Stop press. City fans stay till the end and left with a smile on their faces

City 1 Fulham 1

The man who might be Cardiff manager at the end of the season?

Firstly the good news: we weren’t bad. So time to break open a cheap half bottle of plonk from Lidl and sigh with relief.

The second bit of good news is that Cardiff fans left with a smile on the face – they also stayed until the final whistle. I cannot think of a match last season where this happened – oh yeh, when we beat Fulham on our first day back in Blue.

This was because we were the right end of a draw, ie they scored first.

This was a Slade team with a different attitude. Far more ‘up for it’. Players wanted the ball and had an inkling of what to do with it when they got it. The inverse of the previous season.

Amazingly when Fulham scored the  City players strode back to the centre circle with chins up and a glare that said, ‘right, now you’ve asked for it.’ Again the inverse of the previous season when a  goal seemed to flatten our spirits even if we were 2 goals up.

This spirit, if maintained through the season , will mean more points.

More good news, Dikgacoi is every bit as good as folk have said. Unflappable, tough and a ball player. Gunnarsson  may have to bring his Icelandic magazine ‘Cool Babes in the Snow’ so he has something to look at on the bench whilst City are playing. But please stay with us Aron, it’s a long rigorous season of injuries, suspensions and form. You will be needed!

Sammy Ameobi promises a great deal: he is big, clearly talented to a degree you would describe as classy, pacey and, at least for a while, looked like he wanted to get involved. Need to see more.

Slade has never impressed me as a manager but I have often pointed out that his 4-4-2 worked well when he had a fit Pilkington opposite Noone. That view remains. I think of Ralls as a midfield ballplayer more than an out and out winger.

Pilkington played like a man who has been out of action with injuries for an eternity and needed to remind us how good he actually is. And he did. He is unplayable on his day, and today was certainly his day. He gave the Fulham fullbacks a torrid time. Pilkington  may be the best asset Solskjaer brought to the club.

A biased ref reckons Pilkington didn't score because he used his hand. Ref must be English.

 Noone scored the sort of goal that would be shown endlessly on tv if scored by a Manchester city or Chelsea player. He dribbled inside, with Fulham players finding it difficult to keep their feet and scored with a bending shot from 25 yards. By next week I will be describing it as having been scored from 35 yards. It was that sort of goal. One about which granddads will bore their grandkids .

Nooney, Nooney, Nooney.

 

It was a life saver, or as they refer to it at Cardiff City Stadium, a Slade saver.

Fulham and City were on a par, a draw would have been fair.

What did Cardiff city miss?

1.       Marshall’s bullying. In a match he is constantly yelling and tugging his defence around. Simon Moore is a little too quiet for my liking. Maybe Morrison or someone else has to pick up on that. As for Moore’s cock up, hmmm. Every keeper makes one or two but maybe 5 million for Marshall feels a little too cheap right now.

2.       Ali Yasmine. I can see that managers might drop a player because of ill considered reasons but to drop Ali was a catastrophic mistake. Whatever he has done wrong, writing poetry about Vincent Tan on the loo walls, shagging the wife of a director or asking for an increase in his salary to take him up to minimum wage, please Cardiff City board allow him to apologise and tell him to get his arse back up in that damned box. Pronto. Like right now. Let him ‘m a k e  S  O  M  E     N   O   I   S  E.’ As for the mortuary attendant who replaced Ali please let us say just say thank you and good night.

3.       The elusive final goal scoring touch. I am a big fan of Mason and he looks hungry to score but what does Ravell offer us right now? He doesn’t look big enough to be a target man and the Championship is not famous for hiring weedy dwarves as centre backs. On the plus side other players took a genuine pop at goal and on a kinder day may have seen us win by 3 or 4.

So this is a step up from the previous season. Obviously no one knows how good/bad/mediocre Fulham are but on the basis of what we saw we will not be relegated and, whisper it quietly, Russell Slade might be the manager of a top six championship side.