A Right Load of R's


Saturday March 18th Championship at Ninian Park
(a ground we don't have to share with anyone)

CARDIFF CITY (0) 0
QUEENS PARK RANGERS (0) 0

Crowd:
14,996

QPR:
350

Weather:
Mini monsoon pre-game, light drizzle during game

Atmosphere:
Loads of kids but, thankfully, no horns.

CARDIFF CITY and QPR plodded their way through 90 minutes of 0-0 football-hell. City maintained their season long affliction of Bighomecrowd-itis but at least they didn't lose this one. Both sides, through bad defending rather than good play, had one golden opportunity and wasted it. A combo of poor conditions, poorer play and a game devoid of quality and imagination meant both sides comfortably cancelled the other.

It was a game that truly belonged to a dustbin. On a day when spluttering Preston also drew at home, Wolves had a shock home defeat and teams below us lost, it did no harm but little good. Games and chances to make the play-offs are fast running out, we certainly therefore lost two points than gained one.

Family Fun Day was the theme - someone forgot to tell the weatherman and the footballers - every paying adult could have upto 2 free kids. I bet Gary Glitter was gutted to be inside and unable to go. The crowd responded - Friday "in the know" informers declared it was already over 16,000 - but turned out to be 14,271 officially. All sections of the ground looked busy with, pleasingly, the Family Stand packed. City also put next term's season ticket sales on offer and had very early takers.

Attendance may also have hit the last minute walk up crowd. After a beautiful sunny mild start to day, the skies turned grey and by lunchtime, it poured and poured. The Bob Bank terrace, unsurprisingly, was the one area of the ground with room. With the football on offer, a planned Fun Day for the kids was anything but for many. Miserable weather, miserable football, welcome to life with Cardiff City! Seriously, with floods in Sloper Road and huge puddles to tip-toe through or around outside the turnstiles and queues like a Next sale for ticket kiosks, catering booths and the like, it emphasised why our stadium - great as it is to traditionalists - still belongs to the last century.

With everyone fit, Dave Jones gave any thought to his starting eleven, it would have been for a few seconds only before deciding on the same eleven who started - and Jerome in injury time apart - finished too and won at Plymouth. It was therefore Alexander, Ardley-Purse-Loovens-Barker, Koumas-Ledley-Scimeca-Cooper- Jerome-Thompson. Subs were the same too with Worgan-Boland-Cox-Nsungu-Weston. Boland was called to the bench in place of Jeff Whitley who does appear to be falling out of contention.

Rangers came to Ninian Park comfortably settled in mid-table, 15 points above the relegation sides and 10 points behind City. To the outside world, Ian Holloway was likeable, humorous and doing a reasonable job. To those that follow QPR, the joke had worn a little thin and the brand of football was poor.

In came coah and ex-player hero Gary Waddock and they seem happier. Results have picked up, the point extended their unbeaten run to 5 games which started with a superb 3-2 win at Sheffield United but it's been four successive draws since - two x 0-0 and two x 1-1.

In goals and getting a good reception was veteran Wales stopper Paul Jones. Defence were Bignot-Evatt-Shittu-Milanese. Midfield were Ainsworth-Bircham-Lomas-Cook and forwards were Youssaf and Nygaard. Nygaard, a 6' 3" Danish international forward was a handful and scored the winner in Rangers 1-0 victory over City at Loftus Road last Xmas in an equally poor match, his strike partner was also Danish - Youssef having his first start with Kevin Gallen suspended.

In Steve Lomas and Marc Bircham, they certainly had a competitive midfield accompanied by Gareth Ainsworth, returning only a week after playing in Leggy's benefit match, had a great reception and was last off the pitch after waving to all sections of the ground and doing the ayatollah. On the bench was Richard Langley who got a hot welcome with boos every time he warmed up and chants of a derogatory style. He was never a hero but endeared himself less to City fans with claims of being spat on at Loftus Road. Nobody was aware of that and it would have been some feat from where City fans were housed.

And so the match highlights. For once, I'm going to be brief and keep it brief, it really doesn't deserve much more attention and scrutiny. Word is obviously out to set yourself up with tow banks of four when visiting NP Towers and City have little answer, Rangers simple plan exposed the limitations of our side. The pitch was greasy after the heavy rain and both sides spent the entire first half launching long balls forward hoping it would set one of their strikers clear, they could hold it up or a defensive error would be made. It was dreadful to watch.

