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“Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
“Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against.
“We’re physical, we run further than teams, win battles and we’ve got great quality.
"With the quality that we've now got, with that solid foundation, why do we need to change what Cardiff City have done to be successful?
“We’ve put ourselves in a great spot: we’re seven unbeaten, we’ve won five on the bounce and we’re just looking to make that six wins in a row."
The Welsh international went on to speak about the impact Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor have had so far, plus how they’ve achieved that.
“The biggest thing is they treat everyone equally,” explained the 27-year-old. “Whether you’re starting every week or on the bench, you’re just as important and made to feel that.
“They’ve put confidence into players and lifted the whole place, getting everyone going in the same direction.
“Mick’s made me feel confident and as long as you give everything for him, he’ll back you to the hilt and that makes a massive difference as a player.”
With City three points off the Championship’s top six, Will concluded by explaining the belief and determination the squad has to continue their battle up the table.
“We’re not getting carried away," he added. "We feel as players and as a Club we should be up there, but there’s no divine right to be there; we have to fight for it.
“It feels nice to be back in and around it, but we won’t be resting on our laurels. We’re getting back to where we should be.”
https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...e-play-against
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Is there anywhere we can read MM's full after match comments? On BBC they are very brief.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xsnaggle
Is there anywhere we can read MM's full after match comments? On BBC they are very brief.
Club posted this
https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...edit-goes-lads
“I’m delighted, of course.” Mick began. “Any win is a good win, but winning 4-0 is better still. The lads have done all the hard work. They’ve put some real graft in, and I’ve been delighted with them. The credit goes to them.
“The three big defenders are very good defenders. They all like blocking the ball, they’ll all throw their bodies in the way and they’ll all put their heads in.
“We’ve got a very solid centre at the minute, and it’s working. Every team will be trying to find a way to play around it, play through it, and beat us.”
Josh Murphy netted City’s second goal at the start of the second half, and the Gaffer commended the 25-year-old’s superb showing in an advanced attacking role.
“He did really well. I put my arm around him at the start, because I felt he needed a bit of loving to help him to get back to his best. He’s bought into every single thing that me and TC have asked of him, and I’m glad he’s reaping the rewards because he’s a lovely kid."
Mick continued: “We’ve got two wing backs who are doing remarkably well and are both good players. We’re not playing with wingers, and we can adapt if we need to do that. But Harry (Wilson) has found his slot in behind the strikers, and Josh is allowed to run a bit more freely, as well. It’s suiting him for now, and let’s hope that continues.”
Dillon Phillips made two remarkable penalty saves during the second half, and McCarthy was full of praise for the man between the sticks.
“Dillon kept his calm and saved the first one, and I think Flinty wins the ball for the second one, but nevertheless, the referee gives another one, and Dillion saved that too.
“I’m pleased he did, because it could have been a nervier last 25 minutes at 2-1!”
Mick concluded by looking ahead to Wednesday night’s clash with AFC Bournemouth, who sit three points ahead of the Bluebirds in the Championship table.
“We are where we deserve to be, because of the results, the performances, and the way the lads have played. The reality is that the players have played very well, and we’ve had to scrap for results. Five wins on the bounce has got us into 7th spot, and those wins have earned us that.
“We’ll go to Bournemouth and try to get a result there, and see what happens. We’ll just keep scrapping away and picking up points.”
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1 Attachment(s)
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Cool as a cucumber
Attachment 4321
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Thanks for that Mike. I like what he said about where Murphy is playing. Murphy himself said the toher day that playing in a more roving role and beig able to come onto ball suit him and he is enjoying it. Long may it continue.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
It's well worth watching the full Will Vaulks interview for those with a club TV subscription. It is 13 minutes long - and as usual with him there are some good insights into the squad and management, and a welcome absence of 'football cliches'.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jon1959
It's well worth watching the full Will Vaulks interview for those with a club TV subscription. It is 13 minutes long - and as usual with him there are some good insights into the squad and management, and a welcome absence of 'football cliches'.
He's quite forthright is our Will, without being an arsehole. Bit of character and he seems to be enjoying himself under McCarthy.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
This speaks volumes:
“The biggest thing is they treat everyone equally,” explained the 27-year-old. “Whether you’re starting every week or on the bench, you’re just as important and made to feel that.”
What the hell was going on under Harris?
