SATURDAY MARCH 29th
CHAMPIONSHIP - Game 39/46 - at NINIAN PARK
CARDIFF CITY (1) 1
Parry 6
SOUTHAMPTON (0) 0
In the ever growing list of event days, (have we had a National Nose-Picking Day yet?), today's Earth Hour had cities worldwide pledge home and business lights switch off for an hour between 8 and 9pm but Cardiff City started early by putting out Sad Southampton's lights at Ninian Park within 6 minutes. Paul Parry superbly finished the sweetest of goals for The Bluebirds third successive comfortable home win.
Forget the rest though as those who watch paint dry would have found this tedious. Say what they like, City showed their minds are (understandably) focused on the F.A. Cup but that wasn't much of a problem as The Worst Ever Southampton side (by a country mile) proved they're relegation-haunted and may yet replace the Jacks in League One.
Goal apart, perhaps they day's highlight came before lunch with the unanimous decision to form a long overdue Cardiff City's Supporters Trust (http://www.ccfctrust.org/). Well done to those who both organised and attended including the handful of Southampton fans to help explain and support the event. I'd urge anyone who professes to care for City too look at the website and help if they feel inclined ... or explain why not if they don't.
A good bevvy in town, taxis to the ground proved cheaper and easier than trains and then the game. In this craziest of seasons, many of us feel unconvinced by City's claim of a play-off challenge and we remain mid-table (yes I know winning a game in hand takes us within 2 points of it) but feel frustrated to see three other Cities - Hull,Stoke and Brizzle - leading the pack as each have looked inferior looking to us. Problem is, we've just never backed the team and invested. It could have been us but we let it go.
The season's final transfer window passed on Thursday for Cardiff City the same as all others - plenty of talk of additions, big names dangled and leaked, the squad woefully short of cover in key areas but it comes to nought.
So City lined up with no recognised right back (McNaughton and Blake are both injured) and our entire striking options consisting of out of position Paul Parry, out of favour Steve Thompson and out of our minds (we must have been!) Warren Feeney while a talented just turned 17 year old was asked to play his fourth different position in 9 starts this year in Aaron Ramsey at right-back. It was Enckleman, Ramsey-Johnson-Loovens-Capaldi, Whittingham-Rae-McPhail-Ledley, Thompson-Parry. Subs were Oakes-Feeney-Purse-Scimeca-Sinclair.
Southampton have had a tortuous season with this defeat meaning they having collected a pitiful 10 points from their last 42 available - their display made you wonder how they had got that many as Peter Enckleman had just one save and the main fight from the Hampshire visitors came from their fans being ejected after a scuffle with themselves and City stewards in the Grange End. Nobody wants to be in that number when The Saints go marching in as this loss perilously left them just 1 place and 1 point below the drop with the team beneath them (Sheff Weds) having 2 games in and a vastly superior goal difference.
Worse than this, the club fear Rupert Lowe returning to control of it on Monday. Boss Nigel Pearson, recently departing as Sam Allardyce's assistant at woeful Newcastle must be wondering how he has found a club in a worse mess. I congratulate him for declaring post-match positives while losing to a Cardiff side playing in third gear throughout as his men shockingly lacked in quality and just never hurt us.
To help shore up his side with only bottom club Colchester having a worst defensive record, Pearson brought in two veteran loan defenders in 35 yr old Chris Perry (from Luton) and 37 yr old Chris Lucketti (from Sheffield United) but the latter was unavailable as his wife faced a major operation but his side still contained 4 loan men with Richard Wright, Thomas-Jermaine Wright-Vignal-Perry, Licka-Hammill-Euell-Viafara, Safri and Stern John.
The crowd was disappointing at 12,955 including upto 1,000 Saints. Some decry that but it was nigh on impossible to contact our besieged ticket office all week while less committed City fans and those on tight budgets are saving it for our wondrous but costly Wembley visit next weekend. It was overcast, chilly and breezy - so much for the football, the weather was similar too which was no help to the contest or its style.
Southampton almost shocked City in the opening moments as the Licka the Czech was inches wide after a classy one-two with Viafara the Colombian, the latter also going close moments later with a 25 yard screamer narrowly clearing Enckleman's crossbar. Despite having much of the ball as Cardiff played well within themselves, that was about as good as it got for them.
The game's only goal came on 6 minutes and a beauty it was, out of context with just about anything else we saw, Aaron Ramsey's measured pass saw Thommo chase to the by-line, hook a ball across goal and PAUL PARRY finished with style, falling backwards as he smashed home into the top corner leaving Richard Wright helpless.
City's biggest danger in that opening period came from themselves as Glenn Loovens laid out Tony Capaldi charging through to clear and then Gavin Rae sent Steve McPhail momentarily punch-drunk with a volley straight in his face, both recovered and our only other problems faced were a corner that somehow went right across the face of goal and missed by everyone, a Viafara angled shot into side netting and a centre-half bicycle kick on half-time that turned out to be little more than a pass into Enckleman's arms. They also had one ruled out for offside, long before the ball was netted after Roger Johnson caused problems with an uncharacteristic poor header.
Cardiff should have held a healthier interval lead as smart link play between Thommo and Parry saw Rae race on and then place Joe Ledley clear on goal but his effort was at Richard Wright and cleared behind off his feet. The resulting corner saw an incredible dynamite Peter Whittingham shot sail narrowly over, John Buchanan would have been proud of that hit while Thommo, who was poor value and is not making the most of his golden opportunity with Hasselbaink suspended, should have done better with a header in front of goal.
Other than that, it was a contest largely scrapped out in the middle of the park without great action and the only moments of quality coming from some trademark exquisite Aaron Ramsey play as he again made the game look ridiculously easy, just a touch or turn as he always made space for himself, his passing and vision are outstanding too. What a talent that boy is.
Half-time: CITY ONE, SAINTS NONE
Southampton were sent out early for the second half, Cardiff were more than happy to keep them waiting before we saw another largely uneventful 45 minutes and one without a goal at all although Enckleman was called on to make his first, and only, significant save a few minutes in stopping Stern John, scorer of the goal which sank City at St Mary's earlier in the season, with his feet after the striker got behind Glenn Loovens.
A change on the hour saw Bradley Wright-Phillips replace Viafara which gave the game some noise as his every touch was greeted with cries of "thief, thief, thief, thief, thief" by fans clasping their wallets after the player was arrested and bailed midweek along with another who was not involved today following a theft from staff handbags in a nightclub with, allegedly, some damning CCTV pictures, Wrighty's son cast as the "look out".
Shortly afterwards, City made their first chance as the energetic Gavin Rae, undoubtedly buoyed by his 45 minute midweek show for Scotland, won possession and fed Whitts who sent off another howitzer but it fizzed narrowly wide with Wright beaten. It was Whittingham's last telling moment as he made way for Trevor Sinclair - the latter appearing with fans reading pre-game how he has apparently been advised to quit the game by medics but still feels he has something to offer but there hasn't been too much evidence of that in recent months at City.
The contest was played out almost to a stand still as both sides enjoyed periods of pressure and possession but none of it equated to moments of worry or shots on goal. Predictably, Saints threw caution in the closing moments but Johnson and Loovens were in complete control, you never ever felt an equaliser was coming and Loovens, in fact, was closest to be a scorer a he headed narrowly over from a Joe Ledley corner. Last word (of sorts) went to City as Riccy Scimeca got the briefest of appearances by replacing Thommo for the 4 minutes added time as Cardiff simply ensured they consolidated and matched Southampton's last desperate throw of the dice with attackers Surman and Pericard sent out allowing Enckleman to easily collect his 6th clean sheet in 10 games.
A great result, a comfortable performance in a game in which we lacked intensity but never really needed to show it anyway. It was so low key that the fans rarely felt fired up enough to sing "Wembley", let alone anything else but Dave Jones seems to continue his sequence of either good runs or bad runs. City's 2 points out of 18 has now been replaced by 10 points from the last 12 since beating Middlesbrough in the F.A. Cup quarter-final but this victory saw us rise just 1 place to 12th. One more game before that Wembley encounter when we host fellow Cup semi-finalists West Brom on Tuesday, a game neither side really need this week but a win for either could be very significant.
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