Saturday, February 22, 2014

Grim and Grimmer

Three weeks ago, I wrote a post call The fat lady is gargling, ahead of the Bluebirds "must win" match against Norwich (which they did indeed win - just).

Since then we have been thumped by Swansea, scraped a draw with Villa, and have been beaten by Wigan in the FA Cup. Today's 0-4 loss to Hull, means in our last 4 games we've scored 1 and conceded 9. All pretence of the fat lady gargling can be cast aside. She's warbling, and City, bar an absolute miracle are doomed to relegation and Championship football next term.

Today's match against another team who are having their history and tradition messed with was dire if you were a Bluebirds fan. Devoid of ideas, lacking fight in some areas, and low on confidence, we were soundly thrashed by a side who at the start of the season we were suggesting we'd finish comfortably above. As things stand, everyone is sitting above us. Everything that could go wrong today did, and even the 50/50 decisions went against us, whilst Hull looked up for it! broke quickly with confidence and benefited from some sloppy City play. I've never been a fan of Steve Bruce as a manager, but he clearly has his team playing as a unit.

Yes, we're "only" 4 points from safety, but we don't look like scoring, let alone winning one of the probably 5 from the last 11 that we'd need to win to be in with a chance of staying up.

And what makes it worse, is that since Malky went, we've gone significantly backwards in my opinion. Ole clearly doesn't know what his best 11 is, and on the evidence of the last half dozen matches, we have very few players who are capable of cutting it at this level, despite a rash of signings by the new manager.

Football is awash with opinions, and everyone has their own view. For me, Marshall and Noone have been a class above anyone else in a City shirt. Caulker and Cala look a solid partnership in a short time together. Mutch, when he's fit brings a positivity that is sadly lacking from others.

Campbell works hard but gets little decent ball to work with. Jones blows hot and mostly cold. Eikrem doesn't offer anything that Whitts, or Gunnar could. Daehli is good on the ball, quick, but has yet to deliver anything really incisive. Of the full backs, John and McNaughton shade it over KTC and Taylor with Fabio's defensive ability AWOL.

And of the manager? OGS was a superb player and clearly has done a job with Molde in the Norwegian League. But I'm not convinced. Tactically we seem to have gone backwards. His preference for an attacking style of football hasn't materialised. The defensive structure and discipline built and instilled by Malky appear to have disappeared.

Confidence means a lot of course, but City are devoid of that, and I can't anything that can change that happening.

To see huge numbers leaving the game at 3-0, and then 4-0 was hardly surprising, but still very sad. This should have been a celebration season, but it's felt more like a funeral.

Today I've seen a lot of tweets from people saying that that's it, and it'll be relegation. In all honesty, much as I've tried to be positive this season, I have never thought we had enough to stay up, even before the season began. I'm sorry I couldn't be more positive, but a couple of surprise games this season apart, nothing I've seen changes that view.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Mini



No comments: