There's been a lot said, and some spleens vented, over our dominance on Saturday but failure to turn that dominance into goals - some in part to bad lack, some to poor finishiong or poor decisions and mostly due to excellence of Tiny Clanger (Marshall) as we used to call him when he was at City as he was often error prone - shame he couldn't have saved an error for Saturday eh ? Not much has been said though about Malky - I thought he tactically got it right on Saturday and his substitutions at half-time changed the face of the game and made the second half a more even affair even though we still dominated. In the first half our midfield overan theirs and in my mind it was only a matter of time before we scored. However, bringing on Gunnarrsson and Cowie (who I thought were both good by the way) at half-time and sacrificing a forward player (Odemwingie) evened out the midfield a little and this tightened up the game. Malky's smart substitutions in some way helped frustrate us and I think some praise should be reserved for his managerial nous. Trust me, I'm not in the minority "Hughton Out" camp - far from it, but I was interested in how, in my opinion, Malky's tactics helped change the game.
These will be the same tactics that Hootun employed last season - discipline, men behind the ball, tough to break down - that led us to the lofty heights of 11th place last season and now everyone's at it. I wonder if the vocal minority would be so quick to boo if Malky was our manager last seaosn and he emplyed the exact same tactics? Somehow I think not.
his subs certainly gave cardiff the only hope they had of getting something from the game. in the first half we were rampant and they were clinging on by david marshall's finger nails but i agree, they made the 2nd half more stodgy and i think that's why getting elmander on was vital, to try and break them down via a more direct route and hope for a lucky bounce in the box to drop to someone in yellow (but as is the way at the moment, we got no luck). there's no two ways about it though - cardiff were bloody lucky on saturday. 9 times out of 10 they'd have lost and probably 3 times out of 10 would have been thumped. its just not going for us in front of goal at the moment. they defended very well 2nd half though and i don't think i've seen anyone give them any credit for that. he's a good manager mackay, and a great guy - but then so is hughton. yet one is abused and the other is heralded by some as our 'saviour'.
I'm not going to give Malky any praise as far as I'm concerned he can do one. Getting precious in front of the press then giving people lectures about sportsman ship when his players reacted like a pack of animals is a bit rich.
To be fair Northampton, would have our players have acted any differently ? I hardly think we would have shaken their hands and said "well played sir" had Bellars or the like had done it to us ?
yeah, i think that's a bit harsh northants. when interviewed immediately after the game you often get over reactions - when he was a bit calmer he was a lot more sensible with his answers. i can't remember the last time a visiting team didn't time waste. bloody hell, we do it all the time!
Some would but I think Rusty and Bassong would at least make an effort to calm them down, Caulker lost the plot with them, Fer was trying to walk away when they all ran over. Also Hughton never said he'd allow them to walk the ball into the net if the goal stood, poor form from Malky and dishonest.
I wonder if Leroy was taking the piss in his interview - oh God I hope he was, that would be a to bit of banter He didn't celebrate or try to argue on the pitch, and Ricky had grabbed the ball from the net and was ready to retake the throw as the mele ensued. Surely nobody expected it to be given, the nonchalance of Leroy during it all suggests he didn't at the time.
His a bit of a wind up merchant remember the Kenwyne Jones incident? The fall out on twitter was hilarious after the incident on Match Of The Day, there was a couple of people getting very precious about it but more then anything he seems to have gained more fans from it, that interview was the icing on cake really as he absolutely didn't give a toss about it, especially when you had people like Malky behaving like diva's.
He was surely taking the piss all along. What astonished me is how he managed to keep a straight face through it all. I'm afraid I'd have been splitting my sides.
