A dreadful team to watch

[The Lone Gunman]

Did our style of football surprise you?

It did slightly. I expected it to be relatively poor. In the event, it was abysmal.

[SunderlandBluebird]

I know how football works, buddy. I've been watching it for decades. I watch it almost every week. Thankfully, most of it isn't as awful as the dross Warnock serves up on a regular basis (win, lose or draw). Come back when we're winning again? I honestly don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Did you not stop going for a few years then return to the CCS last season?

[Eric the Half a Bee]

I couldn't agree more. Last night made for pretty poor viewing.

A week ago I watched a Highland league game - table topping Fraserburgh against bottom of the table and without a win in well over 2 years, Fort William. Fort's particular weakness is in defence, conceding 429 goals in their last 68 matches. Their problems are well documented.

The result was inevitable and they lost 6-3. Despite the fact this was a level below the Scottish League, and there wasn't a great deal of quality. Still defensively vunerable, they played with 2 up front, had a young team and had players not afraid to dribble with the ball, create triangles in midfiels to try and pass the ball around, and tried to get forward in numbers.

Yes, this was amateur league football but the game was exciting to watch and, while Fort were ultimately overpowered, they had a good go at a team far superior. Scoring 3 there was an achievement few will match and they were good goals as well. Despite defeat, they could be well pleased with their efforts, suggesting things are improving. A win will come this season.

In contrast, we barely had a go at Fulham until Arter was sent off. Exciting it wasn't. We're a shadow of last season's team. Many have said this is a better squad than the one that got promoted. I think it's safe to say that's nonsense. Times change. Players lose confidence. Players age. Last night made me think it's time to rip up this project and start again. It looks like its at the end of its days.

[Hilts]

I agree mate, we didn’t do well enough when they went down to 10. If Tomlin had still been on when the red happened then it may have been different but there was a lack of quality in the final third to open them up that will need to be addressed in the upcoming months.

Still, a decent point overall that many would’ve taken beforehand.

Imagine starting threads about dreadful football 6 games into a season, the modern football fan for you I’m afraid!

The op can always switch off his TV.

The armchair fan has the best players in the world to watch a few times a week.

Swith us on you watch our best header of the ball launching long throws.

Still their our team and Id rather watch us than a football version of a couple of IPL teams.

[The Lone Gunman]

Did you not stop going for a few years then return to the CCS last season?

No. My first game after the re-brand reversal was at Fulham as it happens. A 2-2 draw. My next game was Trollope's last, a 2-0 defeat at Burton. Why do you ask?

[dembethewarrior]

Fulham were boring and slow.

I know people like gringo praise it, and to an extent I do as well but they were way too slow. It’s not the fact they passed it a lot, I get why they were doing it but there’s got to be a bit more zip about them.

As for Cardiff I agree with the way we set up last night, I’d call it clever rather than negative. We held our shape and made it difficult for them, if we’d have tried to play more they would have ripped us apart.
We looked more of a threat than them with the little of the ball we had as well.
Action areas in the first half were something like Fulham final third 33% city final third 15%. Probably not spot on but not far off.
If we could have played our passes a little quicker and got crosses into the box (whyte wasn’t completely ineffective like OP says,he had a good go, but he needs to get a cross in he looks scared to do so) we might have hurt them more when we did attack, but we seemed to hold and hold until we got tackled rather than releasing the ball.

[Hilts]

Whyte definitely wasnt ineffective. It was a much improved performance. Not saying he was great but had some good moments. All our wingers seem too slow to get a cross in.

Taking Whyte off was not the right decision. Bogle should have come on for Glatzel.

[SunderlandBluebird]

No. My first game after the re-brand reversal was at Fulham as it happens. A 2-2 draw. My next game was Trollope's last, a 2-0 defeat at Burton. Why do you ask?

As I assumed you’ve been rarely under Warnock if last night’s approach took you by surprise. Anyway, better things to do than argue with a stranger all day so have a splendid day squire and I’ll see you at the Warnock testimonial in May.

[the other bob wilson]

Fulham were boring and slow.

I know people like gringo praise it, and to an extent I do as well but they were way too slow. It’s not the fact they passed it a lot, I get why they were doing it but there’s got to be a bit more zip about them.

As for Cardiff I agree with the way we set up last night, I’d call it clever rather than negative. We held our shape and made it difficult for them, if we’d have tried to play more they would have ripped us apart.
We looked more of a threat than them with the little of the ball we had as well.
Action areas in the first half were something like Fulham final third 33% city final third 15%. Probably not spot on but not far off.
If we could have played our passes a little quicker and got crosses into the box (whyte wasn’t completely ineffective like OP says,he had a good go, but he needs to get a cross in he looks scared to do so) we might have hurt them more when we did attack, but we seemed to hold and hold until we got tackled rather than releasing the ball.

