Town v Bluebirds


Just down the road from Leeds Road Playing Fields
Under the Prima Donna League Floodlights
Near the big Gasometer
and the indoor ski slope we haven't built yet
HD1 - all subject to past and future planning permission
Kick-off 19:45 UK Time
Friday 05/03/2021

On the tellybox
All over the place, including iPlayer. Find it on your favourite over-priced football provider where ever you are on the globe right here.

Uncle Rupert's successors have succeeded in successfully securing the move of this second successive home game to the Friday night footy slot. Whether or not Town can succinctly secure 3 points against an opponent who are enjoying a succession of unbeaten games as opposed to our side who have succumbed to far too many defeats this year, is open to a mass debate, generally on bigger forums with hundreds more mass debaters on them than ours. Town fans everywhere round the globe will be able to savour the delights of our, so far, unsuccessful, sad sack side as they bid to save the season before it completely succ's.  
(Sucks, surely? - Ed).



Did you know succotash is actually a veggie meal?
Yup, one of those corn and beanz-meanz-fartz jobs without the tomato sauce, though you can add tomatoes if you wish, apparently.
Well why not? It might be rude not to.


If you fancy a go
https://cookieandkate.com/succotash-recipe/

Brilliant with a medium rare lump of cows ass, juicy lamb chops, a nice bit of fish, king prawns or a couple of lobster tails on top.
My kind of veggie meal

Latest news
This will be Mick McCarthy 1000th game as Manager/Head Coach.
I'd like to think we'd give him a game to remember for all the wrong reasons, but 'hmmmmmm' I have my doubts.  

It's just over a year since I did this fixture last season. Hmmm, maybe I should have checked before I put my hand up.
Better find summat new to say then. Don't want the Bluebirds all over a copy and paste joker.

Out Injured/Suspended
Town currently have 10 players on the treatment table.
Two of them are swapping sicknotes if not sharing the same one (Ward and Pritchard - hell it's his quad now instead of his knee).
Anything to pick up a wage but avoid playing.
These two get injured just sitting on the subs bench, or putting their kit on to sit on the subs bench.
The others -
Eiting, won't be back to finish his loan this season (if at all) in my opinion,
Aarons, next month earliest,
Elphick, only just back in training/playing practise matches, might play a couple of games near the end of the season,
Grant (no, not Karlan) - hmmm, whenever he can step up to training to at least once per day rather than once or twice per week he might get considered.
Keep eating the stew lad,
Hogg, should be back soon. Whenever it is, it won't be soon enough,
Koroma, might be back late April, don't hold your breath on that one,
Schindler, after much needless fannying around, our physio's and doc finally decided he was injured after all.
The operation he's finally had may mean we don't see him in a Town shirt again with his contract running out and there seemingly being no rush to renew it. A shame if it's true.
Toffolo, might be back with the Easter bunny to carry more than his fare share of weight again, and do his back in again.

Back training but not oven ready/back in the frame
Elphick clearly won't be available. Jaden Brown is back after suspension. Hogg, Ward and Pritchard back to full training next week.
So that's Ward/Pritchard back on the treatment table by next Friday then.

The Er, I hope this is a typo, otherwise no it's not normal award - Nomination of the week  
From the Unexamined live presser reporting
CC on Fraizer Campbell
"He's showing an unbelievable skill to play so many games in a row. That is not usual for his age.
The level of effort he is showing, as our GPS results show, is not normal for someone his age.
He runs more than 1,000km at high intensity every two or three days.
I guarantee that is not usual.

So that's ~20 marathons every two or three days, at high intensity. No wonder he's knackered when he plays for us.

They've since edited this to remove the silly numbers altogether.

Last time out
We came joint first, or joint second depending on your point of view, with the 5th (I think) successive (don't start that again) 1-1 League draw at home to Brum.


Cardiff returned to winning ways with a 4-0 thumping of Direby (says it all really) with only around 30% possession.




Table


Form

Dour Barnsalee lad Mick McCarthy was brought in in January on a contract to the end of the season to end the dour football and the dour results Cardiff fans were (not really) enjoying and spread his own version of misery around Cardiff Bay.
Whatever version of misery that is, the Cardiff players seem to have bought into it.

We'd just lost to Millwall at home, Cardiff had just lost to QPR at home. We've won one once since, they haven't lost since. They've drawn 3 (including the first two, one against Barnsalee) and won 8, gone from 14th to 8th and two points off the play-offs in the same period that we've gone from having a similar dying sniff at the play-offs to a good chance of playing Coventry to stay up at the end of the season. Barnsalee haven't been too shabby in the same period either.

Championship table before Mercurial Mick took over at Cardiff.


Homework
Compare and contrast this table with the current table above.
Homework to be handed in for marking before kick-off Friday night.  







We've been 'ere afore
Picking up on Wakey's comment on the last match thread ...
“After the first 10 games, at no point during the rest of the season are we looking over our shoulder nervously. And instil your philosophy.”
Phil Hodgson interview with Radio Local in October 2020. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08w8h2s



So, other than that one season when everything clicked, what's all the fuss about?  
We're always in these 'ere parts at this time of the season. We'll be reet, we allus are.  

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" - as they say in France.

Innies and Outies
Top spends were on the £1.17m loan fee for Harry Wilson from Liverpool and £2m (less a bit of loose change) for Kieffer Moore from Wiggin.


Who's banging 'em in
If bringing those two in doesn't seem to count as an astute bit of business, then I don't know what does.
Though it's mostly clicked since Mercurial Mick came along and waved his magic wand.


Local music
Apart from everyone in Wales that wears a red shirt and sticks a daff in their ear and thinks they can sing (as long as they are in the Millennium Stadium with a few thousand of their egg chasing mates) here's a few that can, in no particular order.

Cerys Matthews


Blue Weaver, who played keyboard on a helluva lot of albums for a helluva lot of bands but replaced some up and coming keyboard wizard called Rick Wakeman (what ever happened to him?) in a band called The Strawbs.


From a little town in "the valleys" just north of Cardiff called Blackwood, a set of Manic Street Preachers


and Dave Edmunds again because I like him   and this song for some reason  


They can't all lose


We've played 'em before
Not so much head2head as head3head. We've a habit of conceding in 3's to Cardiff.
Can see it happening again for some reason.  


Next up?
QPR away 13th March

Pressers
Careless on #HTTV - Radio Local seem to have lost their cassette tape recording, or the will to put it on their website.

https://youtu.be/0mjLBUEoABU (I've used up my YouTube quota)


The bits that Town translated
https://www.htafc.com/news/2021/march/carlos-previews-cardiff-clash/

The bits that The Unexamined translated, and then corrected, including Ryan Schofield standing up to criticism and admitting, he was on the other side of the keyboard once.
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/football/news/huddersfield-town-corberan-cardiff-city-19962949

Schofield on Radio Local (they finally worked out how to upload it)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p098qdm8

The view from the other side of the Severn Bridge(s)

Cardiff City have confirmed that defender Joe Bennett has sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
The left-back went down in a heap in the 4-0 win over Derby County on Tuesday night.
Turning in the middle of the pitch just before half-time, Bennett let out an audible shriek which alerted players and staff to the seriousness of the injury.
Play was stopped for six minutes, with Bennett eventually stretched off in obvious discomfort.

Sounds very similar to Schindy and Koroma's modus operandi of getting injured.

MM in Wales Online
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/just-enjoy-it-mick-mccarthy-19961282

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/40-wonderful-days-mick-mccarthy-19953380

If he gets round to saying owt important, OP is now closed, too late Mick.