MATCHWATCH : Cardiff City (a)

[paultheroyal]

What done me tonight is for the last 15 minutes we were playing against ten men. They were player down and they had to change it and we if anything sat deeper. It was utterly shocking. Perfect opportunity to go for the jugular but as it was we got worse.

Just dreadful.

[Royal Rother]

What done me tonight is for the last 15 minutes we were playing against ten men. They were player down and they had to change it and we if anything sat deeper. It was utterly shocking. Perfect opportunity to go for the jugular but as it was we got worse.

Just dreadful.

10 men?

I had to stop watching after 70 to give my son a lift - did I miss a red card between sofa and TV and car and radio?

[Zip]

What done me tonight is for the last 15 minutes we were playing against ten men. They were player down and they had to change it and we if anything sat deeper. It was utterly shocking. Perfect opportunity to go for the jugular but as it was we got worse.

Just dreadful.

10 men?

I had to stop watching after 70 to give my son a lift - did I miss a red card between sofa and TV and car and radio?

Two Cardiff players were injured and they could not make any more subs. One of them Robinson was struggling

[Notts Royal]

Really can’t believe what I’m reading. Jfc. We were dead certs to go down at the beginning of the season. We will survive with ease.

Look I feel a manager of a football club should go when the players don’t look like they want to play for him anymore. We are nowhere near that stage at the moment. It would be fcuking madness to get rid of ince now

Totally with you. I'm fully Ince in. But I'm not going to defend this performance. This was shite and Ince has to take some of the blame.

Yeah that pretty much. We are a poor side and ince has done very well to get us where we are

But you can call a spade a spade. That was a diabolical performance. Tactics and player performances throughout. Dreadful. And again starting to look forward to seeing the back of quite a few of these players

But we say that every single year…can’t wait to get rid of these players & start afresh.

Maybe the issue is the manager recruitment made by the owners since they’ve taken over the club?

[Snowflake Royal]

To be honest, considering the state of the bottom half of the Championship, I'm not convinced Ince is actually doing any more than most people could have done.

And we look increasingly dreadful. At least a few months ago we played with some pace on the break. Now it's just ugly lump it at Carroll.

And and I'm sorry, but an average possession of 41.2% is shameful.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Can't really knock that Ince interview tbh.

Says it as it is. Some perspective please.

Paul Ince "these guys aren't good enough to play the football we wanna play"

Tim Dellor "Very rare that a manager says that his players aren't good enough to play football"

Also Paul Ince "I never said they weren't good enough... Don't put words in my mouth"

[leon]

Let’s absolutely face this that was embarrassing.

This was a team that last won at home early November. They’re shit and we made them look like world beaters.

We are going backwards at an alarming rate

[Jackson Corner]

I dread to think what the score would have been if we played anyone in the top 6. We could get a few real hammering’s before the end of the season.

[Stranded]

We have played 6 away games since the restart and picked up 1 point.

We have not scored in the last 4 and the way we play, we are not capable of keeping a clean sheet. The goals we have scored were a pen and 2 late goals at 3-0 down.

If the limits of ambition in any away game is 0-0, then the "fine margins" are all you have between a point and nothing. Let's face it, a decent side is already 4 or 5 up last night before they finally scored.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. If we are losing away games anyway, I would just love to see some ambition to positively influence the game rather than play the waiting game as the other lot are going to score eventually.

I'm not Ince out yet as, with a weaker squad we are actually still better than last year but the way we play needs to evolve ASAP esp away.

Anyway, on to Blackpool and hopefully another home win.

[Gunny Fishcake]

You can’t win football games without having a shot on goal, we’ve evolved into the most boring unexciting negative uninspiring Reading team in many years. The fact we’re often showcased on Sky is simply embarrassing. The club is stuck in a quagmire of stinking mud and simply going nowhere . I’d rather see my team have a go at the opposition and lose with some fight and spirit rather than this continuous dreadful crap.

[Orion1871]

We have played 6 away games since the restart and picked up 1 point.

We have not scored in the last 4 and the way we play, we are not capable of keeping a clean sheet. The goals we have scored were a pen and 2 late goals at 3-0 down.

If the limits of ambition in any away game is 0-0, then the "fine margins" are all you have between a point and nothing. Let's face it, a decent side is already 4 or 5 up last night before they finally scored.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. If we are losing away games anyway, I would just love to see some ambition to positively influence the game rather than play the waiting game as the other lot are going to score eventually.

I'm not Ince out yet as, with a weaker squad we are actually still better than last year but the way we play needs to evolve ASAP esp away.

Anyway, on to Blackpool and hopefully another home win.

