WONDER GOAL SINKS BLUEBIRDS
CARDIFF City suffered their first slip-up in this mini playoff run-in after an Adam Armstrong wonder-goal consigned them to a 3-2 defeat by Blackburn Rovers.
It was an end-to-end match, packed with action and goals and could quite easily have been 10-10 by the time we had finished.
It was a match between two teams scrapping for their place in the playoffs, with goals from Will Vaulks and Robert Glatzel twice giving City the lead. But strikes from Danny Graham, Dominic Samuel and, of course, Armstrong, gave Rovers the win. Heading into this one, Neil Harris predicted that Blackburn were here to play some football and they certainly did that.
With Tony Mowbray’s bellowing voice echoing around an empty Cardiff City Stadium, Rovers were encouraged to attack at will from the get-go.
Indeed, it was the visitors who had the first big chance of the match when, after just 11 minutes, Armstrong broke down the left and fizzed a ball across goal to find Ryan Nyambe just yards from goal at the back post, but he blazed his chance, somewhat inexplicably, over the bar.
That gave the Bluebirds the shot in the arm they needed.
They broke almost immediately down the other end and Vaulks’ beautiful, arcing run beat the Rovers offside trap, allowing Joe Ralls to lob a lovely pass into his stride.
Christian Walton was caught in no-man’s land and Vaulks, on the corner of the box, took one look and sweetly struck the ball on the halfvolley, sending it sailing over the goalkeeper’s head and cannoning into the crossbar before crossing the line. What a strike.
But Rovers’ constant attacking threat never wavered.
Sean Morrison and Curtis Nelson were called into action on more than one occasion to head clear dangerous crosses. But it was the set piece which ultimately undid City.
Some poor defending allowed Darragh Lenihan a free run from the corner as he sent a thunderbolt diving header into the post, before it ricocheted back into Alex Smithies and then into the path of Graham, who couldn’t believe his luck as he stroked home from two yards out.
If they didn’t know it already, the Bluebirds were in a streetfight. Rovers had nothing to lose and were throwing everything at Cardiff.
Just before the break, though, the hosts’ quality in attack told.
Josh Murphy did well to slip a blind pass through to the overlapping Joe Bennett, who whipped a pinpoint cross across Walton’s goal to the in-form Glatzel, who tapped home to restore the lead.
It was an utterly breathless first half, all told, and if we thought we would get some respite after the break, we were mistaken.
Rovers broke immediately into the Cardiff box, where Curtis Nelson scythed down Dominic Samuel, but Matt Donohue waved away the penalty appeals.
Samuel would have the last laugh, though, when he was found with another pinpoint Armstrong cross before tapping home from pointblank range to regain parity for a second time.
And it was actually the visitors who looked the more likely then to go on and wrestle the lead away from City. On the hour, Lewis Travis took a magnificent first touch to set himself free in the Bluebirds’ half before bending a lovely ball into the path of Samuel, who tried to hammer it across goal into the bottom corner, but Smithies made himself big to deny a certain goal.
But then came a moment of brain
lessness from City and magic from Rovers.
Leandro Bacuna hit an awful pass across the middle of the park, seemingly with no intended target, and Armstrong seized the opportunity.
The winger sprinted towards the ball and tried his luck from 40 yards. He caught it sweetly and it dipped over the despairing Smithies in the Cardiff net to hand Rovers the lead.
Harris rang the changes, including introducing both Danny Ward and Lee Tomlin, but to no avail. They couldn’t summon the magic as they did at Bristol City last weekend.
The Bluebirds have finished games strongly of late, but they laboured towards the finishing line a little in this one.
It’s the first blip, it was always going to come, but, still occupying a play-off spot, they will hope for a strong bounce back against Fulham this Friday in that all-important clash at Craven Cottage.
Teams –
Cardiff City XI (4-2-3-1): Smithies;
Blackburn Rovers XI (4-33): Walton; Nyambe, Lenihan, Adarabioyo, Rankin-Costello (Bennett 69); Travis, Johnson, Downing; Samuel (Holtby 87), Graham (Rothwell 76), Armstrong (Gallagher 87). Subs: Leutwiler, Davenport, Buckley, Carter, Mulgrew.