Bollocks!!!!
It’s our first visit to the Cardiff City Stadium which has replaced Ninian Park and also doesn’t have any corporate branding which is nice in this day and age. No King Power bollocks for these boys. Cardiff have been a bit odd in recent seasons including ‘doing a Pompey’…. Broke and not paying their bills, but hiring players on ridiculous salaries like Craig Bellamy. Sanity seems to have prevailed now and fair play to them.
Nigel Adkins made his first significant team change of the season by leaving Dean Hammond on the bench and recalling Morgan Schneideriln on the back of his goal against Burnley. Personally, I would have thought Chappers was more deserving of a start but he was once more on the bench with Steve de Ridder. Despite his half time withdrawal up at Burnley, the Gulyman was still in the side.
Saints start well and string together a 20 odd pass move which if truth be told, is more sideways and backwards then actually threatening the Cardiff goal. Despite the pretty passing, it’s a pretty dull start as Cardiff concentrate on closing us down and waiting for us to fuck something up which we duly do when Davis plays a short one to Cork that puts him right in the shit and he’s robbed by Cowie, whose shot is deflected wide. Two corner fizz across without undue alarm, other than the stress levels of the supporters being tested.
Jose Fonte is the captain in the absence of Deano and he’s revelling in the authority and the fact that he can argue with referees today. We finally create a decent chance worthy of the name as all the forward players combine to give the Gulyman a chance which he smashes into the side netting.
When we played Birmingham a couple of weeks back, much of the chat after the game was about not giving away cheap free kicks on the edge of our area. I think we can safely assume that when the team talk was given about this, the Gulyman’s interpreter was on holiday. Either that or he translated “don’t give away stupid fucking free kicks” as “free kicks for pushing someone over in the D, are cool as it’s not a penalty and Kelvin will save it anyway”. Luckily, the Gods were smiling and Whittingham’s free kick hit his own player who was in the wall and went wide. This kind of summed up the first half which ended 0-0.
Saints are positive at the start of the second half and enjoy their best period of the game. Ten minutes in and Corky shoots and sees it blocked with a suggestion of arm. Merringtitus is suggesting that it was a penalty with “let me explain for the listeners what happened there…..” and we’re 1-0 down. It’s a shit, amateur hour, Sunday morning pub league goal as the keeper has wellied it forward and Kenny Miller has stuck his head in where it might hurt and nodded it past the flapping Davis who got his charge from the line completely wrong. It’s bollocks, it really is.
Steve de Ridder comes on for Connolly straight away and the winger is put up front as Nigel doesn’t seem to trust him yet on the wing. He immediately puts Morgan clean through on the keeper but there is no way Morgan is going to score twice in a week and it hits the keeper and trickles wide. Big chance…gone.
A minute later we were right in the shit as Hooiveld attempted to pass out of defence and it got intercepted, one pass and Miller is though on goal and he really isn’t going to miss. 2-0 and 27 minutes to go.
Saints give it go though, led by Frazer Richardson who whips in a perfect cross onto the head of Sir Rickie who rivals his miss against Burnley by heading wide when it looked easier to score. It’s just not going to happen is it…
We are given 20 minutes of Bald Psycho in place of Corky and Chappers soom fires just wide. He and de Ridder have put some urgency back into proceedings as Cardiff look to waste time, none more so that the ridiculously names Filip Kiss who got overtaken by 3 snails and a slug as he walked off having been substituted.
90 minutes are up and it’s still not happening when Sir Rickie tees up de Ridder who controls and fires home for his first goal in the League. Cardiff kick off and we need to get the ball off them and ….. fuck it, full time. The final whistle goes and we’ve lost. Stats I’m sure will show that we bossed possession and all of the areas aside from the one’s that matter – both ends of the pitch. Put simply we missed too many chances and gifted two goals. If a team is closing you down quickly as they tend to do when you’re away from home, surely fannying around in defence is not the way to go. There has got to be a time to just lump it up to the centre forward and battle for it. The two main incidents of us pissing about were Davis at the start of the game when you really should not be taking any chances and Hooiveld for the 2nd goal when we should have been keeping the back door firmly shut as we looked for an equalizer.
I know that it’s ridiculous to get too hung up on the league table after 9 games but incredibly, we’re still top despite dropping 5 points in the last 2 games. It illustrates what a tough league this is I guess with none of the top 6 winning their midweek games. We have some serious work to do though, especially in away games where we have 1 point out of the last 9. I feel that having The Gulyman and Lallana on the wings in away matches makes us too open so one of them or Connolly has to be on the bench. We need Chappers for his energy and snapping into tackles and we also need some pace, not some Johnno Pace but Steve de Ridder being used more often so we can stretch teams out.
Nigel almost shrugged this one off but he can’t have been happy with the sloppy play at the back from Davis, Fox and Hooiveld, nor the wastefulness in front of goal from Sir Rickie and Schneiderlin in particular. He won’t panic but I think there will be some ears burning before the Watford game at SMS on Saturday.
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