Sat Aug 08, 2015 3:45 pm
Cardiff City boss Russell Slade: I've been waiting for Craig Noone to deliver... this could be a big year for him
8TH AUGUST 2015
BY TERRY PHILLIPS
Moments after Craig Noone had thrilled the Cardiff City fans with an epic equaliser against Fulham, manager Russell Slade revealed he scores them regularly in training.
Cardiff City manager Russell Slade says he's been waiting to see the real Craig Noone and today he stood up and delivered.
The flying winger came off the bench with the Bluebirds trailing and little over 10 minutes to save the season opener against Fulham.
With Cardiff 1-0 down, Noone was given the brief to run at Fulham's tiring defenders.
Noone did just that and with four minutes to go cut inside Ben Pringle to fire a memorable goal past Andy Lonergan.
Moments later, the delighted Bluebirds boss said: “We’ve been waiting for that!
“He does that sort of thing so many times in training and it was a fabulous finish.
“He picked the ball up near halfway and went at Fulham.
“He is capable of scoring double figures this season and I want to see him doing that more.
“Maybe this is his season to push on again.”
Slade also refused to blame keeper Simon Moore for the Fulham goal, which was headed in by Matt Smith after a fumbled cross.
The manager said: “I talked to Martyn Margetson, our goalkeeping coach, and his view was that Simon had two choices, to catch or, if he was uncertain, tip it over.
“He kind of came to take it, hit the ball onto the bar and lost his balance.
“It was one of those things and he will learn from that.
“When you look at the balance of play and the opportunities created we were unlucky not to be in front at half-time.
“Andy Lonergan had an outstanding game in goal and made two excellent saves from Joe Mason.
“In the second half we hit the bar, had a goal disallowed and, against the run of play, conceded a goal after a mistake.
“At 1-0 down we were up against it, but we changed shape to 3-4-3 in an effort to get a point we did that.”