Following Saturday's welcome but perhaps slightly fortunate 3 points courtesy of Millwall at the CCS, we are once again on home soil for the visit of Wayne Rooney's blue nosed Birmingham City for a midweek clash under the lights. Just how long they will remain as Rooney's Birmingham could be up for debate, especially if they suffer defeat at our hands... so here's to hoping he gets his P45 by the end of the week then eh? I'm sure the blues fans must be cursing their clubs hierarchy for disposing of a manager who was performing admirably in favour of a 'big name manager' who has so far managed just 1 win in 9 games, amassing 5 points from the 27 on offer. In saying that, their form over the last 6 isn't too far off our own, so as much as I'm sure we'll be seen as heavy favourites for this one, it may be another tense, tight affair, just like the Millwall game was. Last season saw us complete a league double over Birmingham, whilst we have of course already met this season with The Bluebirds running out as a 1-3 win away in the League Cup back in August. Previous Meetings Last season’s 1-0 home win courtesy of loanee Irish fella Phil O’Gene…. He must have enjoyed that being a Villain at the time. 2020 Covid hit, very entertaining home game. A Bobby G goal and a penalty ‘miss’ (saved by ex-Bluebird Neil Etheridge). A come from behind turnaround and a captains winner. And just for good measure https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/vid...§ion=7a1af227-58ac-4975-b26a-cc2bf408ded3 Bulut's Bulletin Once again there are no new injury concerns making the headlines, so we can only assume that Rambo & O'Dowda aside we still have a fully fit squad from which to choose from. Saturday saw the hard working but misfiring Meite dropped in favour of Ike Ugbo in the tsrating 11, however, an ineffectual performance from the on loan Ugbo saw him hooked at half time and Meite restored to the attack. A move which ultimately was vindicated as the City went on to win the game. Given the lack of goals from our strikers I wouldn't be surprised if we see Kion Etete given a go for this one, if not from the start then at least coming off the bench if we again look like we are struggling to pull our visitors apart. What Are The Odds On That? After he brought that little bit of luck that was needed, Erol gets to keep the reins for this one too.... with us being odds on are the bookies showing a little too much faith in our charges? Certainly Granny Bulut fancies her chances rather than her Grandson's! Well I Never Did you know that Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe, with almost 40 per cent of the population being made up of under 25's? That probably explains Birmingham's poor form since Rooney took over, he's obviously having to spend far more time hunting out his next conquest!! He should consider taking over at Blackpool or Bournemouth instead.... They also have more canals than Venice with 100 miles of canal navigations... Not a patch on Cardiff's new 'canal quarter' though eh? Sharing The Love OK, so, confession time.... in my efforts to not repeat players from previous threads I have compiled what I thought was a decent enough list for this game, however, tracking down information on some of these guys has proved to be a little trickier than anticipated, so excuse the brevity of some of them, maybe some of you more 'seasoned' chaps can add your own memories of the players featured? Macheda - One of Solskjaer's hundreds of signings. Federico Macheda After being released from Manchester United, Macheda signed for newly relegated Championship club Cardiff City on a free transfer on 27 May 2014. Signed by Ole Gunnar Solskjær, (his former manager at United's reserves) he made his debut in the second round of the League Cup away to Port Vale on 26 August 2014, and marked the occasion with his first two competitive goals for the club, seeing us progress to the third round with a 3–2 victory. Macheda received his first red card for Cardiff on 14 March 2015 against Brentford for a second yellow after scoring an equaliser earlier in the match! Having made no league starts and very few substitute appearances in 2015–16, Macheda joined fellow Championship club Nottingham Forest on loan until the end of the season. Upon his return, he was left out of the pre-season tour of Germany and was placed on the transfer list by new manager Paul Trollope and in August 2016, Macheda's contract was cancelled by mutual consent. On 14 December 2016, he joined Serie B side Novara Calcio When you look at his record for the Bluebirds, 1 goal in 4 actually isn’t that bad, but at the time I don’t recall many fans being happy with him. Yet another ‘what if’ type of striker for the Bluebirds. Campbell - lots of appearances but little written about him. Scored a couple of key goals though! Alan Campbell Campbell