Poor Poor Cardiff City

Hopes were raised slightly by an effective performance back in Cardiff but Spus’ added quality showed through last night as Cardiff were thoroughly outplayed.

Dave Jones thought we matched Spurs for the opening 20 minutes, fair enough but Cardiff can only ever match at the moment. The truth is that we never looked like scoring, and we weren’t really threatening. The Spurs players saw that and relaxed and then began to dominate, confidence is obviously low and whilst Spurs are a quality outfit, a lot more fight was required from Cardiff.

The players weren’t hiding from the ball, but when they received it, the first thoughts were of passing the responsibility. There’s no drive, no impetus and no confidence.

It’s no problem being out of the cup, the heartening draw at home and the added windfall from the replay meant a successful cup run anyway but of particular concern is the complete lack of ambition and firepower. There’s no doubting that Tottenham wouldn’t have found it so easy to break our defences, if the defence were getting help from the strikers and had faith that were were attacking effectively.

We have little strength in depth up front, but Thompson and Chopra look a shodow of their former partnership. Neither willing to shoot, neither looking dangerous in possession. It’s not through lack of effort but City need changes now to improve these performances.

Recent signings of Jason Byrne and James Simmonds are all very well, but Byrne is short of fitness and ‘needs a few weeks full training’ while Simmonds is brought in ‘to be tried at youth and reserve level’ to see what he’s capable off. Only Peter Whittingham seems capable of stepping in immmediately and making a difference. He did add fresh impetus after coming on against Southend, while Joe Ledley looks in need of a rest.

All in all, a fair result and a worrying time for Cardiff with 13 games now without a win, and almost 500 minutes without a goal. If we were continuing as we started the season, Tottenham would never have got a replay – we need to re-discover some of that flair and swagger before the season completely slips away.




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