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Ched Evans Nets Two as Canaries Beat City 2-1 at Ninian Park
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Cardiff City lost 2-1 today to Norwich City at Ninian Park. Wales Under-21 international Ched Evans netted both goals for the Canaries, in the 15th and 88th minutes, sending City to their first home loss since falling to Charlton in December. The Bluebirds had rattled off five straight wins at Ninian Park before losing today. After Evans put Norwich in front, Gavin Rae got the equaliser for City on the stroke of half-time and a draw looked to be on the cards before Evans nailed the win with a 35-yard drive "good enough to win any game."
Nigel Harris has posted a detailed match report at his Bluesy's Blues blog. His report includes pictures; you can link to it right here. On another webpage, Mr. Harris provides an impressive compendium of links to other reports and stories on the match. Get them here. For the Urban 75 report from Paul Davies, go here.
City drop two spots to 11th and Norwich climb to 12th pending the results of later games. The two clubs are level with 43 points apiece but City sport the better figure in the goal-difference column. If you count Norwich as a top-half-of-the-table club, today's setback goes right along with one persistent trend this season - City's falling short against top-half clubs while piling on points against the bottom half. Against clubs in the top half, City show three wins, four draws and eight defeats. That's 13 points from 15 games or 0.87 points per game. Against bottom-half outfits, the Bluebirds have eight wins, six draws, and two defeats, or 30 points from 16 games. That comes to 1.88 points per game.
City's next opponent? Coventry City on Tuesday night. They just happen to be one of the two lower-half clubs to beat the Bluebirds this season.
Wolves Supporters Must Bubble It to Cardiff for FA Cup Tilt
Friday, February 8, 2008
Cardiff City's fifth round FA Cup match with Wolverhampton Wanderers, coming up on February 16 at Ninian Park, has been set for a 3pm kickoff. The ticket allocation for Wolves fans has been put at 2,000. All of this should sound normal enough but for Wolves aupporters it won't be just another away day. That's because South Wales police have restricted Wolves fans to use of "organised transport." In other words, "supporters will not be allowed to buy tickets if they wish to travel in their own car, or by bus and train."
On the Wolverhampton Wanderers official site, Wolves supremo Jez Moxey is quoted as saying, "We have received the rationale behind the decision made by South Wales Police and, to be honest, we feel it is weak and does not justify this action being taken." For more on the Wolves' reaction, go to the story
here.
Needless to say, there's a good bit more to this story than you can glean from reading the Wolves' official site. Nigel Harris offers plenty of background to recent wrangles with Wolves in a posting to his Bluesy's Blues blog today. His story's entitled "Wolverhampton Whingers Football Club" and can be found here.
I confess to having thought rather highly of Wolves some years ago. I'd pull for them to make it back to the top flight and was happy that they won promotion to the Premiership back in May 2003. Recent history has changed all of that, though, and I don't really give a toss for how well they do now.
Premiership Contemplates Unbalancing Its Schedule
Thursday, February 7, 2008
BBC Sport is reporting, in a story entitled "Top Clubs Consider Overseas Games," that "the English Premier League is considering the idea of staging some matches around the rest of the world. At a meeting in London on Thursday, all 20 clubs agreed to explore a proposal to extend the season to 39 games."
According to the BBC Sport account, the chief features of the plans are:
* An additional round of Premier League fixtures, extending the season to 39 games, from January 2011.
* Four clubs to travel to one of five host cities, with two games taking place in each venue over a weekend.
* Cities would bid for the right to become a host, not for individual matches.
* Points earned from the games would count towards the final Premier League table.
If all of this sounds a bit zany, that's because it is. It's utter madness. The idea of a 39th game is rubbish. It's bound to generate plenty of opposition, though, so I'm hopeful the crazies who dreamed this up
will admit defeat and give up on the nonsense.
Called into jeopardy here is the basic principle of
the balanced schedule. Everybody plays everybody once at home and once away. Mess with that and it's all over.
Baseball here in the States had things going quite nicely for years and years. Eight teams per league, each playing the other 11 times at home and 11 times away. Added up to 154 games. Then they started messing with their good thing. Now it's so loused up you might as well publish strength-of-schedule charts as they do now for college
sports.
