Cardiff City Overcome (Dirty!) Nottingham Forest

Cardiff City found themselves in a completely different game to last Wednesday but achieved the same 2-0 win without any of the sparkle as they overcame a poor Nottingham Forest side.



orest were set out to clutter the midfield and deny time and space to the Bluebirds – it worked. The Forest players also committed numerous petty fouls to disrupt the tempo and rhythm of Cardiff. Miraculously it took until midway through the second half for a booking and that came to Cardiff City!



oo often we were forced to lump aimless balls forward but did create a number of half chances. It was one of these that saw McCormack drill a low shot from 25 yards – because it was low (and didn;t go flying over the bar), it was blocked and the ball ran kindly for PAUL PARRY to drive a sweet shot home from 15 yards, a very nice finish.



orest created little of note and Cardiff should have taken a 2 goal lead into half time when neat passing released Ledley and the Welshman was felled just as he prepared to shoot. The defender may have touched the ball, if so the ref did brilliantly to see it but more likely was that he didn’t want to give a penalty and have to send the Forest man off for a last man foul. Harsh luck on Ledley and the Bluebirds, he and Bothroyd were fuming.



fter the break, Forest changed tack and sent on Garner to aid Tyson in attack. They did look more dangerous and twice Tyson got away. The first saw him latch onto a poor McNaughton back-header only to scuff a shot straight at Enckelman, Tyson later fired over from a tight angle.



ardiff City had their chacnes too and Bothroyd and McCormack saw efforts saved before Bothroyd cut in from the right late on and danced past two challenges before firing across Smith and in off the post.



ot the prettiest, but its the three points that were key and we did our job today. McNaughton wsa immense save for sporadic poor distribution. Parry looked more threatening, Burke showed some tricks and Ledley, Johnson, Gyepes and Rae gave typical committed performances.