Carl Curtis : There is hope but one or two not up to speed

Cardiff City 1-1 Fulham

Attendance 15,429

When I read the team sheet the only surprise for me was the inclusion of Alex Revell, I thought out of Doyle, Ameobi and Revell, the former Rotherham was the least likely to grab a starting place.

City started brightly and in particular Scott Malone, the full back who I have been very critical of since his arrival, as the game went on Malone was having a solid game defensively but he was very much joining in our attacks.

For the first 10 minutes City were dominant and we looked much better than we did for the most of last season.

Joe Ralls, Anthony Pilkington and Joe Mason were taking City forward at every opportunity.

The game went a bit stale for the next 20 mins with neither side impressing.

Thirty minutes in and City were going for the jugular, Malone again involved, he fought for the ball three times to win it in challenges and the result was that Mason had a good shot saved by the Fulham keeper.

Half time came and City could have been disappointed not to have been in the lead.

The second half got underway and it was pretty even from my view of it until Simon Moore got himself in a spot of bother, Ben Pringle crossed the ball but the flight of it took it towards our crossbar which obviously caught Moore in two minds, he tried to take it off the bar but only managed to fumble it straight into the path on an attacking Fulham player.

It gave Fulham the boost they needed, the cottagers pushed for a second goal and on times City lived a little dangerously.

But credit to the team, they kept going and failed to throw the towel in, substitute Craig Noone cut in from the right hand side and curled a beauty of shot into the top corner.

Overall I think a draw was a fair result, City were the better team in the first half but Fulham edged the second forty five.

There were many positives today, performance was a lot better than we saw last season.

Connolly and Malone had good games at the back, the midfield worked well though I will add the Dikgacoi looked slow from the first minute and you just knew he would not complete the full ninety.

Joe Mason was full of running in the first half and must have had five shots on goal himself in that half.

It wasn’t the best football ever, I am not going to make bold predictions either but what I will state is this, that was a much improved performance and with a little bit of quality to the spine of the team the makings are certainly there to give hope to winning football matches.