Ramsey, plus youngsters, helps rescue a point.
An injury hit Cardiff City side snatched a draw at the death against visitors Bristol City this lunchtime, the outcome was only half decent in the position they’re in, but drawn games always seem more satisfying when you’re the team that equalises late on.
The wurzels, who would have gone into the top six with a win, led for around half an hour and seemed to be on their way to three points for a victory similar to the one we managed at Ashton Gate when a single goal from a set piece decided a tight, even, derby.
There was a surprise before kick off when the City side was announced. Sadly, Joe Ralls missing a game after playing twice in four days no longer comes as a shock, but Calum Chambers’ unavailability did and it meant that City weren’t far short of being down to the bare bones in midfield as Andy Rinomhota became one of two sitting midfielders alongside Sivert Mannsverk, while Ruben Colwell was used further forward. The recall of Perry Ng was predictable in the circumstances, less so was the inclusion of Joel Bagan at centreback alongside Dimi Goutas – Callum O’Dowda was left back.
The talking point up front was the inclusion of Will Alvez on the left for his first start and Anwar El-Ghazi was on the right behind Callum Robinson as Cian Ashford dropped to the bench.
The first thing to say about the game is that it was an improvement on Portsmouth, but I’d be lying if I said I believed that upturn in form meant we should have gained all three points – the BBC’s post match stats had us winning the goal attempts contest 13-11 and the on target attempts one 6-4, so we shaded those competitions and I’d say we did the same in the main event, but not to the extent that we should have won.
Those figures are suggestive of a contest that provided a decent level of entertainment and it’s fair to say that it did in the end, but almost all of the worthwhile action came after the break – the first period was the usual turgid fare for the opening forty fiver minutes of a Cardiff home match these days with the talking points limited to a number that you could count on the fingers of one hand.
There was a promising early raid down the left by City which ended with an O’Dowda shot that keeper Max O’Leary hung on to easily and a clever, quick free kick by Bagan presented El-Ghazi with the chance to work himself a shooting position twenty five yards out, the shot when it came was powerful and well struck, but straight at O’Leary.
For most of the half, the visitors were even more shot shy than City, but Mark Sykes brought Jak Alnwick into action with another shot that required a routine save and, with City getting more sloppy as the half wore on, there was a feeling that the wurzels were taking a degree of control.
Overall though it was cautious stuff as the two sides cancelled each other out despite using different formations as our usual 4-2-3-1 was faced by a 3-4-3.
Frankly, it seemed like a match between two teams more interested in not losing, rather than trying to win which was pretty disappointing as they both had big incentives for chasing the win.
It was still a bit of a shock to see Bristol manager Liam Manning making a couple of half time changes as Sam Bell and Yu Hirakawa were introduced for Scott Twine and Mark Sykes. The substitutions saw Bristol match us with a 4-2-3-1 and you may have thought it would add to the sense of stalemate, but, instead, it opened the game up.
The early stages suggested that the tactical changes would work to the visitor’s disadvantage as City tried to emulate the Swansea derby win with a strong ten minutes after half time. O’Leary had to make a save, albeit another easy one, from Robinson shortly after the restart and there were encouraging signs down the left as O’Dowda and Alvez combined well to engineer a couple of crosses to El Ghazi which could, and maybe should, have provided goals – the first one, from Mannsverk, was nodded over from close range by the Dutch international, but he did better with the second one as his header dropped towards Robinson only for our top scorer to volley wide from ten yards.
Although the play was now generally towards the Canton End City were attacking, it was Alnwick who had to make the best save of the game as Hirikawa cut in and tried to beat him on the near post only for the keeper to get down quickly to turn it aside.