Sorry, but I'd call the way we set up negative.

I thought Fulham were a bit of a hotch potch with their slow passing style completely the wrong way to go when using two wingers - Parker obviously wants to make them more solid, but I dread to think what will happen to them if Mitrovic gets injured because it's hard to see where the goals would come from.

[Bald Barry Bastad]

Fulham passed the ball in triangles between Mawson, Ream and Arter for large periods of the game constantly trying to probe us into going forward and leaving space in behind for them to attack Morrison and Flint. The fact we held our shape so well should be applauded because if we’d gone gung ho to press high up the pitch then we’d have been sliced apart.

The moaning from people like the OP (who gave up on the club a few years ago then suddenly came back last season if I remember rightly) is more painful than anything we watched last night.

The squad is pretty stretched atm, the last thing we needed was to go into the international break on the back of a defeat. 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses from the first six games isn’t brilliant and it’s far from dreadful either.

Last night’s game was no different to games like Derby, Millwall, Middlesbrough and Bristol City at home during the last Championship campaign. The ball didn’t fall for us last night though.

Had Glatzel’s header gone in or Morrison’s been tapped in then everyone would’ve been lining up to praise him.

Warnock has his faults (shock horror - he’s spent the majority of his career in the football league) - but having a pop at last night is just silly behaviour.

Fair play that's a good summary and one I don't disagree with on the whole. My issue with Warnock is we rarely set out to take a team on. Understandable last season but tedious this. Fulham and their shaky defence could have been there for the taking but we will never know.

[The Lone Gunman]

As I assumed you’ve been rarely under Warnock if last night’s approach took you by surprise.

Who said it took me by surprise? I certainly didn't.

[pulsy]

During his post-match interview with Sky last night, Sean Morrison was honest enough to admit that Cardiff's tactics against Fulham involved nothing more than "sitting back and trying to play on the counter-attack."

Meanwhile, Josh Murphy told Sky the pre-match plan had been "to frustrate the opposition and play more like a Neil Warnock team."

The way City set up, you could have been forgiven for thinking they were facing a top Premier League side in a cup game or playing away to a leading Championship team who were in top form, but they weren't.

Cardiff were playing at home against a Fulham side they had finished in front of during the last two league campaigns; a side who were abysmal for the majority of last season; a side with a rookie manager and a notoriously fragile defence; and a side who had already been beaten by Barnsley and Nottingham Forest this season. Nevertheless, Warnock's tactics were all about stopping the opposition rather than attempting to take them on.

After Harry Arter stupidly and deservedly got himself sent off, City had almost half an hour to press home their man advantage and try to play some proper football. However, they created just three chances during that time - a long range effort from Joe Ralls that went well wide, a tame header from Robert Glatzel that went even wider and another header from Sean Morrison that also missed the target.

The manager's reaction to gaining a man advantage was not to take off a defender or a defensive midfielder and bring on a second striker to play alongside the isolated Glatzel. Instead, he took off one ineffective winger and brought on another. The result was that his players spent most of the last half hour pumping aimless balls from one side of the field to the other while barely threatening the goal of a team who were clearly rattled and obviously far from great.

Cardiff City's football has been difficult to watch for much of Warnock's tenure, but this season his team looks especially grim. In recent months, I've highlighted how few draws the Bluebirds have been involved in during the last year or so. Their sequence of 53 games without a score draw was finally ended last night and it looks to me like there will be plenty more draws in the coming months.

Warnock told Sky's reporter after the match that he doesn't have a clue where his team will end up this season. To me, they already look mid-table bankers. They're nowhere near weak enough to be involved in a relegation scrap, but by the same token they don't appear to have either the quality or the ambition to get involved in the battle for promotion. Meanwhile, the football they play makes for utterly dreadful viewing.

I have to agree with this totally, I went from last nights game thinking that Warnock has run out of ideas, we were never expecting to watch Brazil type football under him but this constant lack of football is depressing to watch.
Hoof ball and long throws our only tactic, some of the players look unable to make the simplest of passes. with two centre halves that can't play out from the back we may be limited but surely a midfielder could drop deep on the odd occasion to pick up the ball and play out. our long ball tactics are so obvious that teams drop off immediately our keeper gets the ball. At one point last night Smithies had an opportunity to roll it out to half a dozen city player but no, hoof it long and hope for the best.
Warnock can say he is limited to what he's got but the end of the day he recruited this squad, and there ain't a lot of football in it, so much of the same to come unfortunately

[thehumblegringo]

Fulham were boring and slow.

I know people like gringo praise it, and to an extent I do as well but they were way too slow. It’s not the fact they passed it a lot, I get why they were doing it but there’s got to be a bit more zip about them.

