Blues 0-2 Cardiff City

 

Starting XI

One change. Harlee Dean replaces Kevin Long at centre back. Manny Longelo returns to the squad.

Game

A drab affair in which very little happened.

The first half provided little in the way of opportunity. An early set-piece for the visitors was headed wide. We responded with our own, Bacuna's hook into the box headed wide by Auston Trusty. Sory Kaba's overhead went wide. Perry Ng saw an effort from a corner blocked. The only chance of note between minutes 21 and 45 was a Ryan Wintle shot that deflected slowly towards John Ruddy.

An excellent Juninho Bacuna cross was dealt with brilliantly by Ng to deny Lukas Jutkiewicz. Kaba did well to fashion overhead from a low cross and then fired over from a free-kick. After seven subs in one go from the two sides, substitutes Connor Wickham, whose effort on the turn found Ruddy's gloves, and Gary Gardner, deflected wide, had chances.

It was heading to a stalemate until a Cardiff player was allowed to drive inside and had to be taken out by Harlee Dean. Ng stuck the resulting free-kick right into the top corner.

Blues so nearly responded, Jordan James and Scott Hogan linking up only for Joe Ralls to produce a fantastic last ditch challenge. It was match-winning, especially when in the 95th minute, Callum Robinson was able to beat Longelo, cut inside and finish beyond Ruddy.

Tactics

A Blues diamond vs a Cardiff City 3-5-2.

Neither side fancied playing through the thirds here, so it wasn't much of a tactical game in terms of how pressing patterns formed. It was an old-school affair - turn the opposition, get first and second contacts and look for a delivery or forward pass.

Cardiff started with two big men up top in Kaba and Kion Etete and the aim was to find them, have their midfield three step onto possession then move the ball wide to Mahlon Romeo or Callum O'Dowda. Their job was to deliver the ball to three or four Cardiff bodies in the box. The wide midfielder would often support to try and create an overload in wide areas with Romaine Sawyers always available to receive possession deeper if the cross wasn't on.

For Blues, it was similar. Cardiff had little intention of pressing but blocked the spaces infield meaning we had to build out wide through Maxime Colin, Bacuna and Hannibal Mejbri, or go long on the diagonal to Jutkiewicz and play for knockdowns with Hannibal the man often nearby. When Blues moved into wide areas, Cardiff's back three would shuffle across so that it formed a standard back four, the wide centre becoming the full-back supported by the wing-back. When the diagonal to Jutkiewicz was made, Cardiff were often well set with the other two centre-backs narrow, the wing-back tucked in and two of the midfield three nearby for seconds.

When Blues made a quadruple sub on 70 minutes, they changed shape from a diamond to a 3-5-2 which matched up Cardiff. Trusty tucked in at LCB, Longelo and Colin moved to wing-back, Gardner and Hall either side of Bielik.

After the goal, James replaced Dean. Blues moved back to a diamond with Colin and Longelo at full-back, James at the tip.

Players

Dean had a solid return, winning everything in the air on the night. Bielik was excellent, a magnet to second balls and didn't seem to lose a duel. Not a good night for the lads in the final third, particularly Hannibal.

For Cardiff, I was impressed by Marc McGuinness - not many stand up that well to Jutkiewicz. Ng stood his ground despite giving up height at RCB, plus his free-kick was fantastic. O'Dowda was bright at LWB. Kaba is raw but created some unique chances for himself.

Anything else?

In the interests of honesty, Hannibal probably should have been sent. Committed three fouls and then took out Andy Rinomhota on the edge of our box. Somewhat fortunate to lenient refereeing.

Seven subs in one go (four for Blues, three for Cardiff) was weird in a league fixture but fun nonetheless.

Wrapping it up...

This was frustrating because it was so predictable.

I think Eustace was damned if he did, damned if he didn't on the night. Do you make changes to freshen things up or hope that Friday nights performance breeds some confidence into the players? Eustace opted for the latter but the quality rarely arrived.

It wasn't our worst performance of the season - that came in the reverse fixture. It was a game of territory and Blues generally stood up well to that. We won the majority of our aerial duels and defensively made first and second contact a lot. The first pass was generally okay under little pressure but the quality dwindled the moment we crossed the halfway line, either over-utilising Jutkiewicz or failing to build smartly enough to dig out a cross, a clever pass or even be capable of recycling possession.

It became one of those games where you know you're not at it and a 0-0 doesn't seem the worst result in the world, so to then concede twice in the last ten minutes is just annoying. I think everybody associated - management and players - needed to be sensible and show some patience - and it never came. The changes played into Cardiff's hands and those that came on didn't step up to the mark. It was a bad night of decisions all round.

We come into another one of these fixtures when Huddersfield Town visit on Saturday, especially with Neil Warnock in charge - he won't be afraid to ask his team to turn the opposition and play on seconds. Eustace likely makes changes for that one to freshen things up.