Wandering Stars
WARNOCK’S CARDIFF GIVE WOLVES TOO MUCH ROOM TO ROAM
FED-UP Neil Warnock says his side will continue to look limp if they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
The Cardiff boss admitted: “The glass is half empty at the moment. We’re not scoring and and we’re conceding stupid goals. It’s not a great recipe.
“We keep shooting ourselves in the foot. It does look gloomy at the moment. We won’t win any games if we keep giving goals away.”
Warnock was furious Wolves’ Ryan Bennett didn’t get a second yellow card for a foul on Joe Bennett right on half-time but accepted that his men gifted this win to Wolves.
He added: “To be honest after 15 minutes I was stood there having never felt so comfortable.
“Then, bang, within two minutes we’re 2-0 down. It’s the same old story. We’re not giving ourselves a chance.
“To be honest the referee not sending Bennett off was gamechanging. How he didn’t get sent off having already been booked is beyond me.”
Cardiff started brightly enough giving Warnock good reason to think this could be a promising afternoon.
Wolves had key men like Ruben Neves, Matt Doherty, Joao Moutinho and Jonny on the bench and left out keeper Rui Patricio.
In fact, Cardiff could easily have taken the lead a few minutes into the game when Aron Gunnarsson went close with a volley from a Victor Camarasa corner.
John Ruddy had to block then drop on the ball to save it.
That seemed to serve as a warning to Wolves who picked up the pace from that point on and suddenly began carving massive inroads through the visitors’ defence. The pace of Diogo Jota and Adama Traore clearly unsettled Cardiff and they were floored by a double whammy when Wolves scored two goals in two minutes. The opener was a thing of beauty, the home side interchanging 16 slick passes to slice Cardiff open in the 16th minute. Once they got it towards the edge of the box Jota got involved with play switching between himself Willy Boly, Morgan Gibbs-white and then Raul Jimenez. The big Mexican striker laid it into the path of Jota who had time to control, before slamming the ball home. Within two minutes Sol Bamba’s personal nightmare started to unfold when he was caught on the ball allowing Jimenez to rob him.
Again, he found Jota with a dink towards the far post but this time the compliment was returned and when his sidekick squared the ball back to him, Jimenez made no mistake with a firm shot from eight yards – his 13th of the season.
Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo said: “We weren’t so good in the second half. I didn’t make changes as if to send out a message following the Huddersfield game.
“That’s not the way. We speak. We’re all aware of what happened against Huddersfield. But I tell them what I think there and then. It was nothing to do with that.”