How come we always seem to find all of the insane managers?

[TiagoIlori]

Because the club has done an atrocious job at finding managers- Steve Clarke was the last one I felt happy about. Every single appointment the Chinese since took over we’ve had to convince ourselves that we’d be okay.

Paul Clement - failed at both Derby and Swansea. Went just as well as I thought it would go.

Jose Gomes - journeyman manager which was only going to end one way.

Bowen - first job in management so no idea what to expect. Did alright to be fair, but the post lockdown football was absolutely shocking. No one uses Puscas as a target man.

Paunovic - blatantly unqualified for the job and didn’t take long for it to show.

Ince - done a job last season and this season, but I have some serious doubts over our long term future under him. I really hope the rumours from last summer that we gave him three years aren’t true.

Once the time comes for a new manager I want to see an actual appointment, no mates of the CEO or a dodgy superagent.

[Royal_jimmy]

Because the club has done an atrocious job at finding managers- Steve Clarke was the last one I felt happy about. Every single appointment the Chinese since took over we’ve had to convince ourselves that we’d be okay.

Paul Clement - failed at both Derby and Swansea. Went just as well as I thought it would go.

Jose Gomes - journeyman manager which was only going to end one way.

Bowen - first job in management so no idea what to expect. Did alright to be fair, but the post lockdown football was absolutely shocking. No one uses Puscas as a target man.

Paunovic - blatantly unqualified for the job and didn’t take long for it to show.

Ince - done a job last season and this season, but I have some serious doubts over our long term future under him. I really hope the rumours from last summer that we gave him three years aren’t true.

Once the time comes for a new manager I want to see an actual appointment, no mates of the CEO or a dodgy superagent.

The thing that's struck me is there's no leadership or planning on a style of play. Each of these managers has a totally different style of play so when a new manager comes in the players have to get used to a new style of play or the new gaffer signs lots of his own players meaning we get a bloated squad. Like what happened when Bowen was manager.

Bowen needs to stay in his job for at least 5 years and work on a long term way of playing and look at managers who fit our ethos. We can also hire scouts who can find players who are suited to that style of play too. It's how Brentford have become very successful.

[Mr Angry]

A half decent team would have put 6 or 7 past us last night; it is clear that having 3 at the back where one of those 3 is Scott Dann is a disaster waiting to happen, and what is the point of using wing backs when they can't defend?

Its all well and good thinking "If we have 5 in the middle, we stop them from creating" but if we don't have the personnel to make that happen against a crap Cardiff side, let alone anyone who might actually be able to hit a cow's arse with a banjo, then we have to consider changing to a back 4, especially away from home.

[Mr Angry]

Can't really knock that Ince interview tbh.

Says it as it is. Some perspective please.

Paul Ince "these guys aren't good enough to play the football we wanna play"

Tim Dellor "Very rare that a manager says that his players aren't good enough to play football"

Also Paul Ince "I never said they weren't good enough... Don't put words in my mouth"

He is right though; he DIDN'T say they weren't good enough to play football - he said they aren't good enough to play the style of football that Ince wants them to play.

In that case, what the manager should do is work out what style of football they ARE good enough to play, and get them playing that.

He continually says that we have to work with what we have got, and he is right; it is just that he doesn't seem to understand that you can't make a load of journeymen/loanees/young players/those at the end of their careers play like fecking Barcelona!!!

Look at Cardiff; there was some great analysis before the game of how, in 4 games, the new manager had changed their style of play to optimise the skill set of the players at his disposal - thats what we have to do for the rest of this season.

I get annoyed when I hear a Manager say after his team have been beaten "I am not going to compromise my footballing philosophy" - its what Brendan Rogers used to say after another turgid performance against someone like Scunthorpe, and it is a load of bollox!!!!!

Your job is to win games of football and there is no "right" or "wrong" way to do that - use the players you have to get the best out of them, and don't think that they can be a Scholes, or a Butt, or a Giggs , because they aren't!

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Not sure what style of football we are trying to play. We have let in 47 goals this season yet we still have a game plan to bore the fans to death with negative tactics defending all game and when we break up the opposition's attack there is no out as the midfield it so deep.

Ince's current tactics are not good.....more season ticket holders will not be renewing come next season.

[Snowflake Royal]

We have played 6 away games since the restart and picked up 1 point.

We have not scored in the last 4 and the way we play, we are not capable of keeping a clean sheet. The goals we have scored were a pen and 2 late goals at 3-0 down.