As for Cardiff I agree with the way we set up last night, I’d call it clever rather than negative. We held our shape and made it difficult for them, if we’d have tried to play more they would have ripped us apart.
We looked more of a threat than them with the little of the ball we had as well.
Action areas in the first half were something like Fulham final third 33% city final third 15%. Probably not spot on but not far off.
If we could have played our passes a little quicker and got crosses into the box (whyte wasn’t completely ineffective like OP says,he had a good go, but he needs to get a cross in he looks scared to do so) we might have hurt them more when we did attack, but we seemed to hold and hold until we got tackled rather than releasing the ball.

I praise it when it is done with purpose Dembe.

There is definitely a balancing act for them of course as if they go forward all guns blazing then we have pace in our front 3 to exploit them as we saw with our goal.

However I believe they never showed any adventure whatsoever.

Cairney was poor and Reed wasn't even interested in playing forward. They had 322 sideways passes and I reckon 300 came from Reed!

Arter was a waste of a name on their team sheet and they looked slow and ponderous.

I hate to say it but the two teams I have been impressed with this season are Leeds and Swansea. Swansea had to be careful not to over commit against Birmingham last week but got the balance right.

If people want to take last nights performance in isolation then that's up to them, but the summer's transfer activity has left us woefully unbalanced and unequipped.

[dembethewarrior]

On your knees, boys and girls. Sunderland Bluebird knows best. The mighty Fulham (who have already been beaten this season by the equally mighty Barnsley and Nottingham Forest), would have surely sliced Cardiff City apart had the Bluebirds attempted to do anything other 'hold their shape'. That's what football is all about.

Same thing was said after the game by the very experienced Keith Andrews.

Why do you take others opinions so hard? Really isn’t any need for the condescending reply.

[RonnieBird]

I don’t think the OP understands football that well if he doesn’t understand why we played like that last night.

You're quite right, despite the angry replies. There's a group of people here with simplistic ideas about the game and you can't tell them differently because they'll just get nasty. I've never come across a football forum like this where so many people don't seem to like the team it's about.

[dembethewarrior]

I praise it when it is done with purpose Dembe.

There is definitely a balancing act for them of course as if they go forward all guns blazing then we have pace in our front 3 to exploit them as we saw with our goal.

However I believe they never showed any adventure whatsoever.

Cairney was poor and Reed wasn't even interested in playing forward. They had 322 sideways passes and I reckon 300 came from Reed!

Arter was a waste of a name on their team sheet and they looked slow and ponderous.

I hate to say it but the two teams I have been impressed with this season are Leeds and Swansea. Swansea had to be careful not to over commit against Birmingham last week but got the balance right.

If people want to take last nights performance in isolation then that's up to them, but the summer's transfer activity has left us woefully unbalanced and unequipped.

Sorry, I meant the style of play in general with the passing and moving players out of position, but yeah they were awfully slow, when done correctly it can be devastating. I found it hilarious to watch Parker in his post match interview as he defended it. He looked like he wanted to burst into tears.
I think the way we set up made them go side to side and effectively become ineffective..
We were definitely more of a threat on the front foot, but I agree our transfer dealings have set us back this season.

[Hilts]

Our transfer dealings have been poor. However the ball retention should be better , cut out the head tennis and stop all these long throws.

[A Quiet Monkfish]

During his post-match interview with Sky last night, Sean Morrison was honest enough to admit that Cardiff's tactics against Fulham involved nothing more than "sitting back and trying to play on the counter-attack."

Meanwhile, Josh Murphy told Sky the pre-match plan had been "to frustrate the opposition and play more like a Neil Warnock team."

The way City set up, you could have been forgiven for thinking they were facing a top Premier League side in a cup game or playing away to a leading Championship team who were in top form, but they weren't.

Cardiff were playing at home against a Fulham side they had finished in front of during the last two league campaigns; a side who were abysmal for the majority of last season; a side with a rookie manager and a notoriously fragile defence; and a side who had already been beaten by Barnsley and Nottingham Forest this season. Nevertheless, Warnock's tactics were all about stopping the opposition rather than attempting to take them on.

After Harry Arter stupidly and deservedly got himself sent off, City had almost half an hour to press home their man advantage and try to play some proper football. However, they created just three chances during that time - a long range effort from Joe Ralls that went well wide, a tame header from Robert Glatzel that went even wider and another header from Sean Morrison that also missed the target.

The manager's reaction to gaining a man advantage was not to take off a defender or a defensive midfielder and bring on a second striker to play alongside the isolated Glatzel. Instead, he took off one ineffective winger and brought on another. The result was that his players spent most of the last half hour pumping aimless balls from one side of the field to the other while barely threatening the goal of a team who were clearly rattled and obviously far from great.

Cardiff City's football has been difficult to watch for much of Warnock's tenure, but this season his team looks especially grim. In recent months, I've highlighted how few draws the Bluebirds have been involved in during the last year or so. Their sequence of 53 games without a score draw was finally ended last night and it looks to me like there will be plenty more draws in the coming months.

