I don’t think anyone saw that coming! In a throwback to early season 4-3s, 3-2s and 1-3s, Cardiff City forgot how to defend today and a good Plymouth Argyle side made them pay the full price as they roared to a 5-2 win at Home Park this lunchtime.
As I start writing this straight after the game, it’s a question of waiting to see if every one else takes advantage of the ending of our twelve game unbeaten run – Wycombe beat Stevenage 3-1 in a battle between two sides that will still entertain thoughts of a top six finish, but more realistic promotion candidates will be sensing a chance to seize a top two finish that they might have been beginning to think was beyond them as they kick off today.
City can have no complaints about the result, maybe something like 4-2 would have been a truer reflection of the ninety minutes, but we never came to terms with as an effective a front two as I’ve seen this season in League One in Lorent Tolaj and Bim Pepple.
Tolaj and Pepple’s success means that questions will be asked of Calum Chambers and Gabriel Osho in central defence and I must say that the former’s inclusion surprised me given his slightly sub par showing on Tuesday against Wimbledon and BBM’s penchant for rotating his Centre backs. As for Osho, his afternoon started poorly with a header against his own crossbar and, generally speaking, this was more pre Christmas than post Christmas Osho.
In fact, only Perry Ng of the back four could feel fairly satisfied with his performance. Joel Bagan was some way off his best in a left side that didn’t function – Chris Willock was quiet against Luton and Wimbledon, but was poor here as, like Osho, he gave an early indication as to what sort of match it would be for him when he wasted a good chance by shooting into the side netting.
In central midfield, we struggled to get to grips with opponents that were playing 4-4-2, so you would have hoped for a numerical advantage in that area, but both Alex Robertson and Joel Colwill fell short of the, very high, standards of recent games. David Turnbull’s inclusion in front of Ryan Wintle was another surprise and it didn’t take long for it to start to look like a rare mistake on our manager’s part as the Scot made little impact against a physical home side.
Even Omari Kellyman was pretty quiet despite his two goals, the second of which was a real beauty. Only Ollie Tanner and Nathan Trott can be said to have played well – even then, Tanner faded in the second half after establishing an almost complete domination on home left back Wes Harding in the first forty five minutes.
It may sound daft to say that a goalkeeper who conceded five had a decent game, but Trott had no chance with any of the goals and he made some good saves including one seconds after Willock’s early miss when some neat Plymouth passing cut us open very easily and Caleb Watts really should have scored from eight yards rather than give Trott the opportunity to make a fine save with his right foot.
I mentioned earlier that Plymouth were physical and the team which, according to WhoScored.com, are the dirtiest in the division in terms of cards received were certainly not averse to putting a foot in as a foul count of 23/10 indicates, yet somehow referee Darren Drysdale saw fit to book only three of their players compared to four of ours.
To be fair to Plymouth, I wouldn’t say any of that multitude of fouls were of the sort that had you questioning whether a red card should have been shown and while I waited for their relentless pressing of us all over the pitch to have an effect, it never did as City had little to offer in the game’s final quarter after the penalty which put them 4-2 down.
On an afternoon when it was City who had the most shots (18/16), it was Plymouth who provided the more that were on target (9/6) and in a game that began in lively fashion with the Willock and Watts misses followed Osho’s near own goal, the home team seized control by having the better of a crazy six minute spell around the half an hour mark which produced four goals.
Speaking as someone who is prepared to acknowledge that sometimes a goal is scored where you cannot find anyone in your team to blame for it, I’d say Plymouth’s first goal fell into that category as Tolaj gave Pepple’s neat flick to him the finish it deserved with a perfectly placed shot from twenty yards beyond Trott.
Unfortunately, the home side’s second goal owed much to poor City play as with Bagan, presumably, in front of him, Willock waited for the ball to reach him and, in doing so, allowed home captain Joe Edward to burst past him and exploit the yawning gap in front of him down our left flank. Having run about fifty yards with the ball, Edwards then did well to pick out Pepple who volleyed in from just outside the six yard box.
Within a minute, City had pulled one back as Tanner beat Harding again and picked out Kellyman who easily beat home keeper Connor Hazard from ten yards.
Unfortunately, it was then straight back up the other end as City wasted a chance to clear and Tanner then got to close to Ng which meant he had too much to do as he attempted to block the cross from Harding when it came in Pepple exploited a statuesque defence to head in on the far post.
Somewhere amid the mayhem, Tanner shot against a post and Kellyman’s follow up hit Hazzard and rebounded over the bar.
Kellyman was not to be denied though and, after a few minutes of relative calm, he placed a delightful left footed effort beyond Hazzard from just outside the penalty area.
Hazard then had to tip a twenty five yarder from Ng over the bar as an amazing first half ended with City looking like the game was far from over.
With Rubin Colwill on for the anonymous Turnbull, City suggested for a while that the second half would be a case of Plymouth doggedly hanging on to their advantage. With the older Colwill adding some calmness, City pressed forward, but there wasn’t as much room for them to exploit now as Plymouth sat back. Nevertheless, Robertson drilled a twenty yarder narrowly wide and Kellyman looked to come even closer with his shot from a similar distance as he chased a hat trick.
That was as good as it got for us though as Osho was beaten out on the right by Pepple and the resultant cross saw Chambers having a penalty awarded against him as he challenged Tolag. It looked a bit harsh to me and it remains an oddity to me that the division’s leading scorers have had just one penalty awarded to them this season while that must be about eight now against us.
That said, there didn’t seem to be any protests from City and Tolaj’s spot kick high into the corner was unsaveable.
BBM brought on Cian Ashford, Callum Robinson, Ronan Kpakio and Callum Scanlon, but, in truth, we got worse as an attacking force and Plymouth’s domination of set pieces at either end of the pitch was emphasised when centreback Mathias Ross headed in a corner.
So, a win for Argyle which has them dreaming of an unlikely Play Off challenge. As for the more likely challengers, for all of the compliments we’re given for the quality of our football, Lincoln have a look of Champions to them as they churn out the wins. Mansfield’s fine form of a month ago has deserted them – perhaps distracted by their FA Cup win, Lincoln took advantage to win 2-0 at whatever Field Mill’s called these days. Bradford are coming a cropper at Wimbledon as I write this, they’re 3-0 down (it finished 3-1), Stockport trailed to lowly Wigan before turning things around to win 4-2.
Better news came at Bolton where they were held 2-2 by Blackpool. Among the others, Huddersfield came from 1-0 down to beat Barnsley 2-1, while Reading will have been hoping for more than a 1-1 draw at Port Vale. Therefore, I’d say the results fall into the could have been worse category after our worst result, and possibly performance, of the season.
A poor day for the club was completed by a 1-0 home defeat for the under 18s against Bristol City.