joined in January 1976, signed by Jimmy Andrews around the same time we signed the Spurs and former Welsh international skipper Mike England on a free transfer and Doug Livermore coming into the club from Norwich City for an £18,000 fee. These new recruits along with others such as Adrian Alston were influential in taking City into a promotion position, with the highlight being a mid-week game against fellow promotion challengers Hereford Utd. A crowd of 35,549 packed into Ninian Park to see the champions-elect beaten 2-0 by the Bluebirds thanks to goals from Livermore and Alan Campbell. The win meant promotion back to Division Two at the first attempt, coupled soon after by another Welsh Cup Final win Campbell of course was a team mate of our following featured player. Evans - Goalscorer and all round good chap - were he and all the City players of that era related? The moustache's would suggest so! Tony Evans With City bringing in Wales great Mike England during the summer, the arrival of Tony Evans on a free from Blackpool where he had not managed a goal in his six first team appearances hardly registered with the local media and supporters. Furthermore, it appears that manager Jimmy Andrews wasn’t fully aware of what a gem he had got us as Evans was not in the starting eleven for the first couple of games and then was used, briefly, as a winger when he did break into the team. Evans’ early appearances in a City shirt didn’t hint as to what was to come, but, two goals in the three matches leading up to a visit by Sheffield Wednesday had put him just a single goal behind Phil Dwyer in the club’s scoring stakes as the likes of Brian Clark, Gil Reece and Derek Showers toiled away with just one goal between them. As it turned out, City were the better team throughout against Wednesday, but they spent more than three quarters of the game failing to make their superiority count until Evans fired in from close range in front of the Grange End and, within a few minutes of that, the points were in the bag when visiting defender Jim Quinn turned a cross into his own net. The following is a recollection of one fan’s encounter with him the following morning… “My main reason for remembering this particular game came in the early hours of the following day. Myself and a few friends had been invited to some function or other in the old Bluebirds club and as we staggered out of there in the early hours of Sunday morning, we were greeted by the sight of Tony Evans making his way very unsteadily along the walkway behind the Canton Stand towards us. Our ace striker had obviously been out celebrating his goal. You know the thought you sometimes get when you know you are drunk but then someone else comes along in a fair worse state and you suddenly start thinking you must be sober? Well Tony Evans was the someone else that morning and he was now intent on having a few more in the Bluebirds Club! When we told him that it had shut, he decided that he would show us just how he had scored his goal and so had us playing the role of Wednesday defenders (I was Jim Quinn!) or City team mates as he provided the running commentary as to what had happened!” Finishing that promotion season with 28 goals as City finished as runners up to Hereford United to return to the Second Division, Evans went on to cope easily with the step up in class as the goals flowed on a regular basis until a serious injury led to him missing much of the 77/78 campaign. On retiring from football in 1986, he became a social worker, setting up the "Midnight League" to give young people an opportunity to play organised football at night as a diversion from possibly less constructive activities. With ‘Good Samaritan’ tendencies such as this, maybe he really does ‘Walk on Water’ (even if he clearly doesn’t drink it!!). Hill - a Cultured midfielder - at least I think so, can barely find anything on him nowadays! Danny Hill Hill joined the Bluebirds on loan from Spurs in 1998, and despite only making a handful of appearances showed some silky skills in midfield and (for this Bluebird anyhow) made a lasting impression. A short time later he’d re-join on a permanent contract, staying for 3 years and scoring 4 goals in that time. Hill would go on to finish his career at Billericay Town and became as a plumber. So, can the Bluebirds band-waggon keep rolling on into the top 6 again? Will Wagatha Christy Colleen manage to figure out why her husband likes her dressing up in a Nora Batty costume at bedtime - oh and why he's such an awful manager?? Or will Ng come up trumps and prompt a long overdue return of Clingo to the board (please make it so football Gods )??? All I know is, if we defeat the Rooney Blues we'll be Watching and Waiting to see whether we can achieve our Wildest Dreams Riding the See-Saw of the Championship. Blooooooooooooooooooooooooobirds!!!!!
You asked so Alan Campbell I recall scored the goal in our 1-1 draw with Carlisle in 1976-77 season to keep us in division 2 and send Carlisle down. Tony Evans scored a hat trick on the opening day of the 1979-80 season for Brum which I read about in the Brum version of the Football Pink when the train changed there to transfer back from Nottingham where I witnessed City lose 4-1 at Notts County.
Cheers Nin. Did see a bit about Campbell scoring v Carlisle to save us, but apart from that and the Hereford goal I could find precious little else. Really surprising for a guy who played as many games for us as he did.
Not a lot so far about tonight's game on yet another excellent thread. So the "creative" pivotal spot tonight? It has to be Colwill. Robbo has had a go and blows hot and cold - against Millwall he was all over the shop. Leave the keeper and back four as they are - don't mess with it for this one. If we're talking about a 4-3-3 then that middle 3 should be Ralls, Siopis and Colwill. Up front Etete deserves a break leading the line with a wide men either side - the obvious candidates are once again Grant and Bowler. If we want to go for broke, I'd even consider an old fashioned "Dave Jones" 4-4-2 and stick Meite up there with him. As a front pair they'd cause Brum some serious problems through the middle and I'd like to enjoy a game rather than wanting it to end.
I can see the benefits of 442. Meite to rough the defence and Etete to pick up the pieces. Or maybe Ugbo to stand on the line to feed off the scraps. I'd be happy with Etete up front. He scores a goal in about a third of the time it takes Ugbo. stay with the back 5. siopis and ralls in the middle. grant, colwill and tanner etete
Although on the face of it we just want to win this for the points involved, I'd like to see a much improved performance especially on the transition. Pretty obvious without Rambo we haven't got the control to do that with any pace at the moment, whereas Grant and Robbo both have good pace but lack control. Time for Colwill to step up from the start rather than to expect him to change a game in the last 20 minutes. It's a bit of a conundrum but that's for the manager to sort out - he needs to find a way. We need to set out a standard to point the way forward for our 2 away trips to Yorkshire (not sure Hull is officially in Yorkshire ).
We've snagged a few points with ugly wins, but haven't seen consistent performances. I'd liken us to a flat track bully. We need a bit more finesse. Having pace and rawness out wide is one thing. The control needs to come through the middle. It's where Meite would be better wider. Ugbo isn't it. 10 certainly needs finesse. 9 can be a bit more raw if the ball sticks and can be laid off. Early on, there seemed to be a game plan from Erol. That has become less obvious as time has gone on. I think that is why some of the players are underperforming. They're losing their way. It's back to Erol. For all his faults, any team managed by Colin knew exactly what was expected of them. No ambiguity.
For me tonight got to drop Ugbo & Robinson and rotate Ralls & Wintle so: Runnarson Ng Goutas McGuiness JC Bowler Ralls Siopsis Grant Colwill Etete
Oi! That's my side I posted earlier! You don't have to agree with me - have you no ambition?.............
Wow, Erol reads these pages. Cardiff City XI: Runarsson; Ng, Goutas, McGuinness, Collins; Wintle, Siopis; Meite, Colwill, Grant; Etete. Subs: Alnwick, Panzo, Romeo, Adams, Rinomhota, Tanner, Robinson, Bowler, Ugbo.
The joker strikes again. Inferior plays on the pitch, Wintle,Grant,Metie the skill players Robinson, Bowler, Tanner and Ralls out. This maniac is playing his favourites the yes men.
