ZOHORE HELPS BLUEBIRDS WIN SHARE OF THE POINTS:
FOR 90 minutes on Saturday Cardiff City kept pace with one of the most explosive teams in the Championship.
Slavisa Jokanovic’s Fulham side are the third highest scorers in the league this season, behind only Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle and top-of-the-table Brighton.
There was a good case to be made that the Bluebirds actually deserved all three points on a dank afternoon at Cardiff City Stadium, but neither side could complain with a point apiece in the end.
The mere fact that Cardiff were able to go toe-to-toe with Fulham for a full 90 minutes is testament to their improvement under Neil Warnock.
With just a few changes in personnel – of the starting XI only Allan McGregor, Junior Hoilett and Sol Bamba were not at the club under Paul Trollope – Warnock has got this side playing football not seen since Dave Jones’ tenure.
The ease with which Cardiff carved out chances in the first 30 minutes was staggering.
As Warnock admitted after the match, Hoilett could have had a hat-trick before Fulham had even opened the scoring – the Canadian international linking up beautifully with Kenneth Zohore and Kadeem Harris on his return to the side.
For a side with great attacking flair, Fulham are not porous at the back either – conceding just 39 goals in 33 league matches this season, the seventh fewest in the league.
The amount of chances the Bluebirds fashioned was thanks to a slight tactical tweak that saw the front three of Hoilett, Zohore and Harris playing much further forward and Joe Ralls and Craig Noone both encouraged to rush forward at every opportunity.
Warnock spoke after the game of how he wanted to go with the extra attacker as he felt Fulham would have a lot of the ball.
The Bluebirds boss was proved right as the Cottagers enjoyed 72% possession but thanks to Cardiff’s attacking spark could only out gun Warnock’s men by 18 shots to 16.
Zohore was the shining light for Cardiff as he continues to grow into a striker capable of leading the line in a promotion bid next season.
As is Warnock’s style, he spoke openly about his striker post-match and revealed he’d told him that if he’d coached him five years ago he would have had a hell of a career.
Warnock may well turn Zohore into a superstar, but all Bluebirds fans will care about now is how good the 23-yearold can become by the start of next season.
His six goals in six matches have seen him finally add goals to his much improved positional play and strength that have been on show since being recalled to the side in mid-December.
A prodigious talent, who played against Barcelona at the Camp Nou in the Champions League aged just 16, if Zohore can begin to fulfill his potential in a Bluebirds shirt then we could be in for a treat.
There’s a lot to be learnt from the way Warnock has spoken after matches in recent months.
When he first joined the club his tone, while not pessimistic, was brutally realistic. His warnings of a relegation fight were stark as he prepared the fans and the players for a long scrap to stay up.
As its turned out, Warnock rectified things quicker than perhaps even he could have imagined and the last few weeks have been filled with fanciful talk of an audacious run for the play-offs.
After those early matches Warnock would tell fans he was not a miracle worker and that things wouldn’t change overnight.
His repeated desire to strengthen in January underlined his belief that his squad wasn’t good enough to compete in the Championship week in, week out.
But fast forward to 2017 and Warnock now strikes an entirely different tone.
His praise for his side is plentiful and when he points out areas they can improve he is increasingly focusing on tactical minutiae. This shows just how far his side have come.
On Saturday Warnock was annoyed that Hoilett failed to take any of his early chances and that Kadeem Harris and Craig Noone took on shots when a pass was a better option.
These are small points for sure but ones that a manager with eyes on a promotion push is entitled to point out.
The draw with Fulham showed Warnock, Bluebirds fans and the players themselves just what they may achieve next season.
There were flaws in their play of course, they were too open at the back and are still susceptible to the counter attack, but the speed of their attacking play hints at the potential which could be unlocked in the final 12 games of this season as well as next years campaign.