Warnock told Sky's reporter after the match that he doesn't have a clue where his team will end up this season. To me, they already look mid-table bankers. They're nowhere near weak enough to be involved in a relegation scrap, but by the same token they don't appear to have either the quality or the ambition to get involved in the battle for promotion. Meanwhile, the football they play makes for utterly dreadful viewing.

The only 'silver lining' is that Warnock has a bit of time to get this squad playing more effectively. It's nowhere near as good as the one that went up and I also feel a couple of players aren't really up for another season of Warnockball. What last night did show us was that whatever his failings in producing flowing football, his tactical or match strategy is usually spot. Last nigh Fulham huffed and puffed and in the 2nd half until the sending off were getting increasingly frustrated. However two seasons ago I think we would have got the winner - were are noticably weaker now with Glatzel instead of Zohore, no Gunnarson or Gruzic or Bamba to pop up and score, and unless the ball is going to end up at a City player's foot with the goal open wide, or a goalkeeping mistake like last night, I just cannot see us winning many games..

[dml1954]

You're quite right, despite the angry replies. There's a group of people here with simplistic ideas about the game and you can't tell them differently because they'll just get nasty. I've never come across a football forum like this where so many people don't seem to like the team it's about.

Totally agree with this. Its what I have been saying for the last four years. Its the same people all the time banging on about how useless Warnock is, our useless owner, the way the club is run, criticising individual players etc etc. Most of them don't even go to games. I saw a much improved performance last night, against a team tipped for promotion by many and most of the people having a go tipped us to lose heavily before the game. They must have all been very disappointed by the result.

[Hilts]

Lack of goals is a worry.

The way things are going I can see Ralls be top goalscorer.

[dembethewarrior]

Sorry, but I'd call the way we set up negative.

I thought Fulham were a bit of a hotch potch with their slow passing style completely the wrong way to go when using two wingers - Parker obviously wants to make them more solid, but I dread to think what will happen to them if Mitrovic gets injured because it's hard to see where the goals would come from.

That’s a fair opinion, but after a week of being negative towards Warnock myself I thought I’d be a little positive and look at it differently and suggest the way we set up made Fulham play the way they did. I thought Neil got his tactics right, but I can’t argue against it being called negative.

We stopped them playing and looked more of a threat than them when we got forward.

I think if we weren’t so ponderous with our passing at crucial moments and whyte wasn’t scared to get a cross in earlier we may have got the result.

[the other bob wilson]

Totally agree with this. Its what I have been saying for the last four years. Its the same people all the time banging on about how useless Warnock is, our useless owner, the way the club is run, criticising individual players etc etc. Most of them don't even go to games. I saw a much improved performance last night, against a team tipped for promotion by many and most of the people having a go tipped us to lose heavily before the game. They must have all been very disappointed by the result.

Ugh, is it really only four years that you've been banging on with your one basic post (you always say the same thing)? It seems like decades to me.

[dml1954]

The only 'silver lining' is that Warnock has a bit of time to get this squad playing more effectively. It's nowhere near as good as the one that went up and I also feel a couple of players aren't really up for another season of Warnockball. What last night did show us was that whatever his failings in producing flowing football, his tactical or match strategy is usually spot. Last nigh Fulham huffed and puffed and in the 2nd half until the sending off were getting increasingly frustrated. However two seasons ago I think we would have got the winner - were are noticably weaker now with Glatzel instead of Zohore, no Gunnarson or Gruzic or Bamba to pop up and score, and unless the ball is going to end up at a City player's foot with the goal open wide, or a goalkeeping mistake like last night, I just cannot see us winning many games..

But we had five first team players missing and a number on the bench carrying knocks, so this is obviously having an effect. Also how you can say that we are weaker without Zohore is totally beyond me. Glatzel looks a good player and just needs a goal. He has worked harder and contributed more in the last six games than Zohore did over the previous 18 months.

[Hilts]

That’s a fair opinion, but after a week of being negative towards Warnock myself I thought I’d be a little positive and look at it differently and suggest the way we set up made Fulham play the way they did. I thought Neil got his tactics right, but I can’t argue against it being called negative.

We stopped them playing and looked more of a threat than them when we got forward.

I think if we weren’t so ponderous with our passing at crucial moments and whyte wasn’t scared to get a cross in earlier we may have got the result.

All our wingers are slow with the cross. Its bizarre really when elsewhere on the pitch its got rid of quickly.

[the other bob wilson]

But we had five first team players missing and a number on the bench carrying knocks, so this is obviously having an effect. Also how you can say that we are weaker without Zohore is totally beyond me. Glatzel looks a good player and just needs a goal. He has worked harder and contributed more in the last six games than Zohore did over the previous 18 months.

Yeah, I can remember you saying that so often when Zohore was still at the club .