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Didn’t Benkovic say that nobody at the club spoke to him, or words to that effect. Strange, if true, you’d think in most workplaces a newcomer wouldn’t be snubbed by other workmates. Or was the environment so toxic that everyone was paranoid? I obviously don’t know but you do get the impression that something has changed and changed for the better since Harris’s departure, oh to be a fly on the wall eh.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Wonderful interview with Vaulks I thought as a CCFC supporter.
He is a bright man as well as a talented combative footballer.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
What an outstanding interview.
The most thoughtful and insightful interview from a player that I’ve seen in ages.
I’m really pleased that he is stepping up and has been improving.
He has the materials to be a quality combative midfielder and he obviously has a goal or two in him.
👏 👏
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
I've been impressed by Will Vaulks before in interviews and he's very good again in this one. However, I'm going to try and put an alternative point of view which I would say most would have agreed with on here about six weeks ago.
There's no doubt that City are playing much better than they have done at any time this season in recent matches. For example, we beat Luton 4-0 in late November, but Saturday's performance was a much more complete one than that.
Going back to the start of the season, I felt that, with the introduction of Moore and Wilson to our attacking play (Ojo has been a better player than I was expecting as well), our squad was stronger than last season's and I felt the same way through the first half of the season despite the loss of Lee Tomlin, but results were, clearly, saying that we weren't.
As to why this should be, it seemed to me that Moore was too often isolated, Wilson and Ojo were barely getting a kick in the early stages of matches (this was one of the reasons why we kept on conceding the first goal so often) and the fact that both of them spent most of their time stuck out on the wings didn't help. However, at the root of it was that we were unable or unwilling to pass the ball to the players who could be called our match winners.
In his interview, Will Vaulks says that Mick McCarthy made a joke about how it was a good job that he was so good about getting the ball back given the number of times he gives it away, but the truth is that Vaulks and his midfield colleagues were giving the ball away far too often in the first half of the season.
Perhaps it's the fact that Wilson, Ojo and a rejuvenated Josh Murphy are playing more centrally now that our counter productive obsession with playing two wingers has ended, that has enabled Vaulks and his colleagues to bring them into the game more often, but, whatever it is, it's working.
Even Warnockball at it's most basic can be enjoyable if it's your side that is doing the winning, but I've always said that it's got nothing to recommend it when you're not and, although Neil Harris tried to get us to play a more modern way, that still applied to the team when he was in charge. Things are going well for now and the team can hardly be blamed for the fact that we've not yet played the sort of team that was outplaying us easily during Neil Harris' latter days at the club, but the question has to be asked, can out improved be maintained when we start playing the Swanseas and Brentfords again - our win at Watford stands out like a beacon at the moment, because, apart from a home draw with Bournemouth, it's the only points we've taken off the current top six in seven attempts.
I've always said about our four central midfielders that, individually they're all decent to good Championship players, but, as a unit, they're too samey - the last few games suggest that is an unfair verdict, but I certainly don't believe it has been disproven yet.
Finally, City have played in the way that currently identifies us for nearly ten years and for most of that time, we've not had the sort of quality in the team that Will Vaulks talks of, so we've had to watch a fair bit of dross in the last decade to go with the joy of the two promotions (which were both followed by an instant relegation) - it's no wonder people were calling for a different way of playing a few short weeks ago.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
What style of football is enjoyable to watch when your team isn't winning?
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
I never would have thought that playing three centre-backs would be the way to get the best out of our squad, especially when it involves both Flint and Morrison. Fair play to MM and TC for recognising this.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LeningradCowboy
What style of football is enjoyable to watch when your team isn't winning?
This season,
Cardiff 1 Bournemouth 1
Cardiff 2 Brentford 3 wasn't bad.
Last season
Charlton 2 Cardiff 2
Leeds 3 Cardiff 3
Cardiff 2 Brentford 2
Cardiff 2 Blackburn 3
18/19
Cardiff 2 Arsenal 3
Cardiff 1 Burnley 2
Cardiff 1 Chelsea 2
I could go on when it comes to individual results, but as for style of football, I always prefer watching the type of football the under 23s and under 18s play over what we get from the first team.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LeningradCowboy
What style of football is enjoyable to watch when your team isn't winning?
None, the result is all that matters
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UNDERHILL1927
None, the result is all that matters
So what you're saying then is that Will Vaulks is wrong and the way we play will be crap, like everyone was saying it was six weeks ago, again when and if we start losing?
