After last week’s defeat, Daniel Farke must have been thankful that the fixture list gave us the division’s bottom team as our next opponents. But although we got the win we needed, it was against a desperately poor Cardiff City who had to play with ten men for over an hour, and somehow it felt strangely unconvincing.
The day began with the tributes to the sadly departed Sol Bamba, and as I walked around the stadium I saw that fans of both clubs had left scarves and messages beneath Cardiff’s equivalent of our ‘Billy’ statue. (Their statue is of their 1927 captain Fred Keenor, holding the FA Cup).
While I was there I saw Craig Bellamy struggling to park his oversized 4x4 in the main car park. Once he’d managed that and was posing for pictures alongside some Cardiff fans, one of them shouted at him to "get your boots on”. There was no Dan James for the new Welsh boss to watch, but our starting line-up still boasted two of his current internationals, with two more on the bench.
Our only change was enforced, with Solomon becoming our latest injury casualty, so Ramazani came in for what would be an impressive full debut. As the game began we began our usual patient build-up, even though Cardiff had set up with a very negative formation for a home side, as if a draw was the absolute limit of their ambition for this game. It’s not hard to see why some Cardiff fans thought that Bellamy would improve their team, even at the age of 45.
After their poor start to the season it’s no surprise there were quite a few empty seats, with the top section of one stand closed off completely, yet I read that when Leeds asked for 1,750 extra tickets we were turned down. We won’t lose any sleep at the thought of Cardiff denying themselves thousands of pounds additional revenue, but it would have been nice if a few more of us could have seen the game.
Despite the amount of possession we enjoyed in the first half-hour, we struggled to create clear-cut chances, but Ramazani’s trickery on the left was starting to look useful. Firpo sent over a dangerous cross, which the Cardiff defence just managed to scramble clear before Joseph could convert. And a couple of shooting opportunities fell to Gruev, but he sliced one over the bar and sent the other one wide.
On 14 minutes the stadium rose to applaud Sol Bamba, as that had been his number at Cardiff. Firpo thoughtfully sent a cross straight out of play so that nothing happened on the field to disturb the moment, giving the referee the chance to tell Alnwick to hold onto the ball while he joined in the applause. And ten minutes later the man in black was centre stage again, this time reducing the home side to ten men.
Gnonto was tripped by Bagan as he raced towards the penalty area with only the keeper to beat. To Willy’s credit he got back up and tried to chase down the ball, but he’d lost momentum and any chance of getting to it before the keeper, so the referee brandished the red card even though he’d initially played advantage.
This finally woke the Cardiff fans up, and for a short time they were booing or sarcastically applauding every decision, before they went back to sleep and allowed the Leeds contingent to make most of the atmosphere. And finally we had something to shout about, as the first goal arrived on the half-hour mark.
A flick-on from the half-way line sent Ramazani racing into one of the many gaps in the Cardiff defence. For a couple of seconds I held my breath (remembering Joseph’s miss in similar circumstances last week) but I needn’t have worried. Ramazani sent a fierce shot into the corner of the net, and celebrated with a couple of very impressive summersaults.
Soon after Cardiff had their first shot on target from a free kick, but Meslier had no difficulty in getting down to make the save. At the other end a ball over the top found Joseph on the left-hand side of the area, but when he cut inside he couldn’t quite get the power he needed with his right foot shot, and Alnwick was able to make the save.
Then Bogle was booked for diving in the Cardiff box, so it was fortunate he hadn’t got a yellow card earlier in the game, when he started an unnecessary row over a throw-in. And we really should have made it two before half-time, when Gnonto’s ball into the area found Ramazani, but this time he put the ball straight at the keeper rather than placing it into the corner, allowing Alnwick to save with his legs.
The second half was much the same, with our travelling fans getting ever more vocal about our slow build-up, especially when we won the ball back from a rare Cardiff foray downfield, but spurned the opportunity for a quick break of our own. A chance did come as Bogle got free down the right and sent a low cross to the near post, but with Aaronson under pressure from two defenders he could only put the ball wide of the post.
Then came the opportunity to put the game to bed, as Bogle was tripped as he cut inside, and this time the referee accepted he hadn’t gone to ground voluntarily and pointed to the spot. But Struijk sent a poor penalty straight down the middle, so once again Alnwick able to make a save with his legs. Surely we had a better option for a penalty taker from those on the field at the time. Gnonto perhaps?
The miss seemed to charge the atmosphere for a short time, and I worried that it might be like Stoke last season, when Bamford’s penalty failure was the turning point of the whole game, If we didn’t win this game I would be tearing my hair out, and while it remained 1-0 there was always the chance that Cardiff would snatch an equaliser.
Of course, they never really looked like scoring, but there was an anxious moment when Colwill cut inside Ampadu just outside the area, though he sent his shot high and well wide. The home side were making changes to try to get back into the game, though Farke left it to the 84th minute to respond, perhaps thinking he didn’t need to while we were winning. But eventually he withdrew Bogle and Ramazani to send on Byram and Piroe.
The home fans booed Piroe for his Swansea connections, which might have been what he needed to wake him up. So when an awful clearing header from Chambers went straight to Aaronson, and he sent Piroe racing away down the left, the Dutchman ignored the option of crossing for Gnonto in the centre to hammer the ball past Alnwick and into the net from a narrow angle.
That caused a rush for the exits in the home stands, but with their seats looking even emptier than before Cardiff produced their best chance of the whole game, with Mesiler having to make a good save from El Ghazi. It’s a shame that so few of their fans were still there to see it. That might yet have led to a close finish with eight minutes injury time to play, but after that save we were able to coast through the time that remained.
We could have gone for the jugular in an attempt to boost our goal difference, but after three more subs and more sideways passing it rather petered out, and we had to be satisfied with just the 2-0 win. Welcome as the victory was, I couldn’t help finding it rather unconvincing, and thought that the performance wouldn’t have been good enough to beat even a half-decent team.
Perhaps I should grumble, as we’re back up to 6th place in the table. I just hope that when the new signings have had more chance to bed in, we’ll look more like a top two side and can get back to the sort of incisive attacking football that we enjoyed in the not too distant past.