Npower Championship Matchday Ten: Barnsley 1-2 Cardiff City

They say you get a clear indication of how teams are going to fare after the first 10 games. Well today was the 10^th game, and Barnsley sit in 15^th place…. Sounds about right doesn’t it?

To be fair if The Reds were to finish in that position it would be their highest placed finish at this level in 11 years, but after four years of struggle it would hardly be the significant progress manager Mark Robins talked about in the summer.

A wretched record on the road, which now stretches to 12 winless games had been countered by a fantastic start at home which had yielded three wins and a draw. Well that little run was brought to an abrupt end this afternoon by a Cardiff City side, who with the quality they have in their ranks, surely wont blow promotion for a third season running.

A lot of criticism is levelled at the Bluebirds, about how they can manage to acquire international stars such as Craig Bellamy, Andy Keogh and Jason Koumas when they are millions of pounds in debt and fighting countless winding up orders. What can not be disputed however is that, on paper, they have by far the strongest squad in the division and they gained their sixth win of the season with a score-line that probably flattered Barnsley rather than the visitors.

The first half was a nothing sort of game in terms of chances created but Cardiff were running the midfield. Diego Arismendi had his worst game for the club so far, but, surprisingly, Hugo Colace had arguably his best. That does not account for another shock omission for Jacob Butterfield. Once again the 20 year old was dropped after impressing in the prior game and it was an absolute disgrace that Mark Robins waited until the 89^th minute (yes that’s the EIGHTY NINTH minute) before bringing him on for Arismendi. Just a little statistic for you all- Jacob Butterfield has started three league games this season and Barnsley have not lost any of them but have lost six of the seven he has started on the bench . The wings though were very poor. I’m not entirely sure how good the standard of football is in the Scottish Premier League, but if Jim O’Brien can get in their Team of the Year it cannot be very good. He had a half decent game at Scunthorpe on Tuesday night, but that really seems a flash in the pan. Today his distribution was poor, his touch lousy and it seems opposition players only have to breath on him and he’s on the deck. Nobody can doubt his passion, but he seems to be struggling massively with the demands of English football. Often this season the Reds have been able to turn to the opposite wing for moments of inspiration, but today Cardiff got their tactics on Adam Hammill spot on. They doubled up on him whenever he received the ball- which wasn’t often, and he was just forced into blind alleys. The 22 year old did escape his shackles once with eight minutes remaining when his curling effort from 25 yards was well saved by City keeper Tom Heaton but unfortunately his most telling contributions to the game were being involved in an off the ball incident with Bellamy and then exacting revenge by scything down Chris Burke- who had remonstrated with a prone Hammill- to pick up his third yellow card of the season. He nearly has as many yellows as goals now.

It certainly seems a long time since the 5-2 thumping of Leeds, and you do wonder what has gone wrong to see The Reds lose two and draw two since, scoring just twice. On Tuesday night, the team selection was heavily criticised, especially the forward “pairing” of Andy Gray and Goran Lovre. Well today Robins went back to Garry O’Connor and Chris Wood, but both loanees were largely ineffective. Wood did have one great chance five minutes before the break. O’Brien fed him just inside the area but the New Zealand international fired the ball wastefully over the bar. Today was the last game of O’Connor’s initial loan and despite impressing and scoring on his debut against Leeds, he has hardly justified remaining at Oakwell since.

Barnsley would pay for Wood’s missed chance just two minutes later when Cardiff took the lead and the goal-scorer was inevitable. Craig Bellamy had outshone his more expensive team-mates such as Emmanuel Adebayor and Robinho when he came down for a friendly with Manchester City last summer and on his first competitive appearance at Oakwell since come off the bench for Norwich in a 2-1 Barnsley win back in April 2000 he notched his second goal in only his third start for his hometown team. A lovely move started with Jay Bothroyd spraying a cross field ball to Peter Whittingham and he rolled the ball back to Bellamy to curl a beautiful effort past Luke Steele and into the far corner. For the third home game in a row, Barnsley had gone 1-0 down.

The Reds were even more sluggish in their approach play at the start of the second half and were lucky not to be further behind when Bothroyd turned home Bellamy’s corner but the linesman flagged for offside.

Amazingly though it was Barnsley who struck next, equalising with their first shot on target after 63 minutes. O’Brien’s corner ricocheted around the Cardiff area with both O’Connor and Arismendi having fruitless stabs at the ball, before it finally broke to captain Jason Shackell and the centre half showed how it was done by firing an effort across Heaton and into the far corner.

It was a goal that nobody in the ground had seemed coming and probably even shocked the Reds players because within seconds they handed Cardiff a way back in front… literally. Whittingham swung in a corner and as Foster jumped for the ball his hand was flaying in the air and there was no doubt in referee Trevor Kettle’s mind as he pointed to the spot. It looked a foregone conclusion as Whittingham- with two goals in his last five games vs. Barnsley came up against Luke Steele who had never saved a penalty for Barnsley but the much maligned keeper did brilliantly, sticking out his right leg to deflect the ball over the bar as Whittingham went to place it down the middle. Unfortunately the respite did not last long. The Reds failed to deal with the subsequent corner, conceding another and from this Bellamy set-piece Whittingham flicked the ball on for Seyi