After Sunday’s tumultuous battle against our little cousins down the road, our thoughts once again turn to cup glory and, as if we hadn’t had our fill of small minded upstarts with chips on their shoulders we see the return to the CCS of Mr Russell Martin, former resident of SA1. Martin brings his now Premier League Saints to the CCS for this second round League Cup tie seeking a much needed boost following a less than impressive start to the season. Our beloved Bluebirds on the other hand can view this game as a bit of a ‘free hit’ being up against higher tier opposition but also potentially going into it in good spirits following the nature of our fightback on Sunday. Who Are You? Our ‘illustrious’ Premier League visitors are no strangers to the CCS with us having had quite a few tussles in both the Championship and the top flight (with the Bluebirds coming out in top more often than not in recent years). Ex JB Russell Martin has brought in a few new faces to freshen things up at St Marys, with the latest recruits Lesley Ugochukwu (Chelsea loan) and midfielder Matheus Fernandes (£15 million from Sporting Lisbon) joining striker Cameron Archer (£15 million from Villa) on the south coast. Saints obviously play in much the same way as Martin used to get his Swansea team playing, aiming to control the ball and the tempo, but, just as the Jacks used to grumble about massive possession with no end product, so we see Southampton fans starting to mutter the same things (especially now that they are up against bigger and better opposition). This stat from their recent defeat to Forest just about sums them up. That gives us some hope that if we can keep them out, stay switched on then who knows, we could just hit them with a sucker punch. And on that note………………… Last Time Out & Form Last season saw the Bluebirds finally get one over on a Russell Martin team with a slightly backs to the wall performance but nonetheless enjoyable one with a last gasp winner courtesy of a deflected Cian Ashford strike in the 96th minute. Joe Aribo had opened the scoring for Southampton, following up on a Horvath save that fell nicely to the ex-Rangers man. Horvath would go on to have a busy game, pulling out a few crucial stops when required but also showing some now familiar frailties to his game too, not least during his ‘duel’ with Welsh Wizard Dave Brooks. A rare Diedhiou ‘poachers’ goal levelled things for the Bluebirds after some neat interplay by a couple of City youngsters before young Ashford sent the home crowd delirious with his late winner and first senior goal, putting a dampener on Russell Martin’s spirits at full time. This will be our 3rd League Cup meeting with the Saints and unfortunately for us Bluebirds, if history is anything to go by then we could be feeling a little glum come the end of the game as both previous matches have resulted in Southampton victories with both ties also being at the 2nd round stage curiously. September 1964 saw us go down 3-2 at the Dell in front of 13,076 spectators and Sept/October 1995 saw us lose a two legged 2nd round affair by an aggregate score of 5-1 (0-3 at Ninian in front of 9,041 fans and 2-1 at the Dell in front of 12,709 fans) with the great Matt Le Tissier scoring twice in the match at Ninian Park. Form wise, the Saints actually endured a torrid run at the end of season, losing 4 games on the bounce out of their last 5 and slipping into the play-offs having been in serious contention for automatic promotion for so long. The play-offs did provide the promotion they were hoping for as they saw off West Brom over 2 legs and then bottle jobs Leeds in the final with a 1-0 score-line despite Leeds arguably being the better side on the day (the play-off game haven’t been taken into account for the graphic). This season has seen them lose both their opening games by the same 1-0 score-line meaning it is just that 1 win (ironically also against Leeds) in their last 6 league games and no goals scored so far this season. Bizarrely the Saints poor form means that ours is actually marginally better in some respects following our 1-1 derby game result. The 2nd half performance in that game should provide some optimism going into this one, though with it likely to once again be a very much changed line up, I don’t think league form will really have too much of a bearing on proceedings the Wednesday evening. In, Out Or No Sign Of Them About So, following our draw on Sunday and with the prospect of a game against higher quality opponents in this round of the cup, what does Erol do? My guess is that he’ll keep faith with many of the youngsters that were on duty last time out but, with the likes of Eli King and Kieron Evans having gone out on loan since that victory over Bristol Rovers we will, most likely see the likes of El-Ghazi and Rubin Colwill get some more much needed minutes. The robust Reindorf may well get a start after more promising showings for the U21’s. This game will come too soon for newest recruit Will Fish and, if we don’t see any sign of Mahlon Romeo then I think we can be sure he’ll either be offloaded during the last few days of the window or see his contract terminated due to his poor conduct earlier in the year. Predicted Starting 11 Alnwick Kpakio Goutas Bagan Giles Rinomhota Robertson El-Ghazi Colwill Conte Reindorf The Odds Bods There could only be one ‘saintly’ home boy for this one. Even though he never got to pull on our famous blue shirt, the ex-Southampton youth product gave many of us so many memorable moments at the CCS in the red of Wales and, hailing from my neck of the woods (and old High School nonetheless) he is still a Cardiffian at heart. Top Boy Top Trumps With the season still in its infancy and squads still settling down it seemed like an ideal opportunity to do a quick comparison between the some new arrivals at both clubs – for this one we have a wide boy face off. Sugawara is more ‘wing back’ than traditional winger, but with him costing a reported £6 million, I’d say we got the better deal with Willock! Match Day Melody With Saints rather gloomy run towards the end of season, and the fun and games that followed the final whistle (with a little help from the CCS ground staff after our dramatic win) I couldn’t help but think of this. So can we stop the Saints going marching on? Will Sunday give us the boost we so desperately needed after not getting the rewards that some of our play has merited? Will Erol be tempted to not mess too much with the line up for this one given the calibre of opposition? Who knows eh? As always we just need to get behind the boys, make some noise and pray for the footballing gods to unearth some Welsh ancestry so that they smile favourably upon us!! Blooooooooooooooooooooobirds!!!
Marvelous Brizzle. A real bonus this season with Cup competition match day threads. Thanks as always for the time and effort. It'll be interesting to see what team the Saints put out. I think you're right that Erol will go with the young guns again. We shall see. Can't see us winning but if we do, it'll be a huge boost for those involved. Bloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooobirds
Ahhh, the glorious sight of the single scaffolding arch.... So beautiful..... Obviously a huge upgrade on the twin towers eh? I miss old grounds with character.....
Cardiff City: Alnwick, Kpakio, Goutas, ***an-Walcott, Bagan, Gbadehan, Rinomhota, R Colwill, Conte, Ashford, Reindorf. Substitutes: Turner, Giles, T Davies, Robertson, Mafico, Twose, Wigley, Jefferies, Nyakuhwa
You can see why Monday's 21s side was short a few players. Colwill needs to do some heavy lifting. Thought El Ghazi would have benefited from 20 mins off the bench. Hopefully a chance for Reindorf to shine.
Masky not even going to bother to listen to this unappetising game , such a weak team , die hard supporters should vote with their feet, disgusting! Masky will hang his bollock* over an electric fence for some stimulation!
I've said it before, wholesale changes help no one. Alnwick is on a hiding to nothing with such a young back 4. Colwill won't look good surrounded by youngsters. Youngsters won't have a chance to shine with no experience around them.
Southampton's passing and movement streets ahead. City should show a video to the whole squad. They move forward as a team where we are more isolated. Robertson will be on second half.
