Reply With QuoteOne week ago you had them as a shoe-in for the top 6.
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The last time Cardiff City conceded more than 9 goals within the space of two Football League matches was towards the end of the 1993/94 Second Division campaign, when the Bluebirds lost 7-2 at home to Cambridge United and were then beaten 3-1 at home by Port Vale a few days later.
As I recall, most of the players were practically out on their feet at the time, having been playing three games a week throughout that month due to a fixture pile-up caused by a combination of bad weather postponements earlier in the season, an FA Cup run (remember those?) and participation in the Welsh Cup (remember that?). The Cambridge game was a farce, with City trailing just 1-0 at half-time before an embarrassing second-half collapse.
The last time the Bluebirds conceded more than 9 goals within the space of two league games at Championship level was way back in the old Second Division in December 1977, when a 6-1 defeat at home to Sheffield United was followed by a 6-3 hammering at Bolton Wanderers. The latter match saw the late, not-so-great Robin Friday make his final appearance for the club.
During the last 50 years, City have conceded exactly 9 goals within the space of two league games on five occasions. They were as follows:
November 1985 in what is now League One - Brentford 3 Cardiff 0 followed by Walsall 6 Cardiff 3
February 1995 in what is now League One - Hull City 4 Cardiff 0 followed by Huddersfield 5 Cardiff 1
March 2014 in the Premier League - Cardiff 3 Liverpool 6 followed by West Brom 3 Cardiff 3
September 2018 in the Premier League - Chelsea 4 Cardiff 1 followed by Cardiff 0 Manchester City 5
September 2021 in the Championship - Blackburn 5 Cardiff 1 followed by Cardiff 0 West Brom 4
The bad news is that in each of the previous four seasons in which City have conceded exactly 9 goals within the space of two league games, the club has been relegated. Can't see that happening this season, but the way things are going lately I guess it's not beyond the realms of possibility.
One week ago you had them as a shoe-in for the top 6.
Give me some credit, it was a fortnight ago.....Originally Posted by Dave Blue
You're right though, and I was very, very wrong. I believed the division was so bad this season that McCarthy's mob would manage to bludgeon their way into the play-off picture simply by outmuscling most of their opponents with their brand of horrible hoofball. I was very wide of the mark. The division still looks poor, but City are now looking hopeless.
As a matter of interest, City are currently a shorter price for promotion (14/1) than they are for relegation (16/1).
The last time we did this badly in the second tier was December 1977, when Sheffield Utd and Bolton scored 6 against us in successive games. We finished 19th that season, only securing 2nd division status by winning the penultimate game of the season. Oddly enough, we won 3 games in a row right at the end of the season, beating both Sheffield Utd and Bolton 1-0, keeping clean sheets against both! We ended the season on 38 points, along with 6 other sides!
What makes this stat even more shocking is that we were playing defensively and set up not to concede. If we were playing expansive, attacking football it may be easier to stomach.
Quite. This was apparently Mick McCarthy trying to frustrate the opposition. Result: 0-4.
Bizarrely, I remember that Sheffield United defeat quite well despite being just a ten year-old at the time. I'd been ill and off school all week with some kind of a bug, but insisted I was well enough to go to the game on the Saturday. We used to sit in Block C of the Ninian Park grandstand and I started throwing up again halfway through the first half. Nevertheless, we stayed for the whole game and I spent most of it sat with my father on the steps in Block F between trips to toilet. Sheffield legend Alan Woodward scored one of their goals and I can remember being fascinated by his mop of silver hair.
Well he had me fooled last night. Surprisingly this superb tactic failed!
I remember that game, I think John Buchanan scored for us, but every time Sheffield United attacked they scored. Even at 1-6 it was better than last night.
City had a very good home record in 77/78, I’ve not looked it up, but I think we were beaten just two, possibly three, times at Ninian Park in the league - think Luton may have hammered us 4-1 as well. That win at Sheffield United was our final away match and it was the only one we won, we lost something fourteen of our twenty one away games.
A word about Dave’s prediction of us “bludgeoning”our way into the top six - the use of that word was understandable because that’s what we had been doing for years at this level, it was how we achieved any success in the Championship in recent seasons. The really concerning thing is that a team that is really poor by this division’s standards when it comes to the technical side of the game, has, very quickly, lost its ability to physically overpower opponents. Danny Gabbidon likened us to a dog that rolls over to have its stomach tickled on the radio on Tuesday, he also called us a soft touch, he was right and, while that continues, relegation has to be thought of as a possibility.
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