Annis Abraham : Never gave up a battling Cardiff City

My View/Opinion ” NEVER GAVE UP A BATTLING CARDIFF CITY BUT IT JUST WASN’T TO BE ”

But I was proud of them tonight  :thumbright:

Just lacking that little bit of quality in the finishing that was the difference.

Ipswich Town 3 Cardiff City 1

Crowd 17,722 (197 away fans)

TEAM NEWS : Marshall, Peltier, Malone, Ecuele Manga, Morrison, Whittingham, Gunnarsson, Fabio, Ralls, Doyle, Mason.

Subs: Moore, Adeyemi, O’Keefe, Kennedy, Harris, Noone, Pilkington.

Three players stood out for me tonight, Scott Malone, Joe Mason and I can’t believe I am saying this but Peter Whittingham also he was everywhere throughout the game and was superb in a high tempo game.

Game started off even for the first 5 mins but in 7th minute our defence went missing and Bruno Manga in particular was at fault for Ipswich to open the scoring. 1-0 Ipswich.  :o  :(

In the 12th minute a great cross in from Scott Malone was met by Eoin Doyle who equalised for City, our fans went mental. 1-1  :thumbright:

The goal completely silenced the Ipswich crowd.  :thumbup:

For the next ten minutes City held their own and the home crowd were starting to turn on their players.

Doyle and Mason were working hard up front and causing Ipswich problems.  :thumbright:

Then after a few minutes of Ipswich pressure another mistake by Bruno Manga, who failed to clear the ball properly from the edge of the box, left Skuse to shoot from 25 yards and fire a thunderbolt past Marshall in the 29th minute to give Ipswich a 2-1 lead.  :(

Just a minute later and a Whittingham free kick saw the ball in the Ipswich net but was disallowed.

For the first 40 mins Manga was having a shocker, not anywhere near his usual standards.

In the 41st minute Mason put an excellent ball across the box but three City players missed the chance for an easy tap in.

3 mins injury time for the first half.

Another Manga mistake lead to a late corner deep into injury time, Whittingham cleared the corner.  :o

I was impressed by City in the first half and they really gave Ipswich a run for their money  :thumbright: the main difference between the sides I would say is that Ipswich were a bit sharper and more clinical up front than us.

The second half started and again City took the game to Ipswich and were looking to go on the attack, the game settled down and it was again even Stevens but in the 60th min there was a scuffle involving many players from both sides, Fabio reacted badly to a challenge and got booked along with an Ipswich player, Slade in fairness made the right decision and substituted Fabio for Noone, the home crowd were furious with the ref as they believed that Fabio should have been sent off.

73rd min Pilkington replaced Joe Ralls.

83rd min and Gunnarsson missed a sitter.  :o

84th min Kadeem Harris on for Eoin Doyle.

Manga never improved in the second half and had his worst game for city.

93rd minute and City concede a third goal but we didn’t deserve to lose 3-1  :(

All the players came over at the end of the game and most of the players gave their shirts away to the fans  :thumbup:  :bluescarf:

Just got back in the car for the long journey home to South Wales.

Fair play to the 197 hardy souls who made this 10 hour round trip on a Tuesday Night,tonight reminded me of the good old days with just virtually the hardcore City fans travelling away.

My Man of the Match Peter Whittingham  :thumbup:

Next up Millwall at home this Saturday  :thumbright: