Opposition View: Cardiff City

Cardiff City surprised nearly everyone last season when, out of nowhere really, Neil Warnock secured yet another promotion to the Premier League for his collection with the unfancied Bluebirds.

Over at WeAreBrighton.com, we were delighted. Warnock has long been held in high esteem in these parts for his passion, talent and most of all, his ranting and raving at everything and anything. Cardiff has also been transformed into one of the best away days in the country since the move to the Cardiff City Stadium.

Before our first ever top flight meeting with Cardiff, we spoke to Paul Evans from Cardiff City Mauve and Yellow Army who told us how Vincent Tan has gone from villain to respected, his favourite memories of games against Brighton over the past six decades and most importantly of all, where to drink on Saturday given the city will be packed with rugby supporters as Wales take on Australia and the Principality Stadium.

Welcome back to the Premier League. Nobody seemed to have tipped Cardiff last season as being in the running for promotion. Did it come as a surprise to you and how did you finish above so many other big-spending teams?
Our results under Neil Warnock once he took over in 2016-17 were good enough for us to be play off challengers if carried over a full season, so I wasn’t too surprised to see some pundits picking us as top six dark horses for last season – I thought we could challenge, but, eventually, fail and finish somewhere around eighth. However, I figured without our great start which saw us turn in our best home display in our first game at Cardiff City Stadium when Aston Villa left grateful to their keeper Sam Johnstone for keeping the score down to 3-0 and we then beat Sheffield United 2-0 before completing a great week by deservedly winning 2-1 at Wolves. The whole club took tremendous heart from those games and, although we struggled to match the form shown then, we kept on winning until a run of four defeats over Christmas/New Year led to plenty of “I told you so” type comments. Seven straight wins during February and March more than made up for that dip in form though and you got a clue as to why we went up by the way we, just about, held off Fulham’s second half of the season charge – we had a great team spirit, were very resilient, terrible to play against and possessed a little bit more quality than we were given credit for.

It’s your first season in the top flight for four years. What have you noticed has changed in the time you’ve been away?
To be honest, I’ve been struck more by the difference between this season and last season than how it differs from 2013-14. I didn’t think it was a great Premier League last season with many of the team’s much of a muchness once you got beyond the “big six”. This time around the the current top five look even more stronger than the rest – they’ve all played eleven matches each and the only instance of one of them losing to one of the other fifteen so far came at Vicarage Road when Watford beat Spurs 2-1. There’s also a bit of a gap developing between the bottom six or seven and the rest which suggests that, unlike last season when as many as thirteen sides must have had real relegation concerns at one time or another, there might be a middle group which could spend their season trying to finish up in the top ten.

Warnock has obviously done a fantastic job at Cardiff. Do you think he should see out the season regardless or would you make a managerial change if there was someone out there you thought might do a better job?
It’s a tough one, but I’d think that, despite there being little evidence so far to contradict the widely held view that he cannot manage in the Premier League, Warnock will last the season if he wants to stay in the job. That said, as I’ve just mentioned on a City messageboard, it’s only one man’s opinion that really counts here and if Vincent Tan is getting a bit twitchy, then a second home defeat on successive Saturdays going into an international break at the start of a run of “easier” looking games we have up until the New Year does seem a good time to swing the axe if you’re that way inclined!

Speaking of Vincent Tan, he was portrayed as an unpopular owner when he first arrived with the decision to change the clubs kit to red. What do Cardiff fans make of him these days?
He’s certainly a lot more popular now than he was. Obviously, overseeing an unexpected promotion to the Premier League helps, but he is much more behind the scenes these days and he appears to understand better now just what the local football team means to a community. For myself, I was a big critic of his, but view him far more sympathetically now. Where I would have been critical of his caution in the transfer market over the summer, I find it harder to be now because he has been converting £7m of club debt into equity over the past couple of years, while our promotion appears to have given him the opportunity to follow through on a promise to make an additional one off conversion of £67m – it’s hard to get into full blown rant mood after something like that.

