Lincoln City clinched promotion to the Championship this afternoon with a 2-1 win at Play Off contenders Reading with their goals coming from their only on target efforts out of the six goal attempts they had all game.
Meanwhile, Cardiff City, the team most likely to take the second automatic promotion spot, were having twenty nine goal attempts, eight of them on target, and fifty touches of the ball in the opposition penalty area in their game at Peterborough.
A neutral not used to watching either side play would, no doubt, have enjoyed what was an entertaining affair and probably would have thought City had been unlucky to get nothing more than a 1-1 draw.
However, as someone who has watched all of Cardiff’s games since the home loss to Lincoln which seems to have drained so much of the confidence of their attacking players, the surprise to me was that we managed to score at all.
City have had a 4-0 away romp at Exeter since that Lincoln game, but, that apart, the team that had been the division’s hot shots for so long have been making goal scoring look almost impossible. The irony of all ironies today was that having finally managed to score, it only took seventeen seconds of playing time for the ball to hit the back of our net for the equaliser!
I think the best way to sum up City’s current dilemma is to look at the performance of one player, Cian Ashford. The Rhondda product was excellent in many respects, strong, hard to shake off the ball, skilful, bright and inventive, yet give him a shooting or heading opportunity and all of that poise and belief evaporates and the ball ends up going anywhere, but on target.
It’s harsh in many respects to single out Ashford because all bar one of his team mates were unconvincing in the final third today. The exception to the rule was, amazingly, Ryan Wintle, with his one goal all season and yet here he could have had four.
Alex Bass was made Peterborough’s man of the match and it was almost entirely due to saves he made from Wintle from shots outside the penalty area. The first one came in the first half as he tipped over a twenty yarder. There was a better save to turn over a shot from a bit further out after the break, another low effort that seemed to be kept out by a combination of keeper and the upright and then a daisy cutter which appeared to beat the keeper, but also was inches the wrong side of the post.
It was somehow typical of City’s finishing that Bass’ other fine save came from a Perry Ng effort that deflected off a defender and the keeper managed to kick it away while diving the wrong way.
Apart from that, Ashford was a little unlucky to see his header from almost point blank range hit a defender and bounce out although you couldn’t help thinking a goal would have been inevitable if he’d been a bit more positive in his movement towards the ball.
Alex Robertson and Ollie Tanner saw efforts miss the same post Wintle shot past by no more than a foot, but, too often, City wanted that extra touch or their final ball was lacking.
One “after you Claude” moment in the first half showed City in all of their current uncertainty as they opened up the home defence, but instead of shooting, three times they opted to pass and each time they made the opportunity more difficult.
There were also concerns at the other end of the pitch as the home forwards, particularly the debutant Bolo Shofowoke, had a definite edge in pace over their markers.
Shofowoke left Calum Chambers for dead in the first half before forcing Nathan Trott into a good save on his near post and they must have known there would be further chances after the interval given that City were playing with their usual high line.
Chambers had injured his wrist in the first half and was replaced by Ronan Kpakio, while David Turnbull was a little fortunate to avoid a red card as his tackle forced Tom Lees off and having been cautioned, it was understandable to see him replaced by Alex Robertson.
The Aussie had only been on for three minutes when he broke the deadlock as the home defence made a mess of clearing Tanner’s cross and the ball dropped to him stood close to the penalty spot. The contact wasn’t the cleanest as the shot went into the ground and then bounced past Bass.
Even when they were at their best either side of Christmas, City’s opponents always thought they had a chance of getting back into a game after falling 1-0 down and Posh took no time in replying here as a ball was played forward to Kyrell Lisbie who got there before Kpakio to play Harry Leonard clear of a statuesque, square defence and he went on to easily beat Trott. Kpakio was at fault to an extent, but the worst bit about the goal was that we were in possession of the ball for a few seconds before Joel Bagan I think it was gave it away with a careless pass.
Sadly though, Kpakio looked devoid of confidence as he made what was a rare appearance in the team in recent months and he was nowhere to be seen as Lisbie, who he was supposed to be marking, was played through by a ball out from the back only for the highly rated winger to shoot tamely straight at Trott. Again, Kpakio was culpable, yet it was still very concerning how Lisbie was put through beyond the centrebacks so easily and, for all City’s pressure, this was probably the best chance of the second half.
Bradford took advantage of our failure to win (again) with an impressive come from behind win at Wycombe to cut the deficit to seven points, but our goal difference is far better than theirs and we have a game in hand on them – the most points Bradford can get is eighty six, so three wins from our last six matches will mean we finish above them whatever they do and two wins and two draws would almost certainly be enough for us.
Bolton and Stockport can both reach eighty five points, so, again, given our much better goal difference, two wins and a draw should be enough for us to finish above them. A 2-2 draw this afternoon between those two clubs was of little use to either of them as far as automatic promotion is concerned, but our running out of steam in recent weeks has left three other sides still thinking they could still go up in second place.
The best news of the day was the return of Yousef Salech for the last twenty five minutes. In truth, after he made some useful contributions when he first came on, his lack of game time showed, but, nevertheless, his return couldn’t come soon enough.
