A wing and a prayer... Bluebirds wide boys need to rekindle form

ALTHOUGH the way Cardiff City played in the last 15 minutes against Sheffield Wednesday deserved a goal and a point, I still think they got out of jail to an extent.

A last-minute goal is always a bit lucky, but I don’t think Wednesday were a huge threat around the 18-yard box.

They were impressive in midfield though, the visitors. It was really enjoyable to watch, the rotation of their midfielders and the way their system seemed to cause Cardiff problems.

It was interesting to me that some Cardiff players didn’t seem to know how to counter Wednesday’s style of play. But you learn more lessons from games like that than you do from an easy win.

The issue was that Adam Reach and Kieran Lee were making diagonal runs from their wings without ever receiving the ball. It was dragging people like Lee Peltier and Joe Bennett needlessly out of position, as Reach and Lee ran across the central defenders, meaning Nathaniel Mendez-Laing found himself at right-back to cover.

Equally, Joe Ralls and Craig Bryson were caught in between a rock and a hard place – do I press the ball or do I hold my position? Make no mistake, Barry Bannan ran the show and I wouldn’t expect to see a midfield dominate like that in Cardiff’s backyard very often.

Cardiff didn’t particularly cope well, but they did manage to push their defensive line up to squeeze the game by 10 or 15 yards in the second half. In the end, Neil Warnock will have been delighted to get an excellent point.

It was an intriguing contest and I’m sure Warnock will have been busy on the training ground this week solving some of those problems. Because I would be disappointed to see that happen again. THERE is a saying that you don’t want to look like a busy fool, but I’m afraid that is how Bryson came across on his first Cardiff start. He was chasing the ball relentlessly and couldn’t get close to Bannan.

Having said that, I would probably leave the team largely untouched and give Bryson another go against Sunderland. I would like to see him in a game that Cardiff dominate. I have a suspicion they might do that against a vulnerable Sunderland side.

You win, lose or draw as a collective, so there’s no need for big changes or to single anyone out for blame at this stage.

There is, however, a need for Cardiff to get their wingers firing again, like we saw early in the season.

Cardiff’s wingers should have stayed higher against