Granted, Rotherham United were as poor as they had been in feebly losing 3-0 at Cardiff City Stadium back in August, but, on a day when Lincoln showed they’re not going away by winning 4-1 at Plymouth despite going a goal down early on, City displayed the quality of Champions in strolling to another 3-0 beating of the Millers despite having to play more than three quarters of the game with ten men.
Today at the New York Stadium there was little of the vulnerability we saw at Burton last week. Indeed, I would say that we played better after Ryan Wintle’s dismissal than we were playing before it.
In professional football, it is very rare for a team with ten men for more than half of a game to win as conclusively as 3-0 against a side from the same division, especially when the score was still 0-0 when the dismissal occurred. Indeed, although I make no claims to be infallible in such things, I’m struggling to recall an occasion when I’ve seen it happen before today.
I’ll repeat that Rotherham were pretty woeful, but from now on, I’ll be giving City the praise they are due after what, in some ways, was their best performance of the season so far.
Gabriel Osho returned to the centre of our defence after missing out last week with injury and the other change from Burton saw Joel Colwill come in with Omari Kellyman occupying the striking role in place of Callum Robinson.
Kellyman was straight into the action from the kick off as Rotherham started by rolling the ball back to their keeper Cameron Dawson from the kick off and the Chelsea loanee was “taken out” off the ball by a defender as he chased forward to try and close Dawson down. In the tradition of refereeing ineptitude we’ve seen in League One this season, the man in black, Seb Stockbridge, ignored this blatant foul and so another afternoon of refereeing mediocrity was set in motion within five seconds of the start of the game!
Seconds later, Kellyman wasted a great chance as he misplaced his pass to Chris Willock who was completely unmarked outside him, but, like every one else in blue, this was to be a good day for Kellyman who again gave the impression that he is more effective operating in central areas than he is out wide.
The in form Willock was soon racing clear down the left, but another promising position fizzled out as Alex Robertson and Kellyman tried back heals within the six yard box and Rotherham were able to clear.
Kellyman’s first timer from the edge of the penalty area then flew about two foot wide as City turned the screw. Rotherham had offered little up until then, but when Wintle’s pass went astray close to the edge of our penalty area, the latest member of Leeds’ Gray dynasty, Harry,was set free with a run in on goal in the inside right channel.
The 17 year old forward on loan from Leeds fell to the floor dramatically as Wintle made slight contact with him, but it looked to me like one of those where the player makes out there’s no real collision, but our captain for the day knew what he was doing. As such, I reckon Mr Stockridge was right to award a foul and maybe to show the red card, but it could have been that Wintle was not clearly the “last man”.
I would not be too critical of the ref in this instance though because his decision kickstarted City’s ascent into cruise control as they took complete control with a combination of passing and movement when in possession and tremendous energy and organisation when they didn’t have the ball. – Gray was heading away from goal and towards the frantically covering back Osho and Will Fish might have been able to catch Gray if he had cut infield.
BBM sent out a signal when he didn’t make the sort of defensive substitution you would expect from a team that had been reduced to ten men in the game’s first quarter. Instead, we pressed forward relentlessly and it got to the stage where the local commentator on the stream I was watching was advocating that the home side should get one of their players to do a man to man marking job on Alex Robertson as he was running the show!
Perry Ng took over the captaincy from the departed Wintle and he stung Dawson’s hands with a spectacular effort from close to thirty yards as Joel Bagan’s free kick was half cleared to him.
I watched all of this waiting for normal service in an eleven v ten game to kick in, but it wasn’t happening and City took a thoroughly deserved lead in the forty third minute. Fish started it all off with a pass down the right to Ollie Tanner who managed to stay onside and then cut back a cross to the edge of the penalty area where Kellyman made scoring look easy with a nonchalant looking first time side footed effort past Dawson from the edge of the penalty area.
The goal finally prompted an attacking response from the home team as a neat flick by Emmanuel Adegboyega I think it was sent Gray clear in a one on one with Nathan Trott who was able to make a good save with his right foot from a chance you thought the home side could have made more of.
I was still in a defensive mind set at half time as I told myself we now had a lead to defend and a repeat of our first half performance may be enough to get us the three points.
My concern was partly that the home side were being helped by an inconsistent refereeing performance which had, for example, seen Kellyman lectured and a Rotherham free kick given for a coming together which was not as blatant as the one in the opening seconds which had been ignored by the official. Similarly, Fish was rightly booked for a grab at an opponent, but a minute or two earlier, Mr Stockbridge saw fit not to show a card to the Rotherham player who pulled back Bagan for the sort of foul that is usually seen as an automatic yellow these days.
So, I was cautiously optimistic at the start of the second half, but, realistically, I was expecting forty five minutes of backs to the wall defending. However, I needn’t have worried – Rotherham had already had their one on target effort of the game (that shot by Gray).
Although City lost the substantial lead they had in the possession battle at the break and ended up losing out by 52/48 over the ninety minutes, the truth was that they were still controlling the game as a goal looked a lot more likely to come from one of our counter attacks than it did from the home team’s rather laboured efforts.
City doubled their lead on fifty eight minutes as Tanner picked out Willock with a fine pass and, although Dawson got a hand to the winger’s close range shot, it was the finish of a confident player which found the bottom corner from ten yards.
I think that’s six assists now for Tanner since his return from injury and like some of his others recently, I feel today’s two showed a subtlety and a vision which wasn’t there last season – another case of the benefits gained from having good quality coaching at the club I believe.
Ronan Kpakio, Calum Chambers, Cian Ashford, David Turnbull and Isaak Davies were all introduced without any decrease in our superiority and the last two named combined in added time as Turnbull freed Davies to run down the right from half way, cut in past an opponent and score with his left foot from ten yards.
I didn’t it, but it seems that Isaak was elbowed in the face in an off the ball incident by Rotherham’s Shaun McWilliams some ten minutes or so before he scored. He was treated for some minutes before continuing and he needed which further treatment on the pitch after the final whistle.
The Davies injury, or, to be more accurate, how it was caused, was a factor in prompting what was an out of character “rant” from our manager after the game about refereeing standards at this level – I have a feeling he might be getting a fine for what he said, but it needed saying.
https://tv.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/videos/02088dd5-fc2d-4a5f-a9b5-36433207e657
Apologies to those players i don’t mention here because they were all very good today, but there are three I want to pick out.
When we signed Osho, there were plenty of comments to the effect that we had signed someone who was too good for this level, but a couple of months later, I would have thought that many City fans must have been thinking that there were two Gabriel Osho’s out there and we’d got the one who had been playing for Gateshead reserves! However, since coming back from the toe injury he sustained in the Vertu Trophy game with Wimbledon, Osho has been excellent and today he looked like someone who is much too good for this level.
Those words of the home commentator about Alex Robertson said all that needs to be said about him today – he was handed a challenge today in Wintle’s absence that he passed with flying colours.
Today’s game gave Joel Colwill the chance to show his tremendous stamina to it’s best effect – he was going as strong in the last minute as he was in the first in what I feel was his best performance for us yet.
I’ve already mentioned Lincoln, but Bolton ensured that our lead over third position remains at eight points (although they have played a game more than us and we have a much better goal difference than them) by beating Barnsley 3-2 after having led by three at half time. Stockport were held to a frustrating 0-0 draw at home to Leyton Orient as they were also down to ten men, but only for the last ten minutes. Huddersfield came back from 2-0 down to draw with Blackpool, but it’s definitely two points dropped for them as they were at home and Bradford’s tough fixture list so far this year continues to see them drop down the table as they went down 2-1 at Luton.
The day started well for City although there was also a red card for our Under 18s as they beat Swansea 3-1 at Leckwith this lunchtime. All of the goals came in the first half as Mannie Barton (later to be sent off) and Robert Tankiewicz put us 2-0 up and then Harry Watts added a third after the jacks had reduced the deficit.
