Cardiff City 4-1 AFC Wimbledon
Battered in Cardiff: A Shrove Tuesday Confession
Shrove Tuesday. The day of confession.
The day of using up what you have before the long fast begins. And what better way to observe this most sacred of traditions than by travelling to the Welsh capital to watch your football club get absolutely flattened by the league leaders, our team, our squad depth spread like batter poured too thin onto a hot pan.
We arrived at the Cardiff City Stadium carrying the optimism of a draw at Barnsley and the naivety of a people who have learned nothing.
This result was payback. We beat them in the Nonsense Trophy earlier in the season and the Bluebirds have been marinating in that grudge like a rarebit sits under a grill. Slowly, resentfully, and with increasing heat.
They are top of the league. We are not top of the league. This result will not define our season. I am saying this calmly. I am fine. Pass the cinnamon sugar. Pass it directly into my eyes.
The Team
Johnnie Jackson named an unchanged XI for the third consecutive game, which felt brave.
In a squad not quite deep enough for relentless rotation, but with some good players still on the bench that is either admirable consistency or a lack of adaptability, depending on your mood and San Miguel intake.
The Match:
The Dons started like men who’d had banana pancakes for breakfast - full of inexplicable tropical energy.
Jack Johnson once sang
“Can’t you see that it’s just raining, there ain’t no need to go outside”
Jack, you’ve clearly never had an away allocation in Cardiff in February. It IS just raining. It is ALWAYS just raining. But we went outside anyway because we are Wimbledon and poor decisions are our love language.
Two minutes in, Callum Febcock saw an effort blocked before Myles Hippolyte fired wide. Another move saw Febcock blocked again. James Tilley and Ali Ali Smith both had efforts dealt with inside five minutes. We were bright. We were busy. We were a pancake that looked golden on one side and was about to be flipped to reveal absolute catastrophe on the other.
Cardiff’s first real chance came through Kellyman. Bishop saved well. The hosts were warming up. The rarebit was beginning to bubble.
And then, inevitably, the cheese melted.
A Cardiff corner Colwill unmarked. First-time strike. 1-0. Colwill nearly had a second minutes later but was ruled offside, which is the footballing equivalent of your second pancake looking better than the first but then you drop it on the floor and have to pretend it didn’t happen.
Former Dons keeper Nathan Trott (a Lent player in the spiritual and footballing sense) punched away our corners with the authority of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing.
But then. Seddon whips in a free-kick and Matty Stevens meets it with a side-footed volley. His first league goal since September.
Half-time. 1-1. The game was there for the taking, like a Welsh rarebit left unattended at a buffet. Welsh Rarebit, by the way, is just cheese on toast with ideas above its station. A perfect reflection of Cardiff City. By the way readers are advised this is a view not to be voiced in Cardiff city centre on a Saturday night for your own safety.
The second half started cagily. Ollie Tanner fired wide. And then another corner. Tanner’s delivery found Perry Ng at the near post. Header. 2-1.
Stevens nearly equalised immediately his effort across goal, past Trott, agonisingly wide. The width of a crepe. The width of a dream. The width of whatever separates us from competence at set pieces.
And then, a minute later, Ng turned provider and Tanner turned and buried it. 3-1. Game Over.
Three goals from set pieces and wide positions. We had been flipped, folded, and served with a garnish of defensive negligence and a side of whatever Jack Johnson is selling.
Kellyman sealed it late. 4-1. The full English. Except it’s Welsh. And nobody’s enjoying it.
Five minutes of added time came and went. We kept going til the end. We always do. It’s one of our most endearing and most infuriating traits. Like a man who keeps trying to make banana pancakes in a kitchen that is clearly on fire.
“Cause I love to lay here lazy
We could close the curtains
Pretend like there's no world outside”
Shut up, Jack. You don’t know what cold is.
Closing Thoughts
Crepe. That’s French for pancake AND the noise the travelling fans make when we concede from yet an another corner.
But…Cardiff are top of the league and they are better than us.
We’ve got Bradford at home on Saturday. We’ll dust off the flour, crack some new eggs, and try again.
WombleWorld
Dave Reddington has been working closely with the Plough Lane Aviation Group to ensure any bluebirds spotted within a three-mile radius of the team coach on the return journey are humanely destroyed via a spud gun provided by Terry Skiverton.