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
So what you're saying then is that Will Vaulks is wrong and the way we play will be crap, like everyone was saying it was six weeks ago, again when and if we start losing?
Our style of play hasn't changed a great deal since six weeks ago, but the quality of the performances has significantly improved.
Personally, I'd rather watch the team that I support play high-quality direct football than low-quality tiki-taka.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
an interesting feature of our recent improvement is that it doesn't seem to be borne out in basic xG.
even while we were losing under Harris our xG was often decent, and on our recent winning run under McCarthy the xg suggests a lot of the games have been closer than the final results suggest.
this could mean that we've just been luckier under McCarthy than we ended up under Harris, but before I launch into the famous Napoleon quote about lucky generals - that doesn't seem to pass the eye-test in that we have definitely looked better to anyone watching the matches.
I think a lot of this is down to game-states. so often under Harris we conceded a soft goal early on and spent the rest of the game chasing. this obviously completely changes the pattern of the game. when we had good runs under Harris we also looked like a decent team. we've been a lot better at 0-0 under McCarthy, with so far those soft openers cut out.
the tactical change seems to have facilitated that, without significantly effecting our style of play going forward.
it just remains to be seen though if the tactical change has made us genuinely better at 0-0, or if we just happen to be on a good streak, just like we did at times under Harris - it feels like the former somehow, but it is difficult to say that with any real conviction.
I do think that Harris was perhaps a little unfortunate in that the run of 5 league games we lost, 3 of them were against Norwich and Brentford, but nobody is going to argue with the impact the change has made.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rjk
an interesting feature of our recent improvement is that it doesn't seem to be borne out in basic xG.
even while we were losing under Harris our xG was often decent, and on our recent winning run under McCarthy the xg suggests a lot of the games have been closer than the final results suggest.
this could mean that we've just been luckier under McCarthy than we ended up under Harris, but before I launch into the famous Napoleon quote about lucky generals - that doesn't seem to pass the eye-test in that we have definitely looked better to anyone watching the matches.
I think a lot of this is down to game-states. so often under Harris we conceded a soft goal early on and spent the rest of the game chasing. this obviously completely changes the pattern of the game. when we had good runs under Harris we also looked like a decent team. we've been a lot better at 0-0 under McCarthy, with so far those soft openers cut out.
the tactical change seems to have facilitated that, without significantly effecting our style of play going forward.
it just remains to be seen though if the tactical change has made us genuinely better at 0-0, or if we just happen to be on a good streak, just like we did at times under Harris - it feels like the former somehow, but it is difficult to say that with any real conviction.
I do think that Harris was perhaps a little unfortunate in that the run of 5 league games we lost, 3 of them were against Norwich and Brentford, but nobody is going to argue with the impact the change has made.
And Swansea, frankly, took the piss out of us two games before we played Norwich, so we faced three of the best four sides in the league in four games (four in six if you include the win at Watford). I think you’re point about conceding first is a good one though and goes a long towards explaining the anomaly you talk of.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LeningradCowboy
Our style of play hasn't changed a great deal since six weeks ago, but the quality of the performances has significantly improved.
Personally, I'd rather watch the team that I support play high-quality direct football than low-quality tiki-taka.
Fair points, although I’d say the changes to the formation we play has had beneficial effects on both our style and performance.
You also allude to a problem which makes a proper discussion about City’s “identity” difficult because, from my point of view, I too often fall into labelling the way we play things like Stone Age and prehistoric and don’t notice the good football we often play in the final third, but p, on the other hand, there’s a tendency to see any attempt to play in a more modern way as “tippy tappy” or tiki taka. Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t want us to consider changing to tiki taka, but I do want our midfield to be better and more creative in possession than they have been for most of this season. Look at what happened as soon as our possession stats started to go over fifty per cent - our lack of creativity and passing inadequacies in midfield were exposed. What I would like to see is a team that can retain the good things about the way we play while being able to change what I suspect is the current mind set of many of our opponents who feel Cardiff won’t hurt us much with sixty per cent possession if we don’t give them any set pieces.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
There may be some extreme examples where they chose not to (Iniesta scoring against Chelsea late in the game donkeys years ago) but the best teams are capable of adapting if their primary tactic isn't working. I've got no problem winning games playing ugly and direct, but we should be able to keep the ball if that isn't working instead of allowing them chance after chance as happened against Norwich and Swansea a few weeks ago.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
And Swansea, frankly, took the piss out of us two games before we played Norwich, so we faced three of the best four sides in the league in four games (four in six if you include the win at Watford). I think you’re point about conceding first is a good one though and goes a long towards explaining the anomaly you talk of.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/47831570
it would be interesting to see this kind of breakdown of our games before and after the manager change to see if there are any significant differences - although it is still a very small sample size
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
I've been impressed by Will Vaulks before in interviews and he's very good again in this one. However, I'm going to try and put an alternative point of view which I would say most would have agreed with on here about six weeks ago.
There's no doubt that City are playing much better than they have done at any time this season in recent matches. For example, we beat Luton 4-0 in late November, but Saturday's performance was a much more complete one than that.
Going back to the start of the season, I felt that, with the introduction of Moore and Wilson to our attacking play (Ojo has been a better player than I was expecting as well), our squad was stronger than last season's and I felt the same way through the first half of the season despite the loss of Lee Tomlin, but results were, clearly, saying that we weren't.
As to why this should be, it seemed to me that Moore was too often isolated, Wilson and Ojo were barely getting a kick in the early stages of matches (this was one of the reasons why we kept on conceding the first goal so often) and the fact that both of them spent most of their time stuck out on the wings didn't help. However, at the root of it was that we were unable or unwilling to pass the ball to the players who could be called our match winners.
In his interview, Will Vaulks says that Mick McCarthy made a joke about how it was a good job that he was so good about getting the ball back given the number of times he gives it away, but the truth is that Vaulks and his midfield colleagues were giving the ball away far too often in the first half of the season.
Perhaps it's the fact that Wilson, Ojo and a rejuvenated Josh Murphy are playing more centrally now that our counter productive obsession with playing two wingers has ended, that has enabled Vaulks and his colleagues to bring them into the game more often, but, whatever it is, it's working.
Even Warnockball at it's most basic can be enjoyable if it's your side that is doing the winning, but I've always said that it's got nothing to recommend it when you're not and, although Neil Harris tried to get us to play a more modern way, that still applied to the team when he was in charge. Things are going well for now and the team can hardly be blamed for the fact that we've not yet played the sort of team that was outplaying us easily during Neil Harris' latter days at the club, but the question has to be asked, can out improved be maintained when we start playing the Swanseas and Brentfords again - our win at Watford stands out like a beacon at the moment, because, apart from a home draw with Bournemouth, it's the only points we've taken off the current top six in seven attempts.
I've always said about our four central midfielders that, individually they're all decent to good Championship players, but, as a unit, they're too samey - the last few games suggest that is an unfair verdict, but I certainly don't believe it has been disproven yet.
Finally, City have played in the way that currently identifies us for nearly ten years and for most of that time, we've not had the sort of quality in the team that Will Vaulks talks of, so we've had to watch a fair bit of dross in the last decade to go with the joy of the two promotions (which were both followed by an instant relegation) - it's no wonder people were calling for a different way of playing a few short weeks ago.
Ive always agreed that our centre mids are too samey, but looking at Liverpool last season (obviously ignoring this season when half of them seem to be playing at CB) they always started 3 of Henderson, Wijnaldum, Fabinho and Keita which all had a very similar base to ours and they romped home
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kitman
Ive always agreed that our centre mids are too samey, but looking at Liverpool last season (obviously ignoring this season when half of them seem to be playing at CB) they always started 3 of Henderson, Wijnaldum, Fabinho and Keita which all had a very similar base to ours and they romped home
the vast majority of their chance creation and ball progression came through their fullbacks though, we have started getting ours forward more under Large Michael, but they aren't yet adding enough going forward to compensate for a workmanlike midfield.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
The thing that strikes me is that we’ve been able to string passes together recently, where as previously it looked as though they were incapable of passing a ball to a teammate 10 yards away.
It seems as more players are happy to receive the ball as well.
I also think Pack May be instrumental in this. He has been playing much better recently.
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Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
My type of football ::“Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,”
This is better version of Warnock ball, high energy pressing footy, however with sprinkling of better individual talents in the likes of Wilson , Ojo revitalised Murphy, better back 3 set up two decent wing backs.
Unlike Warnock side which was okay, we now have a real centre forward , not one provided cover too the best of his ability ( wish Pato was still her as a decent full on bench man )
Tomlin to return , youth coming through , players we bought now delivering :ayatollah:
