Cardiff Midfield Struggling ?

One feature of Cardiff City`s play this year has been the excellent work-rate of the entire squad and the impressive fitness levels of the players. This allowed the midfield players such as Ledley, Parry and most notably Scimeca to attack and go all out to get into the box and attack. As a result Cardiff scored vital goals to kill teams off and push back the opposition midfield and reduce pressure on our back line.

This has changed recently and no goals have come from midfield in the last 5 games whereas the previous 5 games – an impressive 7 goals came from the midfield players. More goals in total were scored during that period and this cannot be solely attributed to the midfield but they do appear to have tired in recent weeks and the team has suffered as a whole. The lead has been cut to a single point after 4 points from 12 and the disadvantages of a small squad seem to be presenting themselves.

Dave Jones is a very loyal manager and sticks with his preferred players whenever possible but has few options to freshen up the team but rotation. The team ethic is there and worth sustaining but players such as Joe Ledley have struggled to impress recently and looks in need of a rest. Willo Flood and Malvin Kamara are pushing for a starting place and now may be the time to give these players a chance.

Cardiff need to return to the crisp passing, high tempo game that has seen Cardiff`s unexpected rise to the head of the Championship, there is no points cushion now and City need to pick up points regularly to stay with the leaders. They have coped well with the pressure that comes with sitting at the top but it allows teams like Colchester to target you and build the game up so that each player is more fired up.

Life`s tough at the top but we deserve to be there and we wouldn`t have it any other way.