We had Joe Bennett on loan with us in the 2014-15 season and you’d have never said then he’d become a Premier League player. How has he got on at Cardiff?
I like Bennett, but I think there have been question marks about his defending for some of the goals we’ve let in lately. Warnock is old school in that, first and foremost, he wants no frills defending from his back four. I thought Greg Cunningham, signed from Preston in the summer and more of an out and out defender, would be first choice at left back, but Bennett has started in all but two of our Premier Leagues matches so far – while not setting the world on fire this season, Bennett hasn’t struggled as much as some stalwarts from last season have.

Who are your danger men that we should be wary of on Saturday?
If you mean “danger” in terms of a goalscoring threat, then you haven’t got a great deal to worry about! Warnock is, by his own admission, hopeless at buying strikers and so he just didn’t bother with getting one this summer! I’m not being serious there (I’m sure he tried to get one in) but we are in a position whereby Callum Paterson, signed as a full back from Hearts last year, has looked our most accomplished striker up to now – Kenneth Zohore, who you were linked with in the summer of 2017, has looked a potential Premier League striker at times during his stay with us, but has just not turned up yet this season and is currently our fourth choice for the striking role. So, I’d say the player who might damage you on Saturday could be Victor Camarasa,a talented midfield player on loan from Real Betis who has gone under the radar a bit since his arrival – failing that, Josh Murphy, our summer signing from Norwich, has shown that he can cause full backs problems at this level.

If you had to sign one player from Brighton, who would you take to the Cardiff City Stadium?
I’ve seen Glenn Murray play against Cardiff in the Football League stacks of times down the years and, probably because his goalscoring record against us isn’t great (famous last words!), have not been overly impressed, but, in view of my comments about strikers earlier, we couldn’t have do with him in our team. I’ve always rated Lewis Dunk as well and see Dale Stephens as something of an unsung hero. However, my choice would be Pascal Gross who I would have as a serious contender for Premier League signing of the season 2017-18.

There have been plenty of good tussles in the lower leagues between Brighton and Cardiff, particulrly when we both began rising from the bottom division at the same time. What are your fondest memories of facing Brighton?
You might remember those games from around twenty years ago with affection, but we rarely got the better of you in them, so I view them somewhat differently! I first saw City play Brighton in a third round FA Cup tie in 1971 which we won 1-0 – games I remember most against your team down the years include a 3-1 win at Ninian Park in 1979 when you were on the brink of your promotion to the old First Division, a bizarre 5-3 victory at the Goldstone in 1994 and the 4-1 win at Cardiff City Stadium in 2015-16 (I can remember reading a report from your local paper about that last match which called us “classy” – that must be the only time that word was used to describe us during the time Russell Slade was our manager!

Any tips for Albion supporters making the journey? Wales are playing Australia on the same day, how is that likely to effect the city centre for those of us wanting a beer?
You’d probably best avoid the city centre because rugby internationals tend to involve all day drinking by the egg chaser fans. You’d be best off heading into the Canton area (a mile or so from the station) where you’ll find a selection of pubs on Cowbridge Road within five to ten minutes walking distance from the ground – I would have advised steering clear of these a few years ago, but I’m sure you’ll have no problems now.

Finally, a prediction please?
I can’t see many goals being scored and, four against Fulham apart, our goalscoring problems have me thinking our best chance of a win is by 1-0, but that’s a problem when you consider we haven’t kept a clean sheet since August. Putting all of the other stuff from last Saturday to one side, Leicester did a good professional job of making us look like a relegation side last weekend and my fear is that you are capable of doing the same, sadly I think it might be another 1-0 loss for us.

Thanks to Paul for answering our questions and for his pub tips. If you like old-school football blogs, then please check out his site at Cardiff City Mauve and Yellow Army. And if Tony Bloom is reading this, we’d love a mauve and yellow kit at some point.