Are our rivals that different to us?

Much has been said by other leading clubs in the Championship that Cardiff don't play football in the "proper way", we have no flair or creativity, we play the "Warnock Way". Teams such as Fulham, Wolves and Aston Villa seem to think they have the right to be in the Premier League because they play attractive football and we don't. But is their football any different to ours? I'm not so sure - they only differ from us by one player each, in my opinion. I've watched all of these teams in the last couple of weeks and have come up with the following conclusions.

Wolves are clearly