If the limits of ambition in any away game is 0-0, then the "fine margins" are all you have between a point and nothing. Let's face it, a decent side is already 4 or 5 up last night before they finally scored.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. If we are losing away games anyway, I would just love to see some ambition to positively influence the game rather than play the waiting game as the other lot are going to score eventually.

I'm not Ince out yet as, with a weaker squad we are actually still better than last year but the way we play needs to evolve ASAP esp away.

Anyway, on to Blackpool and hopefully another home win.

Listening to the Ince pre match interview was depressing. He was all but saying he doesn't care about away games and he'll just set up sneaking the odd 0-0 draw.

I've not been his biggest fan from the start, but his recent interviews reinforce his abject management delivering the recent dreadful performances.

I'm all for giving managers time. He should really get a full window without his hands tied. But you expect to see a manager making a solud effort to get the best out of what he has. I think he's gradually making what he has worse.

He puts the players down constantly. Picks poor performers with no future here over inexperienced players who'll give you their all to try to show they're good enough, who may develop to be more useful for the future with some game time. He insists we don't have a good enough defence to play 4 at the back, but the 5 are already about the worst in the division and make us utterly toothless upfront too.

This season can't end soon enough. There's been some good signs behind the scenes, but the rot looks completely set in to the first team squad still.


And to everyone saying the squad is terrible what can Ince do, I'll remind you how great loads of you thought Lumley, Hendrick, Sarr, Carroll, Fornah, Loum and Long were at the start of the season... yet now they wouldn't get in anyone else's team.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I think it's just a case of we need to refine what we do. The problem last night was that the pattern of the game was too similar. We don't have to do a u-turn and completely change what we do, but just little tweaks in the game that can make the game feel different and give the opposition a problem to solve.

Ince is probably right to a degree, but some of it falls on his head. The performance was disappointing and we let ourselves down, correct but the management have a part to play in that. Yes, the decision regarding the red card could have gone differently on another day, but it didn't, so how do we react to that. Again, we probably don't have that many great players with the ball, but isn't that what we've got Casadei for? We brought him in for a bit more of a technical edge? Fornah didn't do too much yesterday, but he was by far our most composed midfielder on the ball, Ince keeps hold of the ball etc.

So why not bring both Ince and Casadei on, change our shape slightly, keep the principles the same where we keep our shape, stay narrow, relinquish the ball etc, but we have more comfort on the ball in the midfield. We could have easily taken one of McIntyre/Loum off for Casadei, taken Dann off for Ince and then switched to a 4-3-3, kept the same principles in our play but then we had more comfortably ball players in Fornah, Casadei and Ince on the pitch and we still had pace and width with Azeez/Meite on one flank as well.

The problem for me is the mentality. Sitting in and wanting a 0-0 is fine, but we looked so uncomfortable in possession and we didn't have any threat going forward and it never changed. That's why it's not unlucky to lose, because Cardiff just had so much of the game and so many efforts, crosses into the box etc. Teams aren't always going to have golden chances each time they come forward, but if you look at the stats for how many shots they had, how many touches they had in our box, how many crosses they put in etc, they were always likely to go and score. That's the bit of our game we must adapt to away from home.

[Snowflake Royal]

Casadei is a good example of baffling management from Ince.

Say you are short in midfield.
Bring in inexperienced but talented youngster on loan, meaning one of your loanees misses out (4th loanee midfielder)
Start him 5 days later
Yank him off early
Immediately drop him in favour of playing a Centreback in midfield for 3 games,
Feature all three of the existing midfielders you brought him in to improve on, ahead of him.
Don't give him another minute of football in the next 3 games.

[Millsy]

Can't really knock that Ince interview tbh.

Says it as it is. Some perspective please.

Paul Ince "these guys aren't good enough to play the football we wanna play"

Tim Dellor "Very rare that a manager says that his players aren't good enough to play football"

Also Paul Ince "I never said they weren't good enough... Don't put words in my mouth"

He is right though; he DIDN'T say they weren't good enough to play football - he said they aren't good enough to play the style of football that Ince wants them to play.

In that case, what the manager should do is work out what style of football they ARE good enough to play, and get them playing that.

He continually says that we have to work with what we have got, and he is right; it is just that he doesn't seem to understand that you can't make a load of journeymen/loanees/young players/those at the end of their careers play like fecking Barcelona!!!

So you're presumably defending Ince here right because Ince realises they can't play better so he gets them playing defensively.
Because as far as he's concerned this is basically the type of football they are good enoguh to play: defend defend defend and hope long hoofs up to Carroll will create a goalscoring opportunity. It would be wrong of him to try to get them to play like Barcelona. He even said he tried getting them to play well but it didn't work. We just don't have the players for it and that's not fully his fault.