After Saturday’s loss to Lincoln, Cardiff City’s manager and players owe their fans a performance against Barnsley tonight at Oakwell. Okay, I accept that’s somewhat over harsh, particularly on BBM, but, with a hiding at Plymouth still fresh in minds, City could do with proof over the next week or two that what we’ve seen in two of our last three matches is not the new normal at the club.
As I say, I think any criticism of BBM for Saturday has to be weighed against that total of twenty two victories with still around a quarter of the season to play. It’s also true to say that our manager has plenty of credit in the bank from things like positively influencing games with his substitutions and let’s not forget that we were without two forwards who would surely have seen some game time on Saturday had they both been available.
However, Lincoln was one of those rare occasions where nothing BBM did worked to the extent that a questionable team selection with important players out of position when there was not really any need for them to be, was not helped by positional changes when they came or by the use of five substitutes. In our game at Blackpool, BBM’s changes tended to make things worse – I wouldn’t say that was the case on Saturday, it was just that they seemed to make no difference at all.
My disappointment, and it is disappointment rather than anger, is aimed more at the players though. Three days later, I’m still asking myself who played well on Saturday and the damning answer is that I don’t think anyone played to the standards they’ve set for themselves this season. I’d like to think that all sixteen players used, with the exception of David Turnbull who wasn’t on long enough to have an effect one way or another, would look themselves in the mirror and honestly admit that they didn’t have what they would consider to be a good game – I don’t think anyone had a stinker, but did anyone really merit more than a six out of ten marking?
I’ve heard managers say that on any given day, you can expect something like three out of the starting eleven to be below their usual levels, but you can cope with that if the other eight perform to a decent or good level. Well, on Saturday, I’d say that scenario was reversed – there might have been three performing to an acceptable, if not outstanding, level, but there were eight who slipped below, well below in some cases, what we’ve seen for most of this season.
It shouldn’t be a shock for supporters of any team in a first v second clash if their side is beaten, but when both teams are double figures points clear of the rest of the league, you don’t expect the sort of meek defeat that we saw on Saturday. We lost with a whimper and our players now need to show that they can deal with what should be a relatively mild amount of pressure given the big lead we still have over the team in third place.
On to the quiz, seven Barnsley related questions with the answers to be posted on here tomorrow.
60s. Fans of a recently deceased musician from the north east should be familiar with this player’s surname given the title of one of his singles, but you may be struggling otherwise as this Yorkshire born forward’s career was a pretty modest one. Released from a lair in the Midlands as.a teenager without playing a first team game, his goals in non league football saw him recruited by Barnsley, but he was never a regular starter with them during his six years at Oakwell despite a respectable dozen league goals from his thirty odd starts for the Tykes. He stayed in Yorkshire to play for a team which it could be said played in a different shade of red and, by the time he left them a couple of years later, his career record over just over a hundred league appearances had him scoring at very close to a goal every three games. With a record like that, it was no surprise that he stayed in the Football League to play for manufacturers of headwear, but he played little first team football in his one season there and failed to find the net, so his full time career was over – who am I describing?
70s. It may have sounded like everything was going well through all of this striker’s career, but the truth was that he was a typical lower league journeyman with two of the four clubs he played for no longer in the EFL. He started with a club hoping to make it back into the EFL this season and made the reverse journey our man from the 60s did when he signed for Barnsley where he scored goals at around a rate of one in four over 120 plus appearances. Towards the end of his time at Oakwell, he was loaned to a team that would have had to wear their change strip when they played at Merthyr this season and the move was later made permanent. Finally, there was a brief spell with a team a long way away that had a very distinctive moniker and club kit. Can you name him?
80s. Joins method of radio broadcasting initially and feels better for it. (5,7)
90s. Brought up on Anglesey, he scored a first team goal for Manchester United before signing for Barnsley for a fairly sizeable fee, but he was only ever to score twice for them. He didn’t make it to thirty league appearances for the Tykes, but he still played more times for them than the five sides from the north of England that he played for after leaving them put together. He later had two spells managing Llandudno, but can you name him?
00s. Manchester band feeling resentment maybe.
10s. Joke at muddy incline’s expense perhaps!
20s Thunderbird pilot relies on player from socialist football club!
Answers to follow:
