Cardiff City notes: The star is adjusting after a challenging start, the striker is getting more practice finishing, and The Commander is back.
Days after defeating Swansea, the Bluebirds overcame Coventry City 3-2 at Cardiff City Stadium.
Cardiff City beat rivals Swansea and Coventry City at home, recording back-to-back victories in the span of four days.
The Bluebirds followed up their victory against the Swans with a five-goal thriller victory over the Sky Blues in the Welsh capital, which they won 3-2 in the pouring rain.
We examine some of the game’s talking points in this section.
Erol Bulut asserts that Cardiff City is not a one-man team as they defeat Coventry City without Aaron Ramsey. READ MORE
Goutas: It was a difficult beginning, but I now feel fantastic.
Dimitrios Goutas, a defender for Cardiff, had a difficult first season in the Championship, but he is still finding his footing.
After his impressive performance against the Swans, he put in another strong effort against the Sky Blues and forcefully headed in the opening goal. Sign up here to receive the most recent Bluebirds news in your email.
You can see why he appealed to Erol Bulut and he wanted to sign him. He has a noticeable presence in both boxes from the set piece because he is tall, robust, and huge.
However, the Championship is harsh, and after spending so many seasons competing in a different European league, it’s only logical that there is
“I feel really amazing,” he said after scoring his first goal in the win over Coventry.. “I think we deserved the win. The squad is amazing and we’ve worked very hard and we have lost points at the end of games. We are back in business and have to continue the same way.
“We need time. We have many new players, new signings, but game by game we improve our style and our game.
“I am really happy to score. I was searching for this goal. I had one opportunity against Ipswich but I’m really happy. I think in the first games I didn’t feel so good. It was a new league for me, but now I am starting to adapt and game by game I feel better.
“Macca [Mark McGuinness] is a very good talent. He is young, very strong, he has everything. He will be at the top, for sure.
“As we said in the dressing room, we will look game by game to put on the pitch the work we do in the training ground. And we will be successful.”
Etete scores after individual drills and extra sessions
It’s probably fair to say that Kion Etete hasn’t quite lived up to the promise he was beginning to show at the back of last season so far in this campaign.
He has had to bide his time behind Ike Ugbo and hasn’t really taken his chances when afforded the opportunity to do so.
But Cardiff are light in the striker department and need the young forward to hit some sort of form if they do indeed have designs on staying in the top half of the table for the rest of the season.
The 21-year-old made an impact off the bench against Coventry, though, lashing home with his first touch of the ball just seconds after being introduced thanks to a well-weighted ball over the top of the visitors’ defence from Perry Ng.
Cardiff’s forward department is inexperienced and lacks goals at this level, but Bulut, at least until January, says he is happy for the pair to fight it out for that No.9 position and revealed Etete has been having extra sessions on the training ground to improve his finishing.
“Kion in the last few weeks has been working really, really good,” Bulut said of the forward after the match.
“After training we have been putting on extra sessions for him for finishing and things like this and today he showed that we have been working well with him.
“He is a young player, too, he is 21. We have to get him stronger and add more muscles and then he will be much, much better.
“Which one is in front of which one (Etete and Ugbo)? They have to show it to me. It is much better for me if I have a difficult choice.”
Siopis really is the difference
For too long Cardiff fans have bemoaned the balance in the middle of the pitch. Isn’t it funny how one man can change it all?
That has come in the form of diminutive Greek Manolis Siopis, who has transformed Cardiff’s midfield into a high-functioning, well-oiled machine since his arrival.
The ground that man covers truly is something to behold. Even in the 98th minute, he sprinted from his own box to close down the Coventry goalkeeper before sprinting all the way back to defend his own goal. The very definition of a fan favourite and it’s things like that which will endear him further to the Bluebirds supporters, who have taken to him so quickly.
He is a livewire about the place on the training ground, too, by all accounts, and he and Goutas are joined at the hip. The Bluebirds’ very own Little and Large.
When the team was announced, it looked very conservative with Siopis in there with Joe Ralls and Ryan Wintle, however the latter was afforded the freedom to play a little more advanced and it paid dividends. WIntle looked a better player for it. It was Wintle, of course, who provided the cross for Karlan Grant’s goal.
But the mere presence of Siopis, who also showed his quality on the ball with a number of well-hit diagonal passes out to the wingers and wing-backs, gives Cardiff more stability. How often was Cardiff’s midfield carved open last season? The majority of goals conceded now appear to be coming from problems out wide and Siopis has done a lot to plug the dike in the middle of the pitch.
Magnificent from the midfielder, again.
The Commander is back
Cards on the table, there were concerns watching Jamilu Collins in pre-season.
Granted, he had just endured a year off with a nasty ACL rupture, but he looked a shadow of the player we saw so fleetingly last season. He was tentative, unsure and reserved in those early-season outings.
Upon news of Callum O’Dowda’s injury, Bulut had no choice but to chuck Collins into the mix and see how he coped. But he has flourished. He has recaptured the form which got the City fan base so excited a year ago.
A top display against the Swans preceded another top outing against the Sky Blues, for which he was named the official Man of the Match.
Those big, booming tackles are back, the mazy, confident bursts down the left wing are there to see again and his link-up play with Karlan Grant is really blossoming in the absence of O’Dowda.
Lovingly know as ‘The Commander’ by the Cardiff fan base, owing to an Instagram post last year, he is commanding that left-back spot and O’Dowda will have a job on his hands to take the shirt back off him when he returns from his own injury.
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