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Bleary-Eyed Statto is back. Wahey! After a year and a half away, total dedication to all things Cardiff City resumes for the 2009/10 season, offering notes and stats on City matches and maneuverings, along with reports on and reactions to City goings-on from the message board and chat room at Cardiff City Online and from the mailing list, still the world's best. To join the list, type "cardiffcity" in the search box at groups.yahoo.com) and go from there.
THIS WEEK'S ENTRIES. For the latest bleary-eyed entries, scroll down just a bit.
TWITTER. You can follow our pointless ramblings on Twitter as well. That link's right HERE.
ARCHIVES. Click HERE for the archives to this site, which include well over 600 entries as well as links to roughly 130 web sites. For coverage of the latter stages of City's 2003-04 campaign, visit Bleary-Eyed Statto 2, which soared up, briefly, to take over for this site toward the end of that season.
SCHEDULES. Cardiff City's schedule for the rest of the calendar year looks like this:
Sat., Nov. 7 - Swansea City (A) 12:45pm
Sat., Nov. 21 - Barnsley (A) 3:00pm
Sun., Nov. 29 - Ipswich Town (H) 3:00pm
Sat., Dec. 5 - Preston North End (H) 3:00pm
Tues., Dec. 8 - West Bromwich Albion (A) 7:45pm
Sun., Dec. 13 - Middlesbrough (A) 1:15pm
Sat., Dec. 19 - Leicester City (H) 3:00pm
Sat., Dec. 26 - Plymouth Argyle (H) 1:00pm
Mon., Dec. 28 - Peterborough United (A) 3:00pm
For the full fixture list beginning with the August 8 opener v Scunthorpe United, go HERE.
ONE MORE NOTE. A bit of background. During the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons, this weblog hit its peak, offering daily coverage of Cardiff City FC, easily the greatest football club the world has ever known. We're talking about the winners of the 1927 FA Cup, and the only club to take the FA Cup out of England.
Coverage has been spotty at best of late. Full coverage from July 2001 to August 2003. Then a dip in form for the 2003-04 campaign and only a handful of entries for 2004-05. Followed by nothing at all for 2005-06 or 2006-07. Day-to-day coverage for the better part of 2007-08, then nothing for 2008-09. Can we be trusted, then, this time around? One can only hope.
Mailing List Reactions to City's First Home Loss of the Season
Monday, September 14, 2009
Cardiff City Mailing List members wasted little time weighing in with their thoughts on yesterday's 1-0 loss to Newcastle, the club's first setback at their new stadium. Within a hour of the final whistle, verdicts came pouring in on City's performance. Here is a sampling of supporters' reactions to the defeat:
* Scott Thomas claimed that by no means was Michael Chopra the problem; rather it was "Quinn, Hudson, Quinn, Gerrard, Quinn, Ledley, Quinn and Quinn. They were hopeless." He added, "Oh, Jones too. No change of shape and one change in personnel in a game where we were being crowded out of midfield from the off and had one teenage striker on his second start for the entire back four to deal with."
* David Abse wrote, "I've seen Quinn twice now, and he's been lousy both games. Comminges would be better, no?" He added, "I thought Gerard looked poor today also, and Hudson not much better. Ledley clearly was having a poor game too - as well as Whittingham." Still, Mr. Abse claimed, "i didn't think we deserved to lose. We should have had a penalty, and Smith was lucky to stay on for as long has he did. He is such a dirty player - always leaves his boot in where it isn't necessary, elbows always up. Just horrible."
* Marc Thomas noted, "Newcastle were just better than us and better organised. Disrupted us so that we
couldn't settle on the ball and were harder working in defence and in the midfield. How many free kicks were charged/hit straight into the wall?"
* Michael Morris had this to say: "we should have ripped into them today and we tippy tapped and pussyfooted around and they were strong enough to keep us at bay. a disappointing effort against a team i think we could have beaten if we'd shown some more ambition."
* Summing things up, Scott Thomas observed that
"the balls never got delivered up front well enough because Newcastle were very well organised with that 4-2-3-1 that a lot of top flight teams also favour." He added, "We were choked out of the game in midfield and our only response was an individual one from Chopra to try and come deep to even out the numbers in the middle third."
City Fall to Newcastle 1-0, Remain 8th
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Newcastle United ruined Cardiff City's perfect record at Cardiff City Stadium today, beating the Bluebirds 1-0 before a crowd of 25,630. Fabricio Coloccini's header in the 18th minute of play was the difference as the Magpies moved to the top of the division table with the win. City remain in 8th place. The Bluebirds best chance at a goal came in the 82nd minute, when a Michael Chopra shot appeared to strike the hand of a Newcastle defender Steven Taylor, but referee Andy Hall declined to give the penalty. The Magpies had a nervy moment or two as well after Alan Smith was sent off in the 90th minute.
City had no less than 16 attempts on goal to two for Newcastle. In the attempts-on-target department, City had 14 to two for Newcastle. Despite these advantages, "the Bluebirds found it difficult to unlock a solid Magpies defence," as noted in the BBC Sport report on the match. In "Newcastle United Just Too Class for Battling Cardiff City," his report for the South Wales Echo, Terry Phillips observes that "Newcastle certainly didn’t blow the Bluebirds away with free-flowing, passing football, but they were superbly organised and kept City at bay thanks to their know-how, experience, quality and sheer defiance."
In "Chris Hughton Continues to Inspire Newcastle with Win Over Cardiff," his report for the Guardian, Spencer Vignes claims that City "Cardiff probably deserved a point, United taking it far too easy after the break and almost paying the price during a tense finale." Still, as James Corrigan notes in his report for the Independent, "as much possession as Cardiff commanded, the opportunities were scant.
Russell Kempson's report for the Times Online, "Coloccini Heads Up New-look Grafters," notes that "Cardiff huffed, puffed and could find no way through." The Telegraph's report, by Jed Pitman, has it that City "looked in awe of their opponents."
Bleary-Eyed Navigation
You can get to the top of Bleary-Eyed Statto's front page by clicking here.
To get to the previous week's entries (September 6 to September 12), go here. For the next week's (September 20 to September 26), go here.
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