It’s been a disappointing couple of weeks. City drew a blank against Leeds even though they should have won and Wales were made to look like mugs against both England and Poland.
But today something reignited Bluebirds.tv’s faith in Welsh football – Cardiff City won at Ninian Park.
City haven’t managed such a feat since they beat Coventry City on 10 August, the last time they also gave the home supporters a goal to cheer.
What was needed this afternoon was a little pick-me-up, an early season tonic that only a team worse than us could supply. Just as well Rotherham, the only side in the Football League without a win, were in town.
After 506 barren minutes, the wonderful Peter Thorne thumped in a header to settle the nerves early in the second half and gave Rotherham keeper Mike Pollitt more of the same with a quarter of an hour left on the clock.
It was nice to watch a match without listening to moronic ‘Lennie Out’ chants (he’s never going to go – get over it!) and booing of the team at the final whistle, although some idiots have to get it out of their system and there were a few at half-time.
A 2-0 win means City are out of relegation for the moment but Lennie will hopefully not go all Kevin Keegan on us and get carried away with the result. City has achieved NOTHING this season, they only beat Rotherham for goodness sake – pound for pound likely to be the worst side playing football at present and so inept they even made us look good.
In truth, Cardiff were terrible this afternoon. A lack of invention and creativity is one thing, it is even expected these days, but it is scandalous to charge the best part of £20 to watch the third division long ball crap that was served up today in abundance.
How Bluebird.tv longs for the fast, free flowing football of last summer, but like having a turn with each of the tarts from Girls Aloud, such things are mere fantasy.
Something more realistic will be the signing of a new striker, even if it is only somebody on loan. City have lacked a cutting edge up front since Earnie left, and for all their endeavour (or lack of it), none of the current staff will score the goals we need to avoid the drop.
Thorne, arguably our biggest goal threat, scores on average once every three games and today’s brace gives him a tally of three in seven league appearances.
It was encouraging to see Lennie give Joe Ledley a chance as substitute this afternoon rather than plonking Campbell on the wing, the one place where he is even more ineffective than up front. Why on earth did Sam fork out almost £1 million for a player who has a goal to game ratio of marginally better than one in 10?
But even if Campbell doesn’t play, then Alan Lee does and he’s not much of an improvement. Bluebirds.tv was a fan of Lee’s when he first arrived at Ninian Park and thought highly of his tenacious, bruising style of play.
However, it is becoming all too obvious that he too is out of his depth at this level and his average of a goal every four games is dwindling fast. The straightforward chance he squandered towards the end of the game when completely unchallenged was very Campbell-esque. There’s another million pounds we’ll never see again.
But enough of this cynicism. A confidence boosting win was what was required and that’s what Rotherham gave us. More of the same is required if we are to get to the giddy heights of mid-table.
A new striker scoring in a spawny 1-0 win at Brighton on Tuesday would do Bluebirds.tv just fine.
