Tuesday, September 16, 2008

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME 6: BARNSLEY 0 CARDIFF CITY 1

CARDIFF CITY repeated their 1-0 F.A. Cup Wembley semi-final win over Barnsley. This time, at Oakwell in the Championship, the decider once again coming early too - this time, through Peter Whittingham inside the quarter-hour as The Bluebirds maintained their unbeaten start to the season and propelled themselves into 6th spot sharing 10 points from 6 games with Reading and QPR in 4th and 5th.

Victory was convincing and there will be some relief that City scored but they should have put Barnsley out of sight by half-time instead of fighting to hold onto what they had for much of the second half although, for all the home side's belated huff and puff, they never made City's Tom Heaton produce a single save.

City's third away of the season, all in the South Yorks triangle (following Doncaster and Sheffield United) saw one change was made from the side that drew with Bristol City at the weekend (they lost and are now below us - sweet!) as Ross McCormack started up front with Paul Parry consigning Jay Bothroyd to the bench so it was Heaton, McNaughton-Purse-Johnson-Comminges, Whittingham-Rae-McPhail-Ledley, McCormack-Bothroyd. Subs were Enckleman, Bothroyd, Gypes, Johnson and Aaron Morris.

While City's league form before this game was 1 win and 4 draws, Barnsley had 1 win and 4 defeats, only goal difference separated them and Southampton who are bottom of the Championship ... but who now have a game in hand. Hearing them booed off at half-time and full-time shows a dissatisfied support. They aren't happy with their sides tactics and players used out of position and there was evidence of that tonight - Hume playing wide midfield I ask you?? Their side were Steele, Foster-Moore-Guedes-Kozluk, Campbell-Ryce-Colace-Howard-Hume, Odejayi-Macken.

City were at Barnsley from the off and made it a completely one sided opening period but they yet again failed to show clinical finishing or a killer instinct as they had only a single goal lead when it should easily have been 2 or 3 and game over early.

Whittingham was a whisker wide early, Howard had a similar outcome for the hosts but then PETER WHITTINGHAM powered home from 12 yards after a good move and Darren Moore attempted clearence set him up. How City never made the most of chances for Parry and McCormack (a couple each), Purse, Johnson (twice), Ledley, nobody can explain. Steele did make a couple of fine saves while Johnson was unlucky hitting the angle of post and bar.

It was a miracle how those of us listening to Radio Wales could follow events at all with one of the worst commentaries it has been my misfortune to hear. Graeme Lloyd is not my favourite commentator but even by his standards, this was sub-standard and came across as unprofessional.

A succession of player names were wrongly pronounced. Comminges was called Comming, he told us number 12 hit the bar for City, Whittingham was been called Whittington a couple fo times (Dick!), Barnsley's Darren Moore was called Derren all night.

We had 10 seconds of commentary that went something like "ooh ahh uhh, oh .... he was offside, was he?". We had a few ooh and aah moments as the commentator was unable to describe the action to listeners.

Another time when City won an edge of area free-kick, Lloyd said "so that was a free-kick for a foul, was it? Got to admit, I was looking at the football scores in front of me". All night, he announced only Champions Leagues scores, not once did he cover the Championship where our interest lied apart from a couple of mentions of Swansea and finished the half with, "that was a very good half-time whistle for Cardiff City".

Thankfully, he got better in the 2nd half - by better, I mean just about bearable although his pager was constantly going off - but City didn't.

Barnsley, to nobody's surprise, decided to make more of a fight of it and get City working for their victory. It was a half of few chances but Barnsley saw more of the ball and applied some pressure but didn't seem to have any idea what to do or how to score as City's defence protected Heaton for the entire match.

More points are on offer this weekend as City visit Derby in 21st place although they beat Sheffield United on the weekend and Swansea had to fight back to get a home draw with them tonight. However that's all ahead, for now, this was a good victory and heartening to see.

No comments: