Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:08 pm
Prior to the Stoke game, we had received or given away a penalty all season.
In the space of two games we have given away two very weak penalties at one of the worst times of a match, on the stroke of half time.
Juan Cala against Sunderland became the first Cardiff player to be given a red card this season.
Is this co-incidence or just bad luck?
It appears as though there has been a lot of talk of relegation and avoiding it by Ole and his players, talk of we need x number of points to stay up, we need so many wins to survive.
Talking of avoiding relegation focuses the attention too much on the relegation. For golfers out there, if you want to avoid a bunker ahead but you are thinking of the bunker too much, where does the ball invariably go?
There has been too much talk of the end of the season instead of focussing purely on the here and now, just the practice, rehearsing, studying the weaknesses and strengths, physically, skill wise, tactically and mentally of the next opposition.
Of course, there will have been much of that going on behind the scenes and in training.
However, looking at some of the performances of players over the last few weeks, there have been some signs of concern.
It's all too easy to say we didn't perform as well as we can, but why?
Against Sunderland we saw too many players slow to react, responding only when the Sunderland players responded, thereby getting behind the opposition and out of the best position.
We saw too many players being taken on dummy runs leaving a huge space for Larson to aim his corner for the first goal. Campbell, Mutch and Caulker run with and behind the 3 Sunderland players. They were out of position IF the ball had been aimed at those 3 Sunderland players. Mutch lost his marker so much that he actually just stopped. Campbell had run out of position and made an attempt at heading the ball. If he had looked at the ball flight he would have stayed where he was and headed the ball away. He actually run away from where ball flight. He was mentally undone by the dummy run which created the space for Wickham.
KTC was actually goal side and in front of him, KTC waited to respond. Wickham attacked the ball and scored their first.
I am in no way wanting any witch hunt as any player who puts on a Cardiff shirt will get my support, this is just analysis on where to improve.
We saw similar with Wickham's second goal, their 4th. Kenwynne Jones had seen the corner being taken and went to head the ball, unimpeded and missed it. Wickham got in before KTC could react again. There is a key word, react.
Many of the Cardiff players were waiting and reacting, being controlled, rather than dealing with the ball and controlling the play.
In the second half, there was a passage of play where the ball came to Whitts half way inside their half slightly to the left side, he looks up and sees Campbell on the left corner of the box gesturing for the ball. Whitts passes the ball, Campbell waits for the ball to arrive at his feet, in the meantime their defender read the pass very easily, got in before Campbell even moved and the play broke down.
The passage of play when Campbell should have had the penalty from Brown's clumsy challenge, Daehli receives the ball from a breakdown in play and runs into their half going slightly left heading towards the left corner of their box. At the same time Campbell is running away from Daehli towards the right corner of their box. In between those two are four defenders. I understand they might have been wanting to spread the defenders wide but this was on a breakaway, where our two players were doing the opposite of trying to make a play together. The breakaway potential is lost and as a result they wait for more Cardiff players to come forward.
After some interplay between Daehli and Mutch, with Fabio also nearby on the left side, the ball is passed to Whitts.
Campbell is fairly static and calling for a cross. The only other player in that area was Cowie. They were covered by 3 or 4 defenders. Whitts decided to play it across field to Medel to Cowie to KTC who passed it to Campbell where he was fouled by Brown. It was this passage that showed the lack of movement and joined up thinking from Mutch and Fabio who could have spread the defence on the left side leaving a big gap for Whitts to pass the ball to one of them. With the space they would have had, they could have had a shot or if Campbell or Cowie had run in, a simple pass to them creating a very good scoring chance.
I'm NOT wanting to criticise individual players as at this stage of the season, as it must be difficult for the players, but I'm highlighting the lack of creative movement, us creating space with dummy runs, players looking for the creative passes, players waiting for the ball to nearly arrive before reacting (too late, slowly or behind the play), not anticipating, losing focus and concentration.
There were at least 6 mistimed headers, 5 of which our players completely missed the ball. This resulted in Mutch's missed opportunity and 3 goals conceded with one of our players sent off.
I've talked in the past about fine lines between 0, 1 and 3 points. Ole has talked about fine margins.
We can do so much in the short space of time for the last two games to drastically improve our chances of 3 points each against Newcastle and Chelsea, one game a time.