Cardiff City news 24/09/01

Mon 24th September 2001 - Pick ourselves up and start again

As last week City again have a swift chance to rectify the weekends defeat. Tomorrow though its an away tie at Q.P.R. and that will be a much sterner challenge that the home banker last Tuesday against Northampton.

Its too early yet to see if Alan Cork will make any team changes. There appeared to be no injuries after the game on Saturday with the only substitution being tactical.

Cork will have a chance to try and instill some football into the team and not the longball route 1 tactics he has used so far. Over 2,000 fans are expected to be at the game tomorrow and anything less than a good performance will have many fans calling for his head.

It wasn't being beaten last Saturday that has caused the unrest, its the way we played that has fans up in arms. Many were unhappy with the performance against as Northampton, a game we won 2 - 0.

City dropped Leon Jeanne from the 16 on Saturday. Surely he must get his chance playing against his former club tomorrow. I would suggest that Cork makes some changes to shake the squad up. Cork has always said that if a player plays well he will keep his place. Contradictory to that David Hughes was dropped when he never put a foot wrong and then against Huddersfield Des Hamilton was left out. Players like Rhys Weston and Michael Simpkins are struggling. Both full backs have been under par. Their distribution is poor and both only appear to have one instruction. Boot it long. City have options, Legg is better suited at the back, Gabbidon can move to right back, Matt Brazier could come back in, another ex Q.P.R. player who would relish the challenge of facing his former club.

The performace tomorrow and on Saturday especially when we are back at Ninian Park, will be the issue. Both Brighton and Cardiff were promoted last season. Currently they are top of the table and will be on Saturday as well as they have a 4 point lead over second place.

If we have serious ambitions of promotion then we have to start playing to our potential and using the quality players to play football not hoofball as its being generally regarded as.

The task in hand as always is to continue to support the team, that we shall do. Play well and get beaten then fair enough, it happens to all teams. If we blow it in the next two games with negative performances the management are going to come under some severe critisism.