The fastest season I have known yet more despair than I can remember

So that’s it.

The fastest season I have known yet more despair than I can remember.

Yesterday we beat Man City in our first home match, today we cannot even score against the team with such bad form their own supporters have given up on them.

Ok maybe …

unlucky to lose Medal, Theophile and certainly the wonderful Daehli due to illness just before the match

unlucky not to score at times, especially Gunnarsson

unlucky to see Sunderland beat man u at old trafford

But we were feeble against a feeble team, the story of the last few months

Ole needs a defence coach. We need to learn how to defend again, whether it set pieces or open play.

Ole needs an attacking coach. Someone to put some ideas up front into action. Way to predictable.

We were poor all over the pitch and I don't get why there is such a lack of urgency.

It’s all over now, and maybe it has been all over for a long time. Only other teams with dreadful current records gave us a possibility of escape.

Just not good enough and I am not convinced we are tough enough for the championship.

Cardiff’s demotion, the blindness of BBC Wales and the Western Mail. But ooooh is that a rugby player crossing the road?

Ok, now I have a chip on my shoulder the length of the M4 regarding the way the media reports football in south wales.

Any city, other than Cardiff, fortunate to find itself with a premiership side, would have its papers and local tv stuffed full of stories  about the club, some of it might even be true.

But Cardiff City? Erm nope. Now don’t get me wrong I have lived in Wales all my life, man, boy and middle aged, so I know that front page sports news will always be rugby. If a rugby player cuts his nails it demands front page news in the Western mail and hours spent mulling over it on the radio.

On Radio Wales news that Dan Carter might not be fit for the last test against the All Blacks brought the news programs in Wales to a grinding halt. Almost two hours of feverish speculation. I am sure if Obama was being interviewed he would be tasked on the subject of who will replace him and what it means to the Welsh backs.

So I get that, I may not understand it but I know it. Rugby is a sport, football is a diversion in which other people indulge. Those who do not work in BBC Cardiff or the Western mail.

So just in case you live in wales you might not be aware of the following: this Saturday coming Cardiff City’s painful season in the premiership could, well, WILL come to an end. If we lose against ropey Newcastle then we are a dead parrot pining for the fiords.

Oddly if we win and the other results go for us we could be safe.

Bizarre, yes?

But not of interest to BBC Wales and very little interest to the Western mail.

Guess we will have to talk about it amongst ourselves.

There aren’t that many club rugby supporters as evidenced by the gates on a Saturday, women’s football matches might gain more spectators. But heavens above they must all work in BBC Cardiff or in the Western Mail.

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?