Charlton, my therapist and happy pills for all city supporters and a bit of poetry

For the first 70 minutes City bossed the game, and Charlton were left chasing the midfield tails of Whittingham, macAleny, Noone and Gunnarson. City bossed the game.

The 4 man defence team were solid but it was the the enterprising sharp midfield which controlled the game for us.

The long ball game had been chucked in the dustbin, where it should have stayed in the first place. 

The front two of Macheda and Kenwynne Jones will never get an award for hard work and industry and that is now where the problem now lies. I don’t pretend to like 4-4-2 but if you play it then the two guys up front have to put in a shift. Macheda clearly isn’t the blood and guts Costa type. He is more the cerebral ‘mommy wouldn’t like it if I got my boots dirty’ type. But the guy has scored in successive matches albeit that this goal was due to the perseverance of Kenwynne Jones keeping the ball in play and then placing it in the six yard box. And Jones has scored 14 goals this season despite Cardiff being mindless for most of the season.

Perhaps that is the next area the management team will sort.

While they are looking at that please ask why Peltier is on the left. He is a great right back but every time he gets the ball down the left wing he needs to stop and shift it to his right foot before passing back.

Our domination  made it look like it would finish as a one nil score line.

Then disaster. Slade took off MacAleny for reasons known best to him. Nothing against Kennedy, in fact I like him, but why change someone who is making such an impact? Gunnarson had already limped off in the first half. Noone lost his mojo and Whitts had over five minutes in the recovery room. That left Cardiff looking lost and Charlton suddenly remembered they were here to play football. 

By the time Whitts returned Charlton had belief and City were under pressure. The Cardiff midfield became shambolic and panic set in, or it did in my area of the stand.

Charlton pressed and scored a soft goal before being served up with an even softer penalty.

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

So we lost 1-2.

I can no longer recall what it is like leaving the Cardiff City Stadium with a smile on my face.

This was a huge improvement but we are still months away from looking like a Championship football team. Russell Slade has been in charge since the 6^th of October and the advance has been glacial.

Cardiff need to appoint a serious coach and do it right now. Give the guy a chance to learn about the players and, who knows, perhaps give us a bounce that might take us up the table. Not as far as the play offs maybe but certainly so far up we can talk of what might have been.

Yes. Let’s talk of what might have been. What if Cardiff City had more ambition and brought in Neil Lennon or Tony Pulis back at the end of November. Or indeed anyone who has managed a team at the higher levels, someone who knows more than 4-4-2. With this group of players we would surely have been in the playoffs or indeed maybe in one of the top two spots.

The appointment of Russell is among the worst decisions Cardiff have made. Definitely on par with buying Cornelius when we needed a proven Premier League goal scorer, selling Toshack before nailing down Warbouys or increasing the parking charge from £5 to £8, an increase of 62% (I think!).

The Miserable Season continues. I am not sure how much more I can take without either a therapist or some happy pills.