Abbandonato
a 25,000 gate.
Whatever Saturday’s crowd figure, those who do go to the football ahead of watching the rugby shouldn’t under-estimate the significance of the 90 minutes that will be unfolding before them.
It is the most important game Cardiff will play since the win or bust clash with Sheffield Wednesday 10 months ago, when Russell Slade’s side saw their hopes of leapfrogging the Owls into sixth spot dashed by a 3-0 Hillsborough hammering.
Why the significance of it? For mind-set, as much as anything else.
Championship pundits strongly tip Fulham (eighth) and Norwich (seventh) to gatecrash the top six come the end of the season. Cardiff understandably don’t even merit a mention, other than from Bluebirds legend Blakey.
Yet overcome the Cottagers in the Welsh capital on Saturday afternoon and Warnock’s men will be just a point behind them and potentially only three off Norwich.
It should be emphasised that Fulham have a couple of games in hand, yet get that close to one of your direct rivals and suddenly the impossible dream may just become the most outside of possibilities.
Isn’t it nice just to be able to talk like this, though? Three months ago Cardiff’s immediate rivals were Rotherham, Burton and Wigan.
Suddenly, we’re talking about the prospect of hauling in Norwich and Fulham.
Of course, we haven’t even discussed the rather more significant matter of Sheffield Wednesday in sixth place. They ensured the 13-point gap between themselves and the Bluebirds remained courtesy of a 2-1 victory at Nottingham Forest.
The other sides currently occupying the play-off spots are Leeds, Reading and Huddersfield, with Newcastle and Brighton likely to make the top two.
But Norwich and Fulham firmly expect to break in there by May. So if they are thinking that way, and Cardiff overcome Fulham to close the gap right down, maybe Blakey’s words are more prophetic than we realise.
They say there are no easy games in the Championship, although Rotherham are the exception to the rule given the Bluebirds’ 5-0 thumping of them.
But once Fulham is out of the way, Cardiff have a sequence of matches in March that are reasonably favourable.
Queens Park Rangers, Birmingham and Ipswich - three mid-table sides for whom the play-off dream is too much - as well as second from bottom Blackburn.
As we have already seen since Warnock took over Cardiff, string a few wins together in this league and the table suddenly tells a very different story.
As Blakey pointed out in his excellent Echo column last week, the top six is very distant but within the confines of the dressing room leaders such as Sean Morrison and Sol Bamba should be talking about it.
“It may only be a kind of joke to start with, something like, ‘don’t go booking your summer holidays just yet,’ but at least that gets minds thinking,” said Blakey.
A win over Fulham, which would see the gap between them and the Bluebirds cut to a single point, and perhaps the message from Morrison and Bamba could be just a little louder.
“They reckon they’ll be in the playoffs, so why can’t we go for it too?”
That is why Cardiff versus Fulham suddenly becomes a massive match. It’ll help define the rest of the Bluebirds’ season.
MERTHYR lost out to fellow promotion hopefuls Slough courtesy of a deflected Chris Flood goal on the hour.
In a fairly-even first half it was the home side who started brighter and Nathan Webb headed a cross from Manny Williams just over in the first couple of minutes.
A neat move from Merthyr saw Ryan Prosser head back across goal for Ian Traylor to find the top of the Slough net.
After Kayne Mclaggon was denied a penalty, Slough’s Simon Dunn then fired over.
A double substitution for Merthyr on 36 minutes saw Jarred Wright and debutant Jack Compton replace Kyle Copp and Prosser.
The crucial goal came against the run of play, Merthyr losing possession in their own half and they watched in disbelief as Flood’s shot deflected off a Merthyr defender and past goalkeeper Oliver Davies.
Merthyr went to three at the back in search of an equaliser. At the death Mclaggon got to a Curtis Mcdonald knock down but his shot drifted wide.