Neil Warnock's Cardiff are everything Tony Pulis' Middlesbrough aspire to beBy Anthony VickersSaturday 18th February 2018
The high-flying Bluebirds do everything Boro hope to but with clinical precision and power, writes Anthony VickersIt was billed as a battle between two wily old dug-out pragmatists.
Tony Pulis and Neil Warnock have 1,000 games apiece under their trusty tracksuit waistbands and have both seen and dealt with every possible scenario the game has to offer.
The duo have deserved reputations for organising no-frills, low thrills teams to get a result.
So the boss will be angry - and fans worried - that in a head-to-head clash between the two, that newly-reshaped Boro were found wanting and his side was so easily beaten by Cardiff.
And it was easy for Warnock’s side. They were better in every department : faster, bigger, stronger, more organised, more potent, hungrier... Boro were bullied by exactly the kind of team they now aspire to be.
Cardiff are 13 points better off than Boro. And on that showing you can see why. They do everything this new Boro aim to do but do it with clinical precision and power.
For the first time under the new boss, Boro were out-fought and out-muscled by a physically imposing side that were just as functional but who deployed more oomph, were more direct and far more effective all over the pitch.
They were schooled, first years bullied by the playground big boys.
Under Pulis, Boro have not always been pretty. Cavalier flourishes like attacking full-backs, pretty possession and picking forward into the box have been eliminated in favour of functionalism.
The previous neither fish-nor-fowl tactical flux has been swept away with a strict tactical template imposed.
And while there have been residual problems - a lack of intensity going forward, a failure to bury sitters, flaccid frontmen not hurting the opposition - most people have welcomed the fact that Boro now have a shape, a solidity and an identity.
They are rigid at the back, play with a target man, get the ball forward wide and quickly and try to make set-plays count.
You may not like a style that dismisses aesthetics and aspirations for an entertaining utopian passing game - plenty don’t - but, we are told, it is frighteningly effective and will bring results. It is a tried and tested route to promotion.
Anyone who has doubted that as Boro have laboured through scrappy games in recent weeks should take a look at the way Cardiff minced Middlesbrough at a canter. That could be the shape of things to come.
The defeat was a major blow. Not necessary in mathematical terms; Boro remain four points shy of the play-offs (although that could stretch to seven if Bristol City beat Leeds) and have a run of games against the basement boys looming and if they cash them in then they can still in the mix.
But it was a blow in that such a comprehensive defeat by a better model of the same style showed exactly how far Boro are short of the team they aspire to be.
If Boro are to follow the pragmatic route to promotion then there is a lot of work to be done.
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