Originally Posted by
The Lone Gunman
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.