Kennedy ‘Owns’ Routledge On Cardiff City Return

Cardiff City fans predictably gave returning winger Wayne Routledge a tough time last night as the former Bluebird loan star made his first return to Ninian Park after snubbing a move to the Welsh capital in favour of a big money deal at Rangers.

Happily, Routledge did not return to haunt us and I’ve been suprised by the reports on QPR fansites that state Routledge as having a good game. I’m slightly relieved to say that was about the most ineffective I’ve seen him this season, which is a good job as I’m sure the honest Bluebirds fans would have wonderers if taunting was such a good idea given our first hand knowledge of the threat he poses.

Of course, every poor touch was booed and that included all of them in the first 15 minutes as first Rae and then Ledley let Wayne know they were there. He produced occasional moments of quality, one clever pass almost saw Liam Miller score but that was his only meaningful contribution of the first half. I’ve seen him tormenting numerous defeners with pace, trickery and the like but Mark Kennedy was oustanding and really gave Routledge little space to work.

Routledge didn’t get behind us once all game, the one occasion he rounded Kennedy saw Roger Johnson produce a timely sliding tackle to dispossess him and grant QPR one of their two corners of the game. All in all, the return of Routledge was better than I could have expected in terms of his lack of threat. The only downside was the complete anonimnity of Routledge’s replacement at Cardiff City – Chris Burke. Hard to say which right winger had the least impact!