THE most prolific attack in Championship football will face one of the meanest defences around when leaders Cardiff City take on Watford in front of live Sky television cameras at Vicarage Road tomorrow.
The Hornets, led by 20-goal Czech international Matej Vydra and 16-goal Troy Deeney, have fired 76 goals in 40 Championship matches and are still chasing hard for automatic promotion. But the Bluebirds have stayed solid at the back – goalkeeper David Marshall has kept 15 clean sheets – and have conceded only 40 goals. That’s 11 less than manager Gianfranco Zola’s Hornets have leaked. City have kept two clean sheets in their last three matches, beating Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 and Blackburn 3-0, and are now intent on blunting the Watford attack. Turner and Leon Barnett, City’s loan signing from Norwich to cover Mark Hudson’s ankle injury, will be the central defenders at Vicarage Road. They played together against Wednesday and in a 2-1 defeat at Peterborough.
“It’s a blow to have lost Huds, who is a great captain and a prime contender to be player of the year,” says Turner.
But Leon has come in, played three matches and shown what he can do. He has experience in the Premier League plus Championship and is the ideal guy to help us out. He heads the ball well, passes well, is really quick and his attitude is spot on.”
Turner has made 24 Championship appearances this season and played alongside four different partners at the heart of defence – Hudson, Matthew Connolly, Ben Nugent and Barnett.
“I’ve enjoyed playing alongside all of them,” says Turner. “They are all good players in their own right. Matt has done a good job for the team, whether he’s been at right-back or centre-half, while Ben is a young defender who has done exceptionally well for the team. He has a massive future in the game. He has scarcely put a foot wrong and will learn from any little mistakes. He scored an own goal against Bristol City at home, but that came because he was playing well and feeling confident. It was a touch of inexperience and he is somebody who will learn from that.”
Turner knew Barnett from their days together at Coventry City. Barnett signed for the Sky Blues on loan from West Brom during November 2009 soon after Turner had suffered a serious knee injury which kept him out for the rest of that season. Barnett took over and helped Coventry stay clear of Championship relegation trouble during the season Cardiff reached the play-off final against Blackpool.
Now Malky Mackay’s Bluebirds are backing the Turner/Barnett combination to play their part in their bid to ensure a seven-point lead at the top with seven matches left is turned into automatic promotion. Nugent is standing by and Connolly could switch to the centre if needed, but a solid and consistent Turner/Barnett partnership would be ideal during the run-in. Turner himself simply hopes for an injury-free time between now and the final match at Hull early next month, saying: “It’s been a stop-start season for me and that has been frustrating.
“I’ve suffered a few niggling injuries which have put me out for two or three games, but I’m feeling good now and I really hope those setbacks are behind me. Let’s hope my luck is in over these remaining fixtures. Last season I was able to play all the matches once I broke into the team and I really want to play a full part between now and the Hull trip.”
Turner accepts that there was a big contrast between City’s team performance in the defeat at Peterborough and the style shown in their 3-0 win at home against Blackburn. Tomorrow, against Watford, City are intent on making certain the standards set against Blackburn are maintained.
“If we play as we did against Peterborough we will struggle against Watford,” says Turner. “But if we play, as a team, to the levels we reached against Blackburn, particularly in the first half, then Watford could struggle. Our job is to ensure we are at our best as a team. We were all bitterly disappointed after Peterborough. The pitch didn’t help, while maybe once we were in front there was a tendency to try and protect what we had rather than building on it. That’s one of the factors that came out of our regular post-match team debrief. We have to keep pressing for 90 minutes.
Peterborough seemed to have a lot of penalty shouts, but apart from that they didn’t really trouble Marsh (goalkeeper David Marshall).
“Once that game was over the key was to ensure we returned to winning ways quickly and we did that against Blackburn. They have a lot of quality players, one of the best squads in Championship football. Why they are struggling I don’t know.
I would have expected them to be challenging, but on the day they could not handle our front six. Our players were in their faces all the time, we played a high tempo and were dangerous at set-pieces. The win against Blackburn was great for confidence and if we play like that on a regular basis over these remaining games we’ll get the job done.”
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