‘E I E I E I O up the football league we go’.
The Tiger’s defeated The Bluebirds at the MKM Stadium, although it was not particularly an enjoyable game to watch, despite scoring four, two of which were helped into the net by the opponents. Yes, we won, but we have to remember it was Cardiff, who we have beaten seven times in consecutive league games and were bottom of the league with a new manager. There were large parts of the game where they looked organised and confident, enjoying 51% of the possession, and if it were not for Pandur and their lack of finishing, the score could have told us a different tale.
We want to be a playoff contending team and this was not good enough. Evidently, we were defeated by Leeds and Sheffield United playing like this, but could beat two mediocre teams, which demonstrates we are not up there with the big teams. This is down to the annoying system (if you can call it that) we are operating: revert into our half, pass back to the keeper, who passes it to one of the full backs and then it is back to the start, where, in lieu of looking for the forward ball, we play another triangle at the other side; by this time, the opponents have pushed all their players up and have started pressing us off the ball, which happened a few times in this game–again, top six teams would have capitalised every time.
Walter did not make any changes to the eleven he fielded against Stoke last week, save for Regan Slater replacing Kasey Palmer. That meant in a 4-3-3 formation, he lined them up as follows: Pandur, in goal; Coyle, Jones, McLoughlin and Drameh, holding the fort; Slater, Zambrano and Mehlem anchoring the middle; and Belloumi, Bedia and Omur as the attacking trio. It was also our 120th anniversary, so faces such as Deano, Peter Taylor and David Meyler made an appearance before kickoff.
As is our wont, we started the game lacklustre and conceded in the 18th minute, which sparked a roar of anger from the Tiger fans. One, smooth, quick move from Cardiff gave them the opportunity to float a ball over the back line by El-Ghazi, which was taken down by Callum Robinson who drove into the box scot-free and whalloped the ball into the roof of the net. The anger was because we thought he was a yard offside, although watching the highlights, Coyle was just playing him on.
We came out of our cage after this and had a 20 minute spell, where we looked dominant, threatening and bagged two goals. In the 22nd minute, Belloumi received the ball on the right flank, who took on his man, before cutting in and curling a low, hard cross towards the back post, which trickled all the way in. He also got our second in the 35th minute, which was derived from a decent team-worked goal. A ball was played over the top, which was flicked onto Mehlem by Belloumi, who took the ball down neatly, turned and threaded it through to the latter and he was able to chip the keeper, making us lead for the first time in the first 45 minutes.
It was honours heading into the second period, and it was pleasing to witness a team clicking and gelling properly, playing the football we were promised. If we continued in this manner for the remainder of the match, the tone of this report would have been more sanguine, but something changed, especially at the back.
The half started positively, increasing our advantage to two in the 51st minute, through a corner. We played it short to the edge of the box, where Omur found Mehlem on the overlap unmarked, who put a flat ball into the mixer, which was hit by Zambrano, but it needed a big deflection to put it into the back of the net.
It was all Cardiff after and we were very fortunate not to concede. There best chance to reduce the deficit came towards the hour mark where El-Ghazi had the ball on the left, before running half the width of the box, before passing to Colwil on the right, who put a dangerous ball towards the far post, which was saved by Pandur, but came out to an onrushing Robinson, who was not expecting it and completely missed the ball.
A flurry of headers and shots over the bar continued until the 90th minute and our defence became weaker every time they broke us down. Three changes also disrupted our flow and it became dull to watch, with both sides making poor passes, and making arbitrary mistakes. If it were not for the score line, the attitude of Cardiff would have been different and they could have gone on to win it. Thankfully, they were not good in front of goal today and Pandur came to our rescue.
We capped off the game in the 91st minute from the spot, after Millar roamed free on the left flank, with two runners to his right. He gave it to Kamara, who made a mess of it and allowed a defender to close him down, however, he pushed him to the floor and the referee pointed to the spot. Bedia was put up to the job and he was able to secure his first goal in Tiger colours.
Thank God we could score today and hopefully our players realise they need to be more aware and robust, especially off the ball. Our next opponents are QPR away, who sit 17th in the table, suffering a 2-0 defeat to Blackburn and a 1-1 draw to Millwall in their previous two outings. I will be going to this one, where we will meet Toby Young–a QPR fan, who writes a report after every game on his Substack–and family beforehand. On the previous two occasions we have travelled to West London we have suffered two heavy defeats. Let’s hope we do not suffer from the same fate and continue our winning streak.