Spirit of 2017/18 finally puts in appearance at Cardiff City.

[the other bob wilson]

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

[Stavross1927]

Good stuff Bob, after the 30 mins or so, no one in their right mind would have thought that the game would pan out like that.

Whilst I don’t think Dean did mean to elbow Ralls, he did go into as a result of frustration from a poor header previous and was out of control.

I also think Mendez Lang has shown he can provide an option up front, even on his own, I thought he was decent in occupying their defenders and his extra pace over Ward and ability to run in behind, provided much more of a threat.

[Robin Friday's Ghost]

Nice one Bob.
I was thinking of the Leicester game too while watching the drama unfold yesterday. The atmosphere v Brum wasn't quite so passionate but it was pretty good, not least because for the first time in quite a while we actually had something to cheer.
I work in Bristol so have been dreading next week's game. At least now I have some belief we might get something out of it.

[life on mars]

I firmly believe the relegation loss of a few good players new recruits and the Sala tragedy and transfer fee has weighed heavily.

I also suspect we will be thereabouts the top 6 .

If you consider how poorly we have played and the points gap between us and the top it's not beyond the realm .

I wouldn't want to face a Warnock team in a play off final .

[surge]

We haven't had many enjoyable games this season but yesterday was certainly one of those. Maybe we should volunteer to start with 10 men each game? We put more thought into how we were attacking and defending, we retained possession better when nothing was on and it played to our counter-attacking strengths when something was.

[cardiff55]

My thought exactly Bob (Paul). Most enjoyable game so far at home. But Warnock didn't seem too instramental in sorting out the team, the players did that, and Blackweelk was organising them a bit too.

[kendoddsdadsdogsdead]

great piece as ever...brum 2nd goal was hardly a top corner

[Eric the Half a Bee]

Not wishing to put a damper on a much needed win, but there's a long way to go before I'll consider this side capable of a playoff push.

I've been looking at whoscored.com at a comparison of stats between this season and the 2017/18 promotion season to see if there's any difference to why we haven't been nearly as effective this season. There's not a great deal of difference. This season we're playing slightly fewer long balls and our short passing accuracy is better. On the down side, we're not getting quite as many crosses into the box, we're having more shots from outside the box than inside than we did 2 seasons ago, we're getting more in more defensive blocks but are allowing slightly more crosses to come into our box and are making slightly fewer tackles. We're only talking minute differences, but maybe these differences are having an effect. One stat I can't find is to see how many shots we've faced as I reckon that is substantially higher than 2 years ago.

As most fans seem to agree, Birmingham should have put the game out of sight before we were given a route back into it. The atmosphere would have been very different had that happened. Thankfully they didn't and we deserved the win on our second half performance.

15 games gone - 8 against sides below us, 7 against sides above us. 1.5 points a game against sides below us, just under 1.3 against sides above us. Our remaining 8 games in the first half of this season see only 2 of those games against sides below us. If 75 points is the holy grail of the playoffs, we're already looking at nearly 1.75 points a game - an already significant increase on our efforts so far. If we keep up our form against sides above and below us, we'll be at 32 points at the halfway stage and looking at an unlikely 1.89 points a game.

I reckon 4 wins and a couple of draws are the minimum from these next 8 games. 2 wins in our last 6 isn't going to be anywhere near good enough.

[the other bob wilson]

Not wishing to put a damper on a much needed win, but there's a long way to go before I'll consider this side capable of a playoff push.

I've been looking at whoscored.com at a comparison of stats between this season and the 2017/18 promotion season to see if there's any difference to why we haven't been nearly as effective this season. There's not a great deal of difference. This season we're playing slightly fewer long balls and our short passing accuracy is better. On the down side, we're not getting quite as many crosses into the box, we're having more shots from outside the box than inside than we did 2 seasons ago, we're getting more in more defensive blocks but are allowing slightly more crosses to come into our box and are making slightly fewer tackles. We're only talking minute differences, but maybe these differences are having an effect. One stat I can't find is to see how many shots we've faced as I reckon that is substantially higher than 2 years ago.

As most fans seem to agree, Birmingham should have put the game out of sight before we were given a route back into it. The atmosphere would have been very different had that happened. Thankfully they didn't and we deserved the win on our second half performance.

15 games gone - 8 against sides below us, 7 against sides above us. 1.5 points a game against sides below us, just under 1.3 against sides above us. Our remaining 8 games in the first half of this season see only 2 of those games against sides below us. If 75 points is the holy grail of the playoffs, we're already looking at nearly 1.75 points a game - an already significant increase on our efforts so far. If we keep up our form against sides above and below us, we'll be at 32 points at the halfway stage and looking at an unlikely 1.89 points a game.

I reckon 4 wins and a couple of draws are the minimum from these next 8 games. 2 wins in our last 6 isn't going to be anywhere near good enough.

The optimism I conveyed in my piece was mainly down to looking at Saturday's game in a way that says what would you think about a side which has a horror first half an hour when they should have gone more than 1-0 down and then has to play with ten men against eleven from the fiftieth to ninetieth minutes, winning their game by 4-2? My answer would be along the lines of that's the sort of result top six sides get.

Of course, the fact that I also believe that Saturday was the first match out of the fifteen we've played so far where you could make such a comment tends to tell a story. As I mentioned on the blog "Having had to watch so much poor stuff this season, I’m going to enjoy this win while I can – in the end City played well today and it’s great to say that about them for the first time in six months!", it's nice to feel a little more optimistic about the coming months than I was at three o clock on Saturday.

[Eric the Half a Bee]

The optimism I conveyed in my piece was mainly down to looking at Saturday's game in a way that says what would you think about a side which has a horror first half an hour when they should have gone more than 1-0 down and then has to play with ten men against eleven from the fiftieth to ninetieth minutes, winning their game by 4-2? My answer would be along the lines of that's the sort of result top six sides get.

Of course, the fact that I also believe that Saturday was the first match out of the fifteen we've played so far where you could make such a comment tends to tell a story. As I mentioned on the blog "Having had to watch so much poor stuff this season, I’m going to enjoy this win while I can – in the end City played well today and it’s great to say that about them for the first time in six months!", it's nice to feel a little more optimistic about the coming months than I was at three o clock on Saturday.

Totally agree with all of that. We could even argue that the QPR game was another where we somehow won a game comfortably where we were second best.