"Lethargic"

During Cardiff City's goalless draw at Preston Steve Tucker argues the old doubts and fears about Russell Slade's leadership have re-emerged

17/10/15

Russell Slade couldn't get his Cardiff City team going at PrestonRussell Slade couldn't get his Cardiff City team going at Preston
Preston 0-0 Cardiff City

If Cardiff City’s point at table-topping Brighton previously was regarded as a good one, then this against struggling North End most definitely was not.

The Lillywhites have not won at home since returning to the Championship this season and it was easy to see why, as what assaults they had on the Bluebirds’ goal inevitably ran out of steam or lacked any real potency in a match that will not linger long in the memory .

The worst thing was that Russell Slade’s Bluebirds failed to take advantage of their hosts’ current bad fortune and, in the first-half in particular, put in what could probably be described as their worst performance of the season so far.

No one is arguing with a point away from home in the Championship , of course, but for long stretches at Deepdale a lot of the old doubts and fears about Cardiff under Slade, which many believed had been put to bed, seemed suddenly to be exposed once more.

The Bluebirds lacked ideas and intensity when it mattered, there was a lack of drive and dare one say it, a lack of desire, too.

David Marshall was Cardiff City's man of the match at PrestonDavid Marshall was man of the match - That says it all

Cardiff were without Kenwyne Jones, who picked up a shin injury on international duty with Trinidad & Tobago, and the big frontman proved a big miss.

Sammy Ameobi had spoken about wanting more pitch time and he got his second Championship start of the campaign here, but really he failed to make the most of the opportunity.

In the centre, he and Joe Mason failed to link up and almost seemed to get in each others way at times and when he was moved out wide, Ameobi looked better, but like all his teammates really, he failed to reach the standards expected.

Even the usually dependable Mason was off the pace, seeing his first touch let him down or making the wrong runs at the wrong times and he will not have impressed Republic of Ireland assistant boss Roy Keane who scowled down from the director’s box.

The fact that between them, both teams had 35 attempts at goal here, but only three were on target, tells you all you need to know about the quality of the finishing.

But it was not just going forward Cardiff faltered, right across the pitch the Bluebirds were rather average with only the introduction of Craig Noone at half-time for Joe Ralls a positive as the wideman lifted his side and, in fact, gave the whole game a bit more zip in the second period.

But, in truth, that would not have been hard as the first-half was just about as dull an offering of football you are ever likely to witness at this level.

With the ball most often mired in midfield any forward progress was halted anyway by a desperate lack of ideas as the final third beckoned. On 18 minutes the first corner of the match got a little cheer, it was one of those afternoons.

It was no surprise then that the first little bit of quality, a nice run down the left by Ralls presented the first real chance. Joe Mason latching onto Ralls low ball only for Tom Clarke to block the shot.

The second-half was better, indeed it could not have been worse. But still everything lacked focus and the mistakes kept flowing with the Bluebirds often passing to the opposition when it seemed simpler to find a teammate.

Ameobi should have scored on 53 minutes but swung a typical lazy leg at the volley and put it over. Ameobi’s relaxed style looks fine when things are going well, but when they are not, it looks like lethargy.

There were numerous penalty shouts, but nobody’s hearts seemed really in it. Indeed that was how things appeared all afternoon in Lancashire, a strange disinterest and lack of urgency from both sides.

It takes a performance like this and the doubters are out in force. Well I for one don't blame them.

We have had a lot of promises coming out from the club. The season so far has gone better than most of us thought it would. However it is not that riveting to squash away the doubts. A few more performances like this and we will all be accepting a mid table finish come the Christmas break. If that happens the subject will be how many will renew next season. This time Vincent Tan will not be able to reverse an unpopular idea.

Our club is one a knife edge.

It takes a performance like this and the doubters are out in force. Well I for one don't blame them.

We have had a lot of promises coming out from the club. The season so far has gone better than most of us thought it would. However it is not that riveting to squash away the doubts. A few more performances like this and we will all be accepting a mid table finish come the Christmas break. If that happens the subject will be how many will renew next season. This time Vincent Tan will not be able to reverse an unpopular idea.

Our club is one a knife edge.

Agree! An important period lies ahead between now and Christmas!

Slade will never be the man to promote any championship club. He is a dinosaur

It takes a performance like this and the doubters are out in force. Well I for one don't blame them.

We have had a lot of promises coming out from the club. The season so far has gone better than most of us thought it would. However it is not that riveting to squash away the doubts. A few more performances like this and we will all be accepting a mid table finish come the Christmas break. If that happens the subject will be how many will renew next season. This time Vincent Tan will not be able to reverse an unpopular idea.

Our club is one a knife edge.

I will be blaming Tan if we start sliding down the table. We got off to a great start and it was a golden opportunity to build on it by strengthening the squad further. Unfortunately, Slade hasn't been given a penny to spend, he's been told our squad is good enough when it clearly isn't, and he won't be allowed to bring in any loan signings to replace our injured players either.

Slade has also had rotten luck with injuries this season, it's obvious he won't be able to keep it going without having a little bit of backing to bring in a couple of new faces to freshen things up. But Slade won't be given any backing and if we do start sliding down the table, it will be 100% Tan's fault.

sliding down table? has anyone actually looked at table? the only difference between us and the 6 teams directly above us is one draw!!!

all have 4 wins we have 4 draws they have 3

Last edited by pembroke allan on Sat Oct 17, 2015 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You Blame Tan but Slade has so far brought in 11 players but none of them are good enough?

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

You Blame Tan but Slade has so far brought in 11 players but none of them are good enough?

How much money has Slade been given to spend though? Apart from signing Doyle for around 750k, I think his next most expensive signing is 75k for Scott Malone!

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Every team in the same boat and the performances before the break were not up to scratch either. We may have taken a point from Brighton but the performance was very poor.

Preston did throw themselves into blocks on a number of occasions today but the fact is we were not good enough to break down a poor team or put them under enough pressure to force a goal.

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Every team in the same boat and the performances before the break were not up to scratch either. We may have taken a point from Brighton but the performance was very poor.

Preston did throw themselves into blocks on a number of occasions today but the fact is we were not good enough to break down a poor team or put them under enough pressure to force a goal.

There is still a long way to go we failed to break some poor teams down in our promotion season you seem to give up easily.

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Every team in the same boat and the performances before the break were not up to scratch either. We may have taken a point from Brighton but the performance was very poor.

Preston did throw themselves into blocks on a number of occasions today but the fact is we were not good enough to break down a poor team or put them under enough pressure to force a goal.

There is still a long way to go we failed to break some poor teams down in our promotion season you seem to give up easily.

I can only say it how I see it. If I gave up easily believe me I wouldn't be spending 9 hours on a coach and over £50 travelling to Preston to support the team. I just see nothing in this team or it's manager which suggests anything other than a season of mid table mediocrity.

The difference with the promotion season is that although the team lost or drew occasionally (including twice to Peterborough who got relegated of course) they bounced back straight away and didn't lose again for some time. Slade is more like Dave Jones - a run of good results followed by a run of average to poor results. 8 points form the last 18 would seem to confirm that inconsistency.

We all know that Jones's teams always came up short but at least they were a lot easier on the eye than Slade's team.

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Every team in the same boat and the performances before the break were not up to scratch either. We may have taken a point from Brighton but the performance was very poor.

Preston did throw themselves into blocks on a number of occasions today but the fact is we were not good enough to break down a poor team or put them under enough pressure to force a goal.

There is still a long way to go we failed to break some poor teams down in our promotion season you seem to give up easily.

I can only say it how I see it. If I gave up easily believe me I wouldn't be spending 9 hours on a coach and over £50 travelling to Preston to support the team. I just see nothing in this team or it's manager which suggests anything other than a season of mid table mediocrity.

The difference with the promotion season is that although the team lost or drew occasionally (including twice to Peterborough who got relegated of course) they bounced back straight away and didn't lose again for some time. Slade is more like Dave Jones - a run of good results followed by a run of average to poor results. 8 points form the last 18 would seem to confirm that inconsistency.

We all know that Jones's teams always came up short but at least they were a lot easier on the eye than Slade's team.

But it's still very early to write us off for Promotion though.

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Every team in the same boat and the performances before the break were not up to scratch either. We may have taken a point from Brighton but the performance was very poor.

Preston did throw themselves into blocks on a number of occasions today but the fact is we were not good enough to break down a poor team or put them under enough pressure to force a goal.

There is still a long way to go we failed to break some poor teams down in our promotion season you seem to give up easily.

I can only say it how I see it. If I gave up easily believe me I wouldn't be spending 9 hours on a coach and over £50 travelling to Preston to support the team. I just see nothing in this team or it's manager which suggests anything other than a season of mid table mediocrity.

The difference with the promotion season is that although the team lost or drew occasionally (including twice to Peterborough who got relegated of course) they bounced back straight away and didn't lose again for some time. Slade is more like Dave Jones - a run of good results followed by a run of average to poor results. 8 points form the last 18 would seem to confirm that inconsistency.

We all know that Jones's teams always came up short but at least they were a lot easier on the eye than Slade's team.

But it's still very early to write us off for Promotion though.

Of course you're right but going on our performances against Rotherham and Preston you could say it's very early to suggest we are safe from relegation!

I don't think there's any real chance that will happen to be honest but with virtually the same first team as last season and the performances to date there's going to have to be a vast improvement for us to be serious promotion contenders.

Don't usually agree with Tucker but he is correct and "lethargic" is the right word for that performance today.

So lifeless and lacking in any real desire. No attempt to dominate and take the game by the sruff of the neck against a team who didn't look like scoring if we were still playing now!

Forget about what money Slade has or hasn't been given - with this squad of players he should be getting far better performances than he is currently doing.

Don't forget we haven't played for 2 weeks and than can ruin momentum and performances are not quiteup to scratch but we didn't play badly we created some decent chances just Preston defended well.

Every team in the same boat and the performances before the break were not up to scratch either. We may have taken a point from Brighton but the performance was very poor.

Preston did throw themselves into blocks on a number of occasions today but the fact is we were not good enough to break down a poor team or put them under enough pressure to force a goal.

There is still a long way to go we failed to break some poor teams down in our promotion season you seem to give up easily.

I can only say it how I see it. If I gave up easily believe me I wouldn't be spending 9 hours on a coach and over £50 travelling to Preston to support the team. I just see nothing in this team or it's manager which suggests anything other than a season of mid table mediocrity.

The difference with the promotion season is that although the team lost or drew occasionally (including twice to Peterborough who got relegated of course) they bounced back straight away and didn't lose again for some time. Slade is more like Dave Jones - a run of good results followed by a run of average to poor results. 8 points form the last 18 would seem to confirm that inconsistency.

We all know that Jones's teams always came up short but at least they were a lot easier on the eye than Slade's team.

But it's still very early to write us off for Promotion though.

Of course you're right but going on our performances against Rotherham and Preston you could say it's very early to suggest we are safe from relegation!

I don't think there's any real chance that will happen to be honest but with virtually the same first team as last season and the performances to date there's going to have to be a vast improvement for us to be serious promotion contenders.

I'm confident when Saadi comes in we will turn those draws into wins becuase that's what our real problem is pace upfront we are a solid team just need that edge.

Big pressure to put on a relatively young man, who has not played at this level before, who has just moved to this country, who is settling in to new surroundings, a new club with new training methods and players and a new culture and who is just getting over a serious injury!

Hopefully he'll rise to the occasion but it's a lot to hang the hopes of the whole season on his head.

If you think we are solid then you should pay more attention to our defence it is far from solid. Midfield ! What midfield! Strikers, seen better donkeys down Barry Island ! Turn it around , I should coco!

If you think we are solid then you should pay more attention to our defence it is far from solid. Midfield ! What midfield! Strikers, seen better donkeys down Barry Island ! Turn it around , I should coco!

solid mmm only 5 teams more solid than us in championship, and guess what they are in top 7! i should co co if thats bad