Wales Wallop Norway 3-0 at Wrexham
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Wales whipped Norway 3-0 tonight at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground, Carl Fletcher netting the first after a quarter of an hour and former Cardiff City star Jason Koumas scoring the second and third, at 61 minutes and at 89 minutes. Fletcher's goal was his first for Wales. BBC Sport offers a report on the match, penned by David Dulin. For his account, go here.
On the messageboard, Arfur Europe wrote,
Very convincing, and a very high tempo on a sodden and ropey surface. The tempo would have been frightening had it been at NP and that's no bias speaking
So many cracking performances it was hard to single them out, we used all 6 subs and they also all looked good and the average age was 23!
Cornish Bluebird observed, "Beating Norway like that isn't easy at all, well done to the team finally we can say we are winning games without the need for Giggs or Bellamy. This team clearly want to wear the shirt so tis a fantastic result." Dano added,
The thing that really pleased me tonight was the amount of football Wales tried to play, i didn't see any long hopeful balls that was so prevelant under the previous regime.
Toshack is trying to fast track young players at international level, anyone with half a brain can see that he is doing it the right way, indeed, his comments on seeing the whole of the Welsh set up as one squad shows that his thinking is inclusive of every player involved in the Welsh set up.
Toshack is doing it the way it should be done, there's no 'old mates' as there was under Hughes, and there is a definate plan and structure to our play, that filters right through the whole system.
Toshack and his squad may fall short of the mark, but in my mind that's the least of our worries. What is important is that from the outside, it looks like we have a manager who has installed tactics, self belief, and a fearless attitude within a group of players who look like they want to play for their country.
The emphasis has to be on development at every level, and a plain and simple ethos that players and coaches can abide by. I believe by including young players, even when there not ready, shows bravery and the element of risk that can make a difference.
What have we to lose ?
Dom D'Orgeval summed things up as follows: "Toshack is undoubtedly the man to take Wales forward, as I have though for some time. Tonight has simply entrenched this view in myself and hopefully convinced many others that what is happening is positive progress for the Wales team and Welsh footbal as a whole."
On the mailing list, John Marenghi wondered whether more games should be played away from the Millennium Stadium:
also seems to provide further evidence of the effectiveness of playing some of wales's world cup qualifiers away from the Millenium stadium - take Finland to Wrexham, Russia to Swansea (though maybe the Liberty is
too clean and shiny) and make the Germans play one more time at Ninian Park.
Ant opined, in reply to Mr. Marenghi, "If the FAW have any sense (doubtful, I know), NP must have one final
friendly during 08/09 season, and they should promote the fact that it's the last Wales game to be played there to maximise interest." Now, isn't that the truth?!
Welsh U21s Blast Malta 4-0
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ched Evans scored twice as Wales U21s belted Malta 4-0 this afternoon. Wales now top Group 10 with 12 points from five games. They are a point ahead of both Romania and France and have a game in hand on both.
Acoording to the report posted to the UEFA.com website,
Wales finally struck in the 60th minute when Evans headed past Miquel Montfort in the Malta goal. After 79 minutes it was 2-0, Simon Church exploiting a defensive error to score from close range, and nine minutes later a Darcy Blake ball set up Jack Collison for Wales' third. Evans then completed the scoring from the penalty sport in added time following a foul by Clayton Failla.
At Cardiff City Online, Mike Morris wrote: "Wales now have a realistic chance of making the play offs for the U21 Championships in Sweden in 2009." He added, "Cardiff City's other representative in the squad, Jon Brown, came on as a sub. The team was captained by former Bluebird Joe Jacobson."
Ledley Named Player of the Month
Monday, February 4, 2008
Cardiff City's own Joe Ledley has been named Championship Player of the Month for January. The midfielder was selected from a list that included "Zheng Zhi (Charlton Athletic), Robbie Blake (Burnley FC) and Dion Dublin (Norwich City)." The Vital Football site has the story. In January, Ledley netted four goals for City including two against QPR last week.
