Birmingham v Cardiff One change from the win against the Baggies. Dean comes in for Long, who I presume has taken a knock as he’s didn't even make the bench. First half
Unchanged formation with 4-4-2 Diamond and Hannibal being the further forward. Started very sloppy, no team really brought the ball down and kept giving away possession. Hogan won an early corner for Blues. Hannibal built off of what he started against West Brom, whipping in another good ball. However, nobody was there to meet it at the back post. As the half grew on, the football didn’t get any better unfortunately. Both teams gave the ball away and no real football was played. Cardiff did cause blues some problems with their physicality, and our flair players couldn’t really get into the game. A short corner from Cardiff almost caught us off guard, luckily their striker headed back across goal where no Cardiff player was found. Juke was having a great physical battle with both of their centre halves and won a lot of flicks on, threatening to cause Cardiff problems. To be honest, I can sum that first half by saying, there was no added time. Poor first half from both teams, but Cardiff will be happier judging by their form. Second half Cardiff started the second half strongly and pegged Blues back into their own half for the first 5 minutes. Blues carried on from the first half, poor. There was no out ball and we were very sloppy. In my opinion, Hannibal was very lucky not to be sent off for a second yellow. Cardiff threatened with some half chances and nearly took the lead, when some sloppy defending from Blues allowed Kaba to control the ball in our box and have an acrobatic effort. 4 Blues subs, on the 70th minute, saw Deeney, Hall, Gardner and Longelo come on for Hannibal, Chong, Bacuna and Juke. It was a formation change with 5 at the back. In my honest opinion, I feel that swung the game more in Cardiff's favour and we looked very lightweight and poor in midfield. It allowed Cardiff to run at us through the middle. This caused Dean to give away a cheap Freekick on the edge of the box! Credit where it's due, Ng hit an absolute pearler of a freekick in to the top bins. James came on for Dean, in what was another formation change. He almost gave blues the equaliser, but some last ditch defending from Cardiff saw their lead continue. Cardiff then put the game beyond blues in the 95th minute from substitute, Robinson. He danced through the defenders and smashed it into the net. Full time Blues 0-2 Cardiff Verdict
Very, very disappointing performance considering the two wins on the spin. Cardiff couldn’t buy a win at the moment, but in true Blues fashion if you need points then come and play us. After the first half, I felt vibes of the Hull game. I felt we were sloppy all game and never created a thing. For me, the formation change was a strange one from Eustace and I felt it let Cardiff dominate at a crucial time.
It was night and day between this performance and the one we put in on Friday against WBA.
I hope we can try to put this behind us and hopefully bounce back against Huddersfield on Saturday.
KRO
Player ratings out of 10
Ruddy - 4
Colin - 4
Sanderson - 4
Dean - 4
Trusty - 4
Bielik - 5
Hannibal - 3
Bacuna - 4
Chong - 4
Jutkiewicz - 5
Hogan - 4
Subs
Etheridge - N/A
Friend - N/A
Longelo - 4
James - N/A
Gardner - 4
Hall - 3
Deeney - 3
留言