Darren Purse was awarded man of the match in a game and style of football that was perfect for him. Yes, yet again, either our goalkeeper or a central defender is our best player, in a home game as well. I lost count of how many headers Pursey won but he also got in some big tackles. Some of his flicked headers back or sideways under pressure were sublime but a couple of times, he totally misguided headers too but luckily found Neil Alexander.

First half chances were at a premium, the closest City came was when Steve Thompson, easily City's best midfield or forward performer, missed connecting with Jerome's low skidding ball across the face of goal by a toenail. He also narrowly missed connecting with a header, Ledley - after good set up work by Ardley and Thompson - found the side netting with a low drive and Cooper had a couple of swings from distance, Koumas found the side netting as well after one sweeping move. City did produce a couple of moments of play and passing quality but all too often, it lacked in the final third.

City's only anxious moment, a couple fo stray Purse headers aside, was one penalty area scramble where the ball pinged around before Youssef tried an overhead kick but lacked any power. One threatened break through Ainsworth was abruptly ended by a calculated Loovens foul for the game's sole yellow card but quite a bit was seen of an over fussy ref who loved the sound of his whistle. He blew for too many innocuous moments and, annoyingly, multi-blew his whistle every time too. It just added to the frustrations.

Half-time: CITY 0 QPR 0

In line with the Family Fun Day, we had a kid's game - better than the real match - some kids dribbling around cones and a girl recovering from a serious illness. The kids in the ground however were in the 200 yard queue for hot dogs.

So to the second half and, to be honest, more of the same except QPR had the early chances. Ainsworth was just wide and then got Alexander to produce the game's first save of any description after 55 minutes when he did very well to push a free-kick around the post for a corner.

City were struggling to find any cohesion and fluency. Jason Koumas was showing magic in his touches and control but, all too frequently, it was in an area of the pitch where he could produce little harm. It summed up his game that his only free-kick chance, a very difficult one, was miskicked into the wall.

Then there were those two wasted chances from defensive mistakes. Cameron Jerome first. The player is struggling. He may be closing in on 20 goals but it's only 2 in his last 9 games. Today he looked lazy at many times, his control let him down and, as at Plymouth, he completely wasted a golden opening. A ball from the left was missed by Shittu and ran to Jerome 12 yards out and in the clear. He waited and hesitated and waited giving Paul Jones all the time to run out, by the time Jerome shot, Jones was in enough distance to close down and beat away his shot. The Jerome we know would have buried it comprehensively.

QPR's miss was just as bad, if not worse. Chris Barker somehow miskicked across goal and found Nygaard completely in the open. He had all the goal to aim at but hit it too close to Alexander who got a touch on the ball which deflected it to the inside of the post, across the face of goal and then behind for an unproductive corner.

After that made spell, it was game over. The final 25 minutes as poor as anything we had watched all afternoon. City's defence were doing fine and had ridden an uncomfortable spell but midfield was poor and disjointed. Riccy Scimeca slightly out of things, Joe Ledley invisible apart from a few moments, Kevin Cooper well out of it and Koumas trying hard but unable to produce magic in the telling areas. The forwards found themselves isolated but were also guilty of not holding up the ball well enough to involve the midfielders more. The number of offsides awarded against Jerome was bewildering and rounded off a poor performance and unhappy afternoon for him. Thompson worked hard but without reward, he was the only one who came close to rivalling Purse.

Dave Jones brought on Rhys Weston for Cooper and pushed Ardley forward late on, his one opportunity to cross saw him send the ball into the Canton Stand. It was disappointing to see Nsungu not given a chance and just as disappointing to see Ferretti not even included. He may be raw but does offer something different, home games are now must win, the squad may be limited but are we using all options?

Dave Jones and Cardiff City's problem and challenge remains very simple. Many feel we've reached our limit and probably over-performed to be where we are. Only once this season have City enjoyed an unbeaten run of more than three matches - it was 6 months ago. Only twice this season have they had a winning run - even then, it lasted two games only and has only happened twice all season.

With just 6 games to go and quite a tough finishing programmes, unless City can, at least, replicate one of those runs - they probably need both - there is just no chance of making those play-offs. If runs like these as good as we can be, then we quite really don't deserve to be there anyway, do we? Good Luck boys.


The Cost of Being A City Fan: (Cost are for two .. again)
Tickets: £26
Programme: £ 3
Club shop goodies: £15
Food/Drink: £18:
Transport: £ 4
Total for game: £66

Total for Season to date: £2,888