Just how highly regarded is Joe Ledley? As if the Player of the Month accolades were not enough, check this Oliver Irish story in the Observer yesterday. Entitled
"February's Ten: Best Players Below the Premier League,"
the piece lists Ledley as sixth best, behind Zoltan Gera of West Brom, Michael Kightly of Wolves, Danny Shittu of Watford, Michael Mifsud of Coventry, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake of Wolves. About Ledley, Irish writes:
Premier League clubs crave versatile players. It's no longer good enough to be a one-position pony; every manager in the top division wants a Michael Essien, someone who can fill in almost anywhere on the pitch and not look out of place - a super-utility player. Ledley is no Essien, but has proved already that he can play in central midfield, on the left wing - his best position - and at left-back. Everton have shown an interest in the Wales international, whose all-round talent demands a bigger audience.
And how do you get on the list? Irish reveals that the "list is more about potential than experience. . . . There is deliberately no place for players over the age of 30, or those who have played more than two seasons in the top flight. So Kevin Phillips (West Brom) and James Beattie (Sheffield United), both former England internationals to boot, are ineligible." He adds that
"the same goes for Robbie Fowler, now seeing out his career on Cardiff City's treatment table." The thing is, though, that Fowler would never make a top 10 list anyway.
City's Vulnerability at Set Pieces on Display at Stoke
Sunday, February 3, 2008
The Other Bob Wilson served up a post to the messageboard today entitled "Too Many Goals Conceded From Free Kicks and Corners." He's been keeping track of City's relative inability to defend against set pieces and so has a bit to say on the matter. He wrote:
I make it that it is now fourteen league goals that we have conceded this season through our inability to defend first or second balls from free kicks or corners properly. Mind you, it was ironic that, against a team that are very strong from set pieces, the goal we conceded was from a corner that never got more than about four foot off the floor! Also, if Stoke hadn’t have had so many six foot plus players in their team, we may have had someone on the near post who would have been able to keep the deflection off Johnson out - as it is, I think the goal has to go down entirely to Paul Parry’s air shot.
One other thing about corners, Stoke’s second goal and a great chance they had in stoppage time came as a direct result of them leaving a player up field when defending corners - I wish we did the same (especially if that person had a bit of pace about them).
In response, Bluebeetle wrote:
I know I'm no Oakes fan, so call me biased, but he is particularly bad at corners and free kicks into the area, being completely unable to dominate his box, and lacking that natural ability which any decent keeper should have i.e. knowing when to come and when to stay back. . . .
I understand that we've done away with the 'marking areas' tactic at set pieces which Jones once favoured, but effectively defending set pieces has, in my view, a lot to do with the physical presence of the keeper. If the oncoming forwards have it in the back of their mind that if they make a genuine effort to attack the ball they may well get clattered by a keeper who stands his ground, they'll think twice before going for it. If they know he's a 'flapper' they'll be right in there every time, putting additional pressure on the centre backs and often leading to them making errors and conceding own goals!
Dano observed, "I've been saying that since the end of September! Our two over rated central defenders have problems defending set pieces." The Other Bob offered this by way of a reply:
To be fair Dano, with Scimeca out and Thommo often missing, we aren't that tall a side. Gavin Rae's not bad in the air, but I reckon we rely too much on the likes of Ledley and Parry when defending. I would like to see Parry occupying the opposition by staying on the half way line when we are defending dead ball situations, but, the trouble is that he is probably one of our better headers of a ball so we can't afford to do that .
Maybe all of this has something to do with Dave Jones' desire to get a more dominant keeper in who would come for more balls knocked into our penalty area, but, although I don't think Oakes is as bad as some on here make him out to be, he certainly isn't that sort of keeper.
The Incredible Bulk observed, "I cannot believe that there wasn't anyone on the posts against a team that is pretty big and good in corner situations." He added, "should have been one on each post as well as the man in front of the front post to stop the ball reaching front post (which is what parry was doing, but unfortunately missed his kick!!)."
Certainly, the defeat at Stoke brings into focus some weaknesses in City's game. Stoke are better suited to playing basketball than just about any side City will face all year and their height advantage may have made a difference yesterday. Still, how much longer will Jones go with Michael Oakes in goal? With Enckelman available, now might be the time to make a move.
Bleary-Eyed Navigation
You can get to the top of Bleary-Eyed Statto's front page by clicking here.
To get to the previous week's entries (January 27 to February 2), go here. For the next week's (February 10 to February 16), go here.
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