It’s a result that almost signs, seals and delivers a play off place. Cardiff can only make automatic promotion by winning their final two matches and hoping 4 teams now above them somehow mess up while they can only miss a play off berth if they lose their final two games and Swansea or Preston win both of theirs. In reality, Cardiff head into Ninian Park’s last ever league match this Saturday looking for a point to wrap up a play off berth and put the club within 180 minutes of Wembley and 3 matches away from the Premiership – what a sign off for the old lady.
Dave Jones made 4 changes following the Deepdale debacle. One was enforced as Kevin McNaughton was injured and replaced by Miguel Comminges while Peter Whittingham, Steve McPhail and keeper Stuart Taylor were apparently dropped and none of them were in the 16 either meaning City had no reserve stopper. The bench contained surprises too as Riccy Scimeca and first year defender Adam Matthews were included.
Subs Not Used: Burke-Eddie Johnson-Purse-Scimeca-Matthews.
Charlton’s relegation to League One – just 2 years after being a Premiership club – was confirmed last weekend having been obvious from some time after an 18 match non-winning run mid-season. However, with pressure off and long term injuries improving, they have gone unbeaten in 5 and stopped the likes of
The official crowd on a beautiful evening was 19,390 including over 1,250 from South Wales but pundits reckon only 13-14,000 were present with a couple of thousand Charlton season ticket holders giving up the ghost until next August.
Charlton: Elliot; Butterfield-Hudson-Ward-Youga; Sam-Zhi-Racon-Bailey; Shelvey-Burton.
The first half was rarely riveting and devoid of chances but the home side, led by prodigy 17 yr old Jonjo Shelvey, started to shine and cause problems. Comminges was being exposed on the right hand side so it was shocking but no shock (if that makes sense) when Shelvey – almost running the entire show - opened the scoring by latching onto a stray Roger Johnson header and poking past Heaton with Comminges once again gone to sleep. For City, keeper Elliott made two superb stops to deny Chopra and a stunning Ledley effort.
The second half saw constant
Chopra went off (again looking far from fit), City pushed Johnson up but against the run of play, Charlton doubled their lead with 7 minutes remaining as Bailey rammed home a corner barely cleared by more poor defending.
That was a sickener and City were in crisis but up stepped Chris Burke off the bench, after recently being ignored, to drill home a goal within a minute of the restart.
It was set up for a grand finish as City threw everything into an equaliser and they were rescued by a stunner as Gabor Gyepes controlled, turned and fired home with the skill and aplomb of a world class striker. That was the cue for bedlam amongst the City support as Cardiff avoided the embarrassment of what would otherwise have been losing to all the current bottom three in the past 6 weeks.
We can only pray that was the boost and lift City needed. Autos may be gone but the Ninian send off and play off dramas look set to begin.
*** Elsewhere tonight,
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| P | GD | PTS | |
| 1 | Wolverhampton | 44 | 27 | 86 |
| 2 | Birmingham | 44 | 17 | 80 |
| 3 | Sheff Utd | 44 | 24 | 76 |
| 4 | Reading | 44 | 31 | 74 |
| 5 | Cardiff | 44 | 16 | 74 |
| 6 | Burnley | 44 | 8 | 72 |
| 7 | Swansea | 44 | 15 | 68 |
| 8 | Preston | 44 | 10 | 68 |
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