I have to say from the off that I think Cardiff will be down there in the relegation mix come the end of the season.
Why?
Because they’re poor and in my opinion should never be classed in the same league as us.
I don’t dislike them and indeed have nothing against them, but they just shouldn’t be anywhere near on a par with us.
They shouldn’t even be in the English league, but that makes me sound a bit racist, which I’m really not.
I do dislike their owner though and my best estimation of him is that he’s a tool of the highest order.
But that’s by the by.
I’m not here to talk about the opposition.
That said, I feel that it sets a background to what I was expecting today.
For me, nothing other than a win would have been good enough.
The simple fact is we got that win, which makes our position in the table look quite a bit better.
It was a poor first half though, wasn’t it?
Benteke looked sharp and we seemed to be playing a bit wider than we have done of late, which had me thinking that Lambert had done his homework about Cardiff’s wing play.
Tonev did well on the left and dare I say it? Kozak looked better too.
I got the impression that if you give him the proper sort of service, he might actually have something about him, which is contrary to what I’ve seen up to now.
I thought we looked quite bright from the off, but the first half got worse as it went on for me and both sides were very, very average.
The half time possession stats of Villa 40% and Cardiff 60% disappointed me, but didn’t surprise me.
Anyway, I thought we looked a bit better in the second half, but already had another “no goals” type headline in my head for this article.
But then Nedel took out El Ahmedi and conceded a free kick.
What a stormer it was from Bacuna.
Marshall never had a clue and in it went.
Did we deserve it?
On balance, yes, just about, I suppose.
Cardiff then went on the offensive, bringing on another striker and it proved to be at their cost as Kozak scored a somewhat scrappy header to make it 2-0.
The defence looked decent, although not totally convincing, but light years above what we saw last season.
As for Frazer Campbell being pacey, did anyone else notice how Bacuna murdered him when tracking back a couple of minutes before the end?
The final possession statistics were Villa 44% and Cardiff 56%.
That’s disappointing against such poor opposition at home in my opinion.
Still, I’m not taking anything away from anyone.
We play to win and that’s exactly what we did.
So happy days, I guess.
Next up?
A poxy international break.
The only question for me is why do we have to do these friendlies?
