What do we think? Two losses on the trot and we slump from
the giddy heights of second to eighth. We sit uncomfortably at the upper end of
the mid table muddle.
Is it down to Slade?
In his defence ...
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| May it please Mister Tan ... |
Against Hull we were playing against Premiership quality yet
giving a good account of ourselves. Players like Huddleston and Dawson should
be playing in a higher league, and their attackers are blessed with skill and
pace. Cardiff enjoyed loads of possession, good ideas from defence to midfield
but as with last season we lacked the imagination to take advantage in attack.
Against Rotherham the man who usually saves our bacon cost
us the match. In a moment of red mist he did a Cantana and kicked out at his tormentor,
Derbyshire, a niggling little bastard. Red mist equals red card. Moore came on
for the industrious and in form Mason and suddenly we were exposed up front
and a goal down. Cardiff were left to chase the game. To add insult to insult, in
the final seconds the superb Connolly clips the ball at the near post and
watches it dribble across our line. We deserved the point and ended up with nothing.
Ok we know Marshall has form. His red card at the end of the
last season meant he couldn’t play for the first 3 matches of this season. We
are unlikely to ever forget his method of discussing a defensive situation with
Anthony Gerrard – though in fairness Gerard was never a guy to walk passed a
fight. I guess it is how a scot and scouser discuss matters. Fists raised,
temper on overload.
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| Marshall Would you mind awfully tracking back with the forward? Gerrard: What a spiffing idea David. Many thanks for advice. |
Marshall must get that rage under control, even when
arseholes like Derbyshire are around. In fact especially now that players up
and down the country know he can be needled.
So the Russell Slade defence barrister can offer up solid
reasons for the two losses.
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| And the case against Mr Slade ... |
However the truth is that Hull, for all their qualities on
paper were ordinary yet still mugged us. If we cannot score when we have the
upper hand with some of the division’s best strikers when are we going to hit
the back of the net?
As with last season when plan A fails Cardiff carry on doing
it. When it continues to fail …yep, we still carry on doing it. If City cannot
get joy playing the ball around in front of the Hull defence then why not go
over the top and get someone to run on to it or try and cut the ball through the
defence? Well anything other than pass it around in front of a competent and
high quality defence.
Let us not forget Rotherham have played 8 games and suffered
the ignominy of 5 defeats, scrapped two draws and beaten only one team – yes,
us! Surely we should be able to score a few against them even if we are down a
man? No disrespect to Rotherham but they are crap.
There seems to be a lack of ideas ahead up front for Cardiff.
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| Here come der Judge, here come der Judge ... |
A good manager can change a match with a substitution or by tweaking
the playing system. I am not seeing any signs of that. For sure Malky MacKay,
the hero to many of us, didn’t vary his systems too much either. He played a
defensive system which was turned into an attacking force if we went a goal
down.
But Mackay’s systems worked.
Same with Dave Jones. He adjusted his tactics to the few
players in his squad and varied them against other teams.
Right now we are as predictable as we were last season.
4-4-2, squashing into 4-4-1-1 at times.
This is all down to the coaching staff.
The final argument against Slade is that the Cardiff City
team is pretty much the one he inherited with the addition of Peltier and the
loan guy Ameobi. None of Slade’s signings have set the Cardiff City Stadium
alight. Solskjaer might point to Pilkington, Fabio, Jones and a few others to
balance out the hundreds of Norwegian disappointments he migrated to here. And please don't mention Mats Moller Daehli, I am close enough to tears as it is. How could we let him go *sob*
It is still early but Cardiff’s record this season of 3
draws, 3 wins and 2 losses is middle of the table stuff. Just a sobering
thought: we are 8 points away from Brighton at the top but only 7 points away from
Rotherham at the bottom. Yes, I know it’s scary.
We have the home game against Charlton followed by two away
games, one of which is against in-form Brighton. I fear that by the end of October
we could be stranded in the middle of the table.
There again I was one of the people who thought Solskjaer
was going to be brilliant so don’t listen to me.
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