This wasn’t among our best performances of the season but we did enough and deserved our win. With Coventry and Watford drawing, we’re up to tenth spot and are only four points behind Blackburn in the play-off zone.
BEFORE
I couldn't remember the home game against Cardiff and had to look up my report. We lost 1-0 back in early November and it was one of our worst displays of the season so no wonder I’d buried it. After Friday's mad game I think we'll see a lot fewer goals today but I fancy us to get a result. I was impressed by Hull when they went forward but we can't allow Cardiff to carve through our midfield like Hull did. Cardiff are just one point above a relegation spot so they'll no doubt be battling like hell. I haven't heard anything about injuries over the weekend so I expect our starting eleven to be pretty much as it was on Friday, though there might be a bit of squad rotation to allow one or two players to rest. I'll be enjoying the game with my Sunderland bubble and my match prediction is a 2-1 win for us.
I got to our rendezvous point just in time to hear Blackburn get a late equaliser against Huddersfield but a draw was still a pretty good result from our point of view, as long as we got a win. My bubblers’ match predictions were: 3-1, 3-1, 2-1 to us and 2-2. As for the team-news, there was plenty of it with Ba, Ekwah, Pritchard and Cirkin starting in place of Michut, Roberts, Gelhardt and O’Nien. O’Nien was presumably injured as he wasn’t on the bench. Ba was playing as our front man in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Connor Wickham was starting for them and I wished that he wasn’t.
THE MATCH
We won a couple of free-kicks in good positions in the opening minutes but nothing came of them. We had the best of the attacking play in the first ten minutes but neither side mustered a shot on target. I could feel a goal coming as we continued to press and we won the first corner in the fifteenth minute and there was a burst of nutty-footy till it was finally cleared. Next thing Ekwah was set up for a shot on goal but he slammed it high and wide before clutching his head in anguish. A minute later the nicely-named Philogene hit an even more off-target effort for them so it was 1-1 on crap finishes. Our final passes and occasional shots continued to be well off target and then Cardiff got their first corner just after the midway point. They took it short and we got it away. Not long after that Ba had our first shot on target, though it was a pretty weak effort. We were allowing Romeo far too much room down their right and I feared we’d pay the penalty if we didn’t redress that.
Just before the half-hour mark Ekwah set up a great chance for Amad in their box but he couldn’t control it and it bounced away for a goal-kick. We then won two corners in a row from the second of which Batth headed over. The bulk of the play continued to be around the Cardiff box and they were defending in depth as we kept probing for an opening. Cardiff made two substitutions, taking off Ojo and Philogene, as half-time approached so they were clearly rattled. Then we had the ball in their net but it was ruled out for offside, though it was surely only a matter of time before we scored. Cardiff had a good chance themselves but Patterson was there to save a close-range header on the line. As the final minutes of the half ticked away Cardiff had their best period so far and I wasn’t sorry to hear only one minute of stoppage-time announced. It remained goalless at the break and we’d dominated the game without scoring so I hoped we wouldn’t live to regret that.
As we kicked off again a 1-0 win for us was looking a more realistic final result. Cardiff had made a further change, taking off Wickham who’d been ineffective, but we weren’t expecting Roberts, Gelhardt and whoever on till around the hour-mark. Early on Patto was forced into a diving save from new sub Etete and Cardiff had certainly fought their way back into the game. We battled back ourselves and enjoyed a good spell but our passing remained erratic. I still fancied us to get one soon as something had to give. Just before the hour-mark we were awarded a free-kick near the left angle of their box and I tried to remember the last time we scored directly from one and couldn’t recall but when Pritchard took the kick, Allsop in goal could only parry it off the post and Cirkin smashed it home from very close range to put us into the lead. A few minutes later Neil was set up for a shot in a great position by Amad but he blasted well over, think he had three shots from the edge of the area, none of them troubled the keeper. Having got that opener I reckoned we could go on to get one or two more.
With twenty minutes on the clock we’d still made no changes but soon Roberts and Michut came on for Ekwah and Ba. Cardiff were certainly going for it and Kipre was going for it a bit too much when he made a bad foul on Clarke and received the first yellow of the afternoon. Etete soon kept him company for a foul on Gooch. Elsewhere Coventry got an equaliser against Watford to make it 2-2 and that was good for us, With eleven minutes to go Gelhardt replaced Pritchard and he was immediately in the thick of things as he had a shot blocked. The time was ticking away quickly but there was bound to be a fair bit of stoppage-time with all those subs. Cardiff were doing most of the pressing as we entered the final few minutes but so far we were defending solidly. We won a free-kick near the right corner-flag as we passed into four minutes of stoppage-time and this immediately led to another in an even better position. The final act of the game was a Patto goal-kick and the whistle went to much rejoicing.
