate goal disallowed for offside, hit the crossbar twice and Nathan Trott made three great saves in his second best performance of the season (think Luton away was probably his best) , then this was definitely a case of floodlight robbery!
Tonight’s point means that although Bolton’s 5-1 win over Stevenage greatly helps their goal difference, they’ve still got virtually no chance of overhauling us now and the same will apply to Bradford if we get one more point. Stockport can still require us to win another game if they win their last six, but it’s still a case of almost there, yet we can’t start celebrating just yet -although you may think some of the team had been already judging by their performances tonight!
I shouldn’t have got annoyed about tonight as much as I did because the players don’t deserve that over the course of the last eight months, but you would have needed the patience of a saint to have not reacted to the sluggish, careless and often clueless stuff we served up.
I said in my piece on the Bolton’s game that we hadn’t been playing too badly during our iffy run which started at Plymouth, but we were so much worse than that tonight. As mentioned earlier, Nathan Trott was exempt from any criticism and, although he was not at his best, I thought Ryan Wintle did well in challenging circumstances. Apart from that though, I can’t think of anyone who matched the form they’ve shown on a week in, week out basis in 25/26 and, in the case of two or three I would say they were as poor as they’ve been all season.
It was no surprise that BBM went with the same starting line up as on Saturday, but a hint of what was to come arrived in the first minute when Perry Ng played a nothing cross cum shot when played into a promising position by Rubin Colwill.
Within a minute of that, Bali Mumba had swept the ball into our net only to be denied by a linesman’s flag which replays showed had been raised in error and three minutes later City escaped again when Marcus Harness smacked a fierce twenty yard shot on to the crossbar.
City were looking very uncomfortable in the early stages and were thankful to Trott when Will Fish missed a cross and Bojan Radulovic free in a central position eight yards out – the keeper should have had no chance, but he thrust out a strong left arm to divert the ball away.
After that, City came into the game a bit more as Ollie Tanner’s best shot out of the three or four he tried flew narrowly over and Omari Kellyman’s header from a Joel Bagan cross had the beating of ex City keeper Jak Alnwick, but flew no more than a foot wide.
For most of the time though, it was laboured and erratic stuff from our attacking players in the face of an energetic and organised Huddersfield press. As such, it wasn’t too much of a surprise when the home side got the goal they deserved on twenty eight minutes through a classy side footed volley by their captain Ryan Ledson from the edge of the penalty area after the ball had been switched from side to side with our full backs getting little defensive help from their wingers.
There were a couple of close shaves for us from Huddersfield corners before half time arrived with us grateful to be just the one down.
BBM would have been entitled to have made a few substitutions during the interval, but opted not to only for the first few minutes of the second period to become a very bitty affair with frequent stoppages for injuries and free kicks.
However, when things settled down a bit, it became clear that City were still struggling to get any pace and quality into their game despite it becoming increasingly apparent that Huddersfield were paying physically for all of that aggressive first half pressing.
There was a snap shot into the side netting by the disappointing Colwill and the quiet Alex Robertson shot not far wide from distance before he was one of three players to make way just before the hour mark. The anonymous Chris Willock and Dylan Lawlor, who seemed to hurt himself in committing the foul that earned him a yellow card, were the others with Salech, David Turnbull and Gabriel Osho coming on.
Osho, the one outfield regular in our squad not to have scored yet this season, hit a twenty five yarder that had Alnwick concerned before it flashed a yard or two wide, but, increasingly, it looked like that would be our last meaningful effort of the night.
Callum Robinson came on for Colwill and his brother replaced Wintle as City managed to get some forward momentum which won us a few corners which came to nothing and it was the home side, finding a second attacking wind as we left gaps at the back, who would have put the game beyond us were it not for Trott,
Replays showed that the keeper got the slightest of touches to Marcus McGuane’s shot from twenty yards to divert it on to the crossbar and then he got down to a Murray Wallace overhead kick from close range for his third brilliant save.
The importance of those saves shone through with two minutes of the added eight left when Tanner, now playing on the left, swung in a cross that Robinson’s glanced towards goal for Salech (was he offside?) to nod in off the post from six yards.
It was the type of goal we’ve not really been able to score in Salech’s absence and, despite him being quiet for much of the close to forty minutes he had on the pitch tonight, it was the sort of goal a six yard box predator can get you – we wouldn’t have got the draw tonight without him.
It was 1-1 as well for the under 21s this afternoon at Colchester. Dan Ola put us 1-0 up, but we could not hang on, so it has to be seen as two points dropped in our faltering bid for a top two finish.
