NO SILVA LINING FOR THE BLUEBIRDS
CARDIFF City suffered their second loss in four days after Tiago Silva’s goal consigned the Bluebirds to defeat against Nottingham Forest.
It represents the latest blow to the Bluebirds’ play-off hopes as they drift further away from those top-six places.
It was only Cardiff’s second league loss at home all season, but it felt like a significant one. With little creativity and no end product, Sabri Lamouchi’s side were good value for their victory at Cardiff City Stadium.
The visitors started the better of the two sides on the night. The first real, clear-cut chance of the evening fell to Sammy Ameobi, but the Forest winger lashed his effort from 20 yards into the side-netting.
It represented something of a wake-up call for the Bluebirds and they began, slowly, to piece together some nice phases of play.
Young Dion Sanderson, making his debut at right-back, grew into the game a little more and enjoyed some lovely link-up play with Junior Hoilett down City’s right-hand side.
A number of crosses from Cardiff just couldn’t breach the Forest defence, though, and goalkeeper Brice Samba was dealing comfortably with everything the hosts had to throw at him.
The visitors then broke well down Cardiff’s left, which allowed Joe Lolley to square a vicious ball across the box with which he found Lewis Grabban, unmarked and 10 yards out.
The striker, however, spurned his opportunity when he dragged his shot agonisingly wide.
Forest were arguably the better of the two teams in the first half, but both sides’ play was littered with inaccuracies and poor end product.
But the half ended in controversy when some lovely link-up play from Cardiff saw Robert Glatzel cleverly release Josh Murphy in the box.
The winger took a touch and was hauled down by Matty Cash before home players screamed at referee Stephen Martin for a penalty.
On first glance, it looked a good shout, but the referee waved it away before subsequently bringing an end to the first half.
To surmise, it wasn’t a glowing advert for Championship football.
But Forest did everything they could to ensure that wasn’t the case in the second half and started like a train after the break.
Murphy lost the ball for Cardiff high up the pitch and Forest broke with electric speed as Grabban was fed out on the right-hand side.
His fizzed cross found Silva in the box and the midfielder tucked home cutely from 12 yards out to hand the visitors the lead.
Cardiff huffed and puffed as they tried to find the equaliser, but no goal was forthcoming.
It was, in fact, Forest who benefited when the game began to break up.
There was even a small flashpoint when Murphy was brought off with 20 minutes to go, with City fans appearing to cheer his substitution as he made way for Danny Ward.
And that about summed up the Bluebirds’ night.
In the 78th minute, Forest broke through some pretty route-one play before Grabban found Alfa Semedo bursting towards the box. The forward found his team-mate and Semedo rounded Curtis Nelson before appearing almost certain to double the visitors’ lead.
But the back-tracking Joe Bennett slid just in the nick of time to block the shot and offer home fans a morsel of hope that their side could still come back.
And that hope was boosted by the introduction of Joe Ralls, who was arguably City’s greatest attacking threat, despite coming on with just 10 minutes to go.
He sent a brilliant ball over the top for Ward, who did well to hold it up and lay off to Glatzel, but the German’s bending effort from 20 yards was parried well by Samba once again.
And with that, City’s hopes were dashed.
The game meandered to what was, in truth, a fair result.
Manager Neil Harris said last week was the biggest of his Bluebirds tenure thus far and his side churned out a near-perfect week.
This week was even bigger. And