RAGING RYAN LETS RIP AT REF
STAR man Kadeem Harris believes Cardiff proved they have the firepower to stay up this season.
The Bluebirds winger took centre stage on his first Premier League start as Sol Bamba’s stoppagetime strike earned a priceless victory over 10man Brighton.
Harris, who smacked a shot against the Brighton bar, reckons Cardiff would have collected three points even if Seagulls had kept all 11 on the pitch.
“We were a constant threat,” he said. “Even if they had 11 men I think it would have been the same. We’ve shown we can continue to be a threat going forward. It annoys me when people write us off because I know what we’re capable of. Now it’s up to us to prove everyone wrong.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves because it’s only three points against 10 men, but we were different class. We just BRIGHTON goalkeeper Mathew Ryan accused ref Martin Atkinson of “one-sided” refereeing.
The Australian stopper believes Cardiff’s protests prompted Atkinson to give Dale Stephens his marching orders in the first half and argued that Sol Bamba’s stoppage-time winner should have been chalked off for offside.
The defeat was Brighton’s have to keep racking up the points and kick on from here.
“We deserved that goal massively. Sol tried the overhead kick and it came off for once and we’ve capitalised on it.”
Brighton defender Lewis Dunk silenced the celebrations for Neil Warnock’s 100th game in charge within six minutes when he rose above Bamba to score his second headed goal in seven days. But Cardiff levelled soon afterwards, with Harris the architect.
He used his pace to get around Gaetan Bong and clipped a hopeful ball across the face of goal.
In Bong’s desperate attempt to get back, he deflected the ball onto the head of makeshift striker Callum Paterson, who directed it into the net for his third goal in four games.
Brighton midfielder Dale second in a row after three straight wins had lifted them clear of the drop-zone.
Ryan (right) said: “I think the refereeing was a bit one-sided. A lot of soft fouls went their way,
50-50 things that you see let go in England were picked up.
“And we think the second goal was offside as well.” Stephens was sent off after 34 minutes for a studs-up challenge on Greg Cunningham, and the Bluebirds finally made their man advantage count in the dying seconds.
Tension turned into delirium when Bamba’s overhead kick came back out off the post before Paterson’s shot was deflected onto the bar and back into the feet of Bamba, who stabbed a shot into the roof of the net.
Cardiff remain in the bottom three, albeit just a single point behind Newcastle in 14th, but Harris believes they can use their second Premier League win as the springboard for survival.
“It makes such a difference, every point in the Premier League is big,” he added. “We’ve got three today and we’re out of the position we were in. Everyone’s delighted to go into the international break with three points.
“Week by week we’ve improved. We’ve had a hard run against top-five teams so games like this one against teams below that are ones we can get points out of.”