Match Thread: Season Opener - Cardiff at Home | Page 3 | Vital Football

Match Thread: Season Opener - Cardiff at Home

Victor Moses ;) said:
Brilliant game to watch, some similarites to last season's opener. I was thinking at half time if we lose this game but play the same second half i'll go home happy. As the application, commitment and approach was excellent. Couple mistakes here and
there but overall it was a superb performance.

Some player rating's, which of course is each to their own. Just my view of today's game.

Marshall 7 - 1st goal was poor from the midfield and defence, Marshall has always parried shots that bounce in front of him away from goal. Playing the percentages, our player's allowed them to collect the ball twice far to easily. The positioning and marking in that phase of play was our worst moment in today's game. The 1v1 save was excellent, stood tall making Murphy panic and completely put him off. Commanded the box fairly well and started several counter attack's.

Robinson 7.4 - Was great on the overlap. Evans covered him when he went forward. Final ball let him down today in the final third, but he caused them problems and his positive play increased our momentum in the game.

Fox 7 - Made an error near the edge of our box, but set the tone early with a commanding run and played his usual way.

Dunkley 5 - Awful, doesn't bother marking, lost his man at will. Passes went in behind him with regularity. Consistently pumped the ball long even with acres of space around him.

Byrne 6 - Didn't cause as many problem's going forward as Robinson did, also was lazy on their second goal. Let the player run beyond him, Dunk's came across to cover, causing the other two to follow and sweep across the back four allowing Bogle an easy finish. But he had some difficult situation's on the ball with not too many options, he also did well generally defensively apart from their second goal.

Evans 7.8 - Mentioned this early last season, Evan's is a different animal on the left. His technique is base on curve. Playing on the left open's up many more possibilities to his passing and shooting. Was hitting volley passes on his weak foot under pressure and generally a very good game. Got beat in the build up to their first goal. But almost every player defensively got beat at some point during the game. The cover never arrived on that one occasion.

Mcleod 7.2 - Was comfortable, positioning was good. Always in control of the ball, won a couple 50/50 sliding tackles and generally had a very solid game without excelling.

Jacobs 7.8 - Involved a lot first half, similar to last season's start he did really well today. Wasn't running down the wing too often. Instead he was cutting inside regularly from deep and in the final third. Carried the ball well and i was delighted for him when he scored from Windass's deflected freekick.

Windass 8.6 - Excellent performance, ran the channels and in behind their back four. Was a threat on the counter from Marshall's long throws. Was high up the pitch taking up some dangerous positions. Came deeper in the final third a few times and went past player's with ease and also collected the ball in pockets of space. Not a penalty taker though, he's to emotional for that. Need some one who's calm or composed, he changed his running style which show's he play's in the moment rather than a natural training ground routine.

Pilkington 6.5 - Strange one this, i've forgotten his performance. I remember him being involved quite a bit first half, but i can't remember if he did well or not. Completely forgotten how he did today.

Garner 8 - Superb performance from a player i don't rate. He was one of our key performer's today. If he executed the back heel to Windass slightly better i would have gained even more confidence in him, it was so close to being very good. The amount of wasted long ball's hit from Dunkley he did well to win as many header's as he did in the initial phase of our build up in their half. Wasn't capable of winning any in the box though, but he was bailing us out time and again from the long ball's. Generally held the ball up very well against the odds.
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so we need a center half
 
Gifted them first goal second was poor defending nobody marking former reject
Totally out played cardiff can see why they flopped in prem league
Great goals from the latics we had pace that tore them apart
 
Proud Latic said:
Thanks very much.

How did Lowe do in the short amount of time he was on?
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We were defending the lead when he came on, wasn't able to get on the ball too much. As we switched to 5 at the back and started to defend deep, as they all put a lot into the game. We were mostly making clearances at that point. Before we switched tactic it was a very back and fourth game although we were having the better of it.
 
FrancosLoveChild said:
Now to see if our biggest weakness has improved (away form) this will be the biggest factor for a very good season. Best place to start is Preston away.
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One of the reasons we were crap away last term was lack of pace and lack of anyone to spot a pass, garner was manhandled and still delivered some cracking headed flick ons for Windas to run onto, imagine when massy is fit and lowe is settled in plus Moore as well to share the workload over the full 90 minutes not just one player knackered after putting in a shift, we have the elements to be better on the road.
 
ZAKKY said:
Interesting to see your comments regarding Garner & Windass I think your rightI don't think they get on.
Last season Windass was subbed for Garner in one game and coming off he totally ignored Garner and Garner turned around and didn't half give him a mouthful.
Personally I think Windass is a bad apple in the barrel
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We might be reading too much into little things - I'm sure players get fed up with each other when they don't play then the pass they wanted or took the penalty they fancied etc but im sure in most cases they soon get over it. Never heard anyone say a bad word about Windass behind the scenes so not sure if there is any evidence to suggest he's a bad apple from anything I've seen at least.

