Bluebirds inquest begins

Three nil up and cruising – City’s world came crashing down last night as they limped out of Home Park with a point but looked well on top for 70 minutes and a dead certainty for their fifth win of the campaign.

Cardiff really did play well. They passed well, worked hard in defence and gave Plymouth no chance. That is until City pressed the self-destruct button. Three sloppy goals were conceded although for the first time this season, Neil Alexander will take some of the blame.

The Scot. has been in inspired form recently, making numerous top wuality saves. However his old frailties were on show last night as he looked uncertain and failed to dominate his area. The one major mistake was for the equalising goal as he rushed out to get a ball, already being dealt with by Purse. Purse was under pressure but Alexander really should have stayed as Purse or Chadwick would certainly have beaten him to the ball. Purse’s nodded interception to take away from Chadwick went past Alexander to leave City red-faced and broken.

It’s not often 2 own goals are scored in the same net, within 20 minutes, which, added to the scrambled second goal makes Plymouth extremely lucky to snatch a point.
The Pilgrims were outplayed until their goal and fair play to them for battling back so valiantly, they really did look without hope.

Where City will go from here is unknown, they have a young squad and a lead squandered in such spectacular fashion could smash their confidence. In Dave Jones though they have a down-to-earth manager who can help them through. Saturday’s game against Luton will be a big game, in front of an expectant home crowd City will need to show energy and play with discipline.

Manager Dave Jones remained calm:

‘It’s never over until it’s over but even at 3-2 I thought we would be alright but you must remember we have got a young side, a young defence. They learned from Saturday’s defeat at Preston and I thought that showed here the way we played for the first 75 minutes. Now they must learn from this. They have not got experience but I have and that’s what I must pass on to them, I will not let dwell on the negatives. They must accentuate the positives and the positive for me was the way we played in the first 75 minutes because we pulverised Plymouth then.’

‘I will think about it but we have all got to be bubbly and bright on Thursday morning when we are back in, because we are at home on Saturday.

‘We’ve got to take something from the fact we scored five of the goals tonight.’

After we get over the obvious disappointment , it is well worth remembering: We are still SECOND in the league!!!