CARDIFF DOWN TO 7th ON DAY OFF AS RIVALS TAKE ADVANTAGE

It’s a shocking statistic that for those who believe football is a game played at 3pm on Saturday afternoon to realise that, of the last 9 Saturdays, Cardiff City players have gone shopping or twiddled their thumbs at home for 6 of them. So watching how others do on a Saturday afternoon has become a regular pastime. It can’t be worse than this if we somehow make the Premership!

		P	GD	PTS
1	Wolverhampton	39	23	74
2	Birmingham	39	14	71
3	Reading	37	29	64
4	Sheff Utd	38	18	63
5	Burnley	38	7	61
6	Preston	39	3	60
7	Cardiff	35	17	59
8	Swansea	38	12	57
9	Bristol City	38	7	57
10	Ipswich	38	8	54
11	Crystal Palace	37	3	50

The Top Two, both rediscovering form – in terms of results rather than performances – won and pulled themselves away from a pack which are not so much chasing but stumbling about like a drunken man heading home.

Wolves faced bottom club Charlton at Molineux and the relegation certainties almost matched their heroic 2-2 draw at Reading in midweek. This time, they fell 2-1 as a nervy Wolves side just about got the 3 points with a late-ish winner although they could also afford Ebanks-Blake to miss another penalty.

Birmingham, meanwhile, visited in-form Doncaster for an evening game and returned home with a 2-0 win. Once more, their football was nothing to be excited about but it was effective with two first half goals, their opener by ex-City man Cameron Jerome.

That pair of results have put the Midlands duo 7 points ahead of the rest and 12 in front of City although Cardiff are clinging onto 4 games in hand but winning them is another matter altogether.

The reason they stretched the gap was Reading having another disaster day. The Royals have imploded with no home win in 5 games and now have just 1 win and 7 points in their last 8 games. This time, they lost 1-0 at Madejski at Ipswich, Jon Stead scoring a spectacular overhead goal just after half-time. By all accounts, Reading were lucky just to lose by that margin too.

City dropped out of the play-offs as Sheffield United, Burnley and Preston all won. The Blades had an excellent 4-2 win over Derby. Burnley – who were 7 minutes away from losing at home in midweek – followed their dramatic 4-2 win over Crystal Palace in that game with a 5-0 demolition of a hapless Nottingham Forest side who featured ex-Bluebird Chris Gunter making a debut in defence. Preston, who just don’t strike me as good enough for the play-offs, continue to make a fist of it though with a stirring fightback to beat Coventry 2-1 at Deepdale after falling behind in the 2^nd half.

And so, on a day, when the leading contenders sharpened their claws, one side who fell short were the so-called ‘best footballing side in the Championship’ a.k.a. Swansea City who were well beaten 2-0 by Crystal Palace at The Liberty. Having got into the play-offs for 24 hours in midweek, The Swans now find themselves 3 points away.

Cardiff head to Bristol tomorrow needing a point to break back into the top 6 but knowing that, to reignite dwindling auto-promotion hopes, it really has to be 3. Blitz those carrot crunchers boys!!!