I was convinced Windass would miss the penalty - he's just not the reliable type in those high pressure situations. But after his horrendous penalty miss at Millwall last season that was so costly I bet he's been desperate to take another and redeem himself and thought this was his moment. But he needs to stay clear of them from now on - Garner and Pilkington both wanted it, and I'm sure the likes of Lowe and if we get Moore they would ask to be on pen duty too. I'd have thought someone like Evans would fancy himself with a penalty as well so I'm sure there are plenty of candidates.
 
It'll be interesting to see how things shake out if Moore signs, because it sounds as if we're making plenty of chances to get crosses in and though Garner causes defenders headaches, he's not a big targetman
 
A great 2nd half performance. After us getting bullied 1st half we really turned it round.
I think Robinson needs to be braver in his defensive duties. A few times 2nd half when the ball was pumped forward it was bouncing around near him and one of their players but instead of challenging for the header he stood back allowing their player a free header. Letting the ball and player past him causing us unnecessary problems.
 
ZAKKY said:
Interesting to see your comments regarding Garner & Windass I think your rightI don't think they get on.
Last season Windass was subbed for Garner in one game and coming off he totally ignored Garner and Garner turned around and didn't half give him a mouthful.
Personally I think Windass is a bad apple in the barrel
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I don’t know of any beef between them, but garner looked distinctly pissed off with him. When Windass scored he made no effort to join the ‘throng’, walked over, ignored him and just barely hand tapped another player.

Not sure why Windass took the pen, better options for me in the team. Didn’t cost us today and he redeemed himself with a cracking goal. His pace stretched them and was my motm today for his efforts.
 
Perhaps we have a policy of whichever forward gets fouled takes the pen.
For anyone else we have a designated taker.
 
Fantastic game today - back to the attacking football we saw all too rarely after the start of last season.

Continue to back ourselves to score more than the other team and go for it like we did today and we’ll have a good season.

Fox has made such a difference to the defence as a calming influence and is quality on the ball and Robinson was also excellent today along with pretty much all the midfield and attacking players. Windass redeemed himself for the penalty and was a problem for their dirty, manhandling defence all afternoon.

We were quality and will be interesting to see if we can play the same way away rather than altering our approach too much. Cardiff were a piss poor long ball team but will beat plenty and be top half.

UTFT
 
Victor Moses ;) said:
We were defending the lead when he came on, wasn't able to get on the ball too much. As we switched to 5 at the back and started to defend deep, as they all put a lot into the game. We were mostly making clearances at that point. Before we switched tactic it was a very back and fourth game although we were having the better of it.
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Sitting on it basically. Very dangerous. Worked today but so often it doesn't.
 
king_dezeeuw06 said:
We might be reading too much into little things - I'm sure players get fed up with each other when they don't play then the pass they wanted or took the penalty they fancied etc but im sure in most cases they soon get over it. Never heard anyone say a bad word about Windass behind the scenes so not sure if there is any evidence to suggest he's a bad apple from anything I've seen at least.

I was convinced Windass would miss the penalty - he's just not the reliable type in those high pressure situations. But after his horrendous penalty miss at Millwall last season that was so costly I bet he's been desperate to take another and redeem himself and thought this was his moment. But he needs to stay clear of them from now on - Garner and Pilkington both wanted it, and I'm sure the likes of Lowe and if we get Moore they would ask to be on pen duty too. I'd have thought someone like Evans would fancy himself with a penalty as well so I'm sure there are plenty of candidates.
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I like you King was not overly confident when Windass stepped up. He seemed a yard off the pace of the game throughout up to the miss. He then became a bit of a ninja, all over the park U assume trying to prove himelf. I would say his "set up" for Cracker was lucky but his execution for the goal was brilliant.
 
Oscarbon said:
I like you King was not overly confident when Windass stepped up. He seemed a yard off the pace of the game throughout up to the miss. He then became a bit of a ninja, all over the park U assume trying to prove himelf. I would say his "set up" for Cracker was lucky but his execution for the goal was brilliant.
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I was pretty close to that and to be fair it was a pretty good save rather than a miss mate.
 
Oscarbon said:
Warnocks tactic (singular) seemed to be spoil, get away with as much as you can and try and score on the break.

I think this guy is the most over-rated manager in either of the top two leagues.
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He also said in the after-match interview that Cardiff "could and should" have won the game easily. I don't think he was seeing the same game as us!
 
TRUE BELIEVER said:
Got to disagree with you about Marshall, Kenny. It was a howler for a keeper of his experience. I put it down to it being his first game for us and wanting to play safe. He tried to scoop the ball out when he actually had time to stop it and drop on it. He knew it was the wrong decision as soon as he did it and tried hard to make amends. I actually think the defence let him down a bit and were slow to recover giving Ralls the space to fire in the final shot. Other than that mistake though I thought it was a decent debut.
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I agree it was defo his howler, I meant I thought he was 100% to blame, but having watched it I thought the defence could and should have helped him recover from the initial error, poor show all around.
 
Kenny Morris said:
He also said in the after-match interview that Cardiff "could and should" have won the game easily. I don't think he was seeing the same game as us!
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He’s a senile old prick. Moaned about Garner fouling there centre halves too. He just bullied them and got his body in front every time. Both of them were big lads but hadn’t a clue how to defend.
 
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