Cardiff v Sunderland, theoretical physicists and the ugly truth. It was horrible while it lasted. City exit the premier league.

So all over now. Maybe there are some theoretical mathematicians who can use a high powered Cray computer to demonstrate that just a single win over Newcastle or Chelsea could keep us up. But to the rest of us, the fat lady has sung and returned home to her reinforced bed.

Miserable. 

Cardiff lacked guile and passion. You need both to win matches but either quality would be good. And I am not talking about just this match. We were poor in these last games against the bottom clubs. Poor and second best. Sunderland, Stoke, Palace and West Brom are not top tier stuff and we were always second best.

Ok I was wrong. Solskjaer wasn’t the right man for the job at that time. It couldn’t have been worse with Malky’s two banks of four could it?

But Solskjaer will be good long term. Won’t he? Eh? Surely? When he gets his players in to play his way? All right I don’t know and I am fearful about the championship next year.

Over the season the lack of a goal scorer cost us. Maybe we needed more quality and Tan has a point when he says £30 odd million should have brought us more.

A season that began at home in extraordinary style with a victory over Manchester City is fizzling out like a late night fart. We just want it to go away.

It took us a couple of decades to get here and a single season to be forced out.

It has been a painful lesson. Survival in the premiership requires everything to function well and I am not quite sure what did function well this season. Marshall, Caulker and Medal.

But I bet I wake up on Monday morning saying; ‘well is we were to get 4 points from the next two games  what if …’

Let’s join the theoretical physicists and not the realists. The dream is still on.

2014: How Wales conquered the premier league, get your managers in Merthyr

2014 How Wales conquered the premier league

Right now there are two welsh teams in the premier league plus 3 welsh managers. When was the last time that has happened, even in the old first division. Yep never. 

Giggs has just been given the management of Man Utd, only 9 months too late to push Utd in to a Champion’s league spot. Then we have Tony Pulis, contender for manager of the year. A man who has dragged Palace out of the knacker’s yard to hoist them into middle of the table respectability.

Finally Mark Hughes who has kicked the naysayers in the balls by over performing with a Stoke team made up of gigantic criminals and yobs. 

Demonstrating that club owners should stop shopping for their Managers in Italy and Spain. They would have better fortune in Merthyr and have better fortune because we are cheaper. Wages are lower in Wales than most EU countries. 

Of course none of this is going to last for very long. I reckon Hughes and Pulis have safe guarded their positions so can afford to book their two weeks bargain basement holiday in Greece this summer. 

But Giggs might still be down the job centre in Cardiff by July. Not having a foreign surname will tellingly count against him. But Giggs could be a good bet for Cardiff should Solskjaer move on? Nice thought.

Man Utd’s travails are of course entertaining to Cardiff fans. Had Man U been managed by Ole, with his attack for 90 minutes philosophy and we had Moyes, with his ‘we are the underdogs, fight them on the beaches’ mentality we would have both been better off. Man Utd in a Champion’s league spot and Cardiff looking at the Europa league. The Europa league is the one where you have 23 referees around the pitch and none of them can give a penalty.

Anyways the Welsh ascendency won’t last for long. Cardiff will do well to stay up now. A must needed win at Sunderland is surely the minimum necessary. 3 Points for us but more importantly snatching 3 from Sunderland to prevent them leap frogging leaping us to safety. Then would one point do it? Surely at least 3, if not, 4 more.

Anyways let us become insufferably proud of the welsh finally ruling the Premier League even if it is only for a few weeks.

Stoke draw, smiling Ole’s best team and the need for kebab flavoured false nails.

The result isn’t good enough but this was the best home performance we have seen under smiling Ole.

Most refs would not have given the penalty when Odemwingie auditioned for the next Superman movie by throwing himself into the air with God praising upraised arms. Actors in Mexican soaps have acted in a more natural manner. The reason for his OTT theatrics? The slender Kim Bo had just about touched him. Webb thought about it for a long time before reaching the wrong conclusion. If refs are going to give penalties every time a player dives when touched then scorelines are going to look like rugby scores, maybe even cricket scores if Suarez is on the field.

He does what he wants.

The equalizer was scored for Cardiff by a penalty from Peter Whittingham the coolest man alive, the only people with lower pulse rates are actually dead. 

Cala scored the winner but was ruled offside by a pedantic linesman despite the ball coming back off Begovic.

City had a lot of purposeful possession in the first half, Daehli, Kim Bo, Whittingham and Mutch kept the ball heading in the right direction. But did we have enough attempts as a result? No. 

That is Cardiff’s problem. Campbell’s work rate is superb, his ability to make the lives of defenders a total misery is unquestionable but does the lad score enough? As in other matches he had a few opportunities but, like life for people in Merthyr, it all passed him by.

Once city had the goal disallowed the euphoria turned into an uneasy dread as we waited for Stoke to score the winner. As the second half wore on so their chances increased. Odemwingie, who was played out of position on the wing by Malky, demonstrated what he can do as a forward. He could have scored a couple.

But we came away from the show with a point in our pockets, leapt high up the table, well, by one place and are slightly better off than we were before the ref started the match. W can still can save the day.

Swansea have probably secured their premiership for next season with a 1-2 victory at Newcastle. 

Palace are safe and West Ham all but safe. West Brom have four matches left, two of which are away to Arsenal and Man City. Norwich face the might of the premiership in their final matches: Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea along with a match against a middle of the table side, Man Utd.

We must beat either Sunderland or Newcastle away, surely both doable if we play like that. If we beat them both we stay up.

My prediction is that we beat one and then have a 90 minute cardiac arrest with Chelsea as they fight for the title. I suggest you join your local nail bar and get some gel nails, (ask you other half or your mum). Get them in kebab flavour cos you will be doing a lot of chewing on them for the next three matches. 

The best news is that smiling Ole has found his team, why did it take him so long?

Who is to blame for City being relegated?

 

Everyone can now relax. I have worked out all the points the bottom clubs will realistically receive by the end of this season. Cardiff will be demoted by one miserly point. We will be the runner who trips with in a metre of the line, the business that goes bust just before the arrival of a huge contract, the lover whose text massage expressing enduring love is sent to the wrong person.

Yep. It is all over apart from the blame game. So let’s get on with it.

This is easy. Vincent Tan will blame Malky and Iain Moodey, the fans will blame Tan. Some fingers will be pointed at Solksjaer for taking so long to get a grip on our team, especially while our rivals for the drop were back pedalling and self-imploding.

Some will blame Chris Foy for playing 7 minutes of injury game when I think the physios hadn’t even set foot on the grass in the second half of the Sunderland home match. The result, of course, was that Sunderland scored with the final kick to rob us of 2 points and more importantly some badly needed  confidence. 

I know you are wondering who is to truly blame so I will save you the time and trouble  and tell you.  

Malky and Moore. They spent £38.3 million on summer transfers. This was higher than anyone except Spurs, (after their lottery win with the Bale sale), Arsenal, Chelsea, Southampton, Liverpool and of course Manchester City. (http://www.betinf.com/england_transfer.htm).

We spent a paltry 2.5 million in January at the Poundshop of which only Matts Daehli has proven good value, in fact extraordinary value. Ok, one day, he might prove worthy of £38 million alone. 

Somewhere in amongst all those players there ought to have been someone who can, you know, do I need to say it, put the ball into the net. 

Cornelius proved worse than Rudy Gestede and Kenwynne Jones (so far) worse than Odemwingie. Whatever Cornelius cost, and some reports push it as high as £15 million had he stayed at Cardiff, surely we can say that for 8-10 million we could have bought a guy who knew where the goal was in the Premier League.

All season our problem has been the lack of goals. Our best goal scorers are Mutch and Caulker, a midfielder and a defender. 

So when we go down take a gander at the goal difference, note the fact we drop for the lack of a single point. A few more goals and we would have been ok.

Of course being a city fan I don’t expect us to fall through the trap door. My figures were based on us winning 2 more games. Should  we do slightly better, and that is possible, then Fulham will join Sunderland and Norwich for the delights of playing the Boltons, Notts Forests and Doncasters of football.

Southampton victory. Solskjaer finds a secret satanic tome while Zaha reveals a bit of the devil.

 How did Cardiff win at Southampton? Many legends will accrue over the years, whether we stay up or go down. Here is the truth as told to me by a secret agent at Crystal Palace. A truth that will chill the hearts of any right minded football supporter. 

Pass it on to your grandchildren only when they are sufficiently mature to understand its enormity.

Midnight on Friday past, Solskjaer is traipsing through the darkened catacombs beneath the Cardiff City stadium. His way lit only by a fragile, flickering candle. He can barely make out cobwebs, blue bare bricks and dust until there, on a shadowy ridge, glowing in the dark is a tome. 

Blowing off the dust the Norwegian sees the inscription: Malky’s Book of Tactics. Feeling the damp chill of dread he opens to find just a single parchment bearing the legend: Two banks of four marshalled in front of Marshall. There are no other words of wisdom.

Solksjaer feels faint. What? Not one goalkeeper and 10 strikers? How can this possibly work?

After 90 breath holding, scary minutes at Southampton he finds it does indeed work. 

Let’s forget the uncharitable words I was to use for the first half: like ponderous, slow, predictable with tactics consisting of passing the ball to the opposition and no pressing what so ever.

Let’s just describe two moments. 

First, Cala picks up a header on the edge of The Saints area, it damned well just will not come down fast enough for a volley, nor will it bounce near his feet for a shot. So he pushes it on, out of the way of the  defenders rushing out to him before blasting it with his left foot across the goal.

It flies in. Like a ground to air missile it rifles the net.

The second moment is Wilfried Zaha battling for the ball. Yes, read that again. Wilfried not slouching, not pouting, not looking a teenager who isn’t allowed to stay up late to play on his playstation. This is the Zaha that Man Utd dream about. Battling for the ball like his life depends on it. What is more staggering is that he wins the fight. He dribbles the ball towards their area, running with the poise and grace of a Brazilian superstar. Where has this Zaha been since January? Moyes might ask the same. More skill, more physical battling, stays on his feet when he could go down for a penalty, before shooting. Ok it is straight at the fortunate keeper, else this would be a contender for goal of the season.

This is the Zaha we have been waiting for. Now we understand.

Hats off too, to Matts Daehli who also shows a bit of toughened grit to go with his prodigious talents.

Finally my last hat off to the Cardiff fans who could be heard throughout the match. Yes, yes, yes they went a little hoarse just after half time but they, like the rest of the world , were waiting for the Southampton victory.

Ok, Ole now we believe, I mean really believe. This is doable. We are still in the ring for the final rounds. Bring ‘em on.