Following Saturday’s clash between Cardiff City and Birmingham City, here are the instant reactions from both managers.
Cardiff City hosted Birmingham City at the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday March 10, with the hosts taking a three one victory on the day.
Cardiff opened the scoring 12 minutes into the game through Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, with Craig Bryson and Callum Paterson giving them a three nil lead at the half time break.
It was a tail of two halves for Birmingham and their ongoing relegation worries, as second half they stepped up and made a battle of it as Craig Gardner scored from the penalty spot within ten minutes of the restart but their second on the day through Maxime Colin came too late in the fifth minute of stoppage time for them to consider the third.
Garry Monk will take hope from the second half effort and be looking for 90 minute performances as he falls to two straight defeats since taking the job on, and Cardiff win for a sixth successive match as they go for automatic promotion.
Teams:
Cardiff:
Etheridge, Peltier (Morrison 74), Ecuele Manga, Bamba, Bennett, Paterson, Grujic, Bryson (Damour 37), Mendez-Laing (Halford 81), Zohore, Hoilett.
Substitutes:
Pilkington, Murphy, Wildschut, Madine.
Birmingham:
Stockdale, Jenkinson (Roberts 45), Morrison, Dean, Colin, Jota, Kieftenbeld, Gardner, Maghoma (Boga 79), Jutkiewicz (Adams 69), Gallagher.
Substitutes:
Bramall, Ndoye, Lowe, Kuszczak.
Speaking to the BBC’s cameras a short time after match day referee Peter Bankes blew the final whistle, Cardiff manager Neil Warnock explained.
‘We don’t think about promotion, today’s target has been met for the play-offs and we’re there. We don’t look at it, the other teams are still winning. We just have 10 games. We could have made it easier, but we never do that. Hopefully we’ve saved up the goals we missed until we need them.’
He added.
‘The penalty was for nothing, you wouldn’t have anything happen to you if you did something like that in a shopping centre. It could have cost us promotion. There was no reason to give it.’
Birmingham manager Garry Monk in his comparative interview explained.
‘The first half was one of those times where we didn’t play too badly but we didn’t defend well enough in the three situations. I was very interested to see how we reacted in the second half because the capabilities of the squad was a reason why I came here, and that was exactly what we should be doing. We defended better and created chances. We had a great chance to make it 3-2 with 20 minutes to go which would have made it really interesting. The lesson has to be learned that we can’t give periods away, we have to do what we did in the second half right from the start, and that begins today, not before kick-off against Hull next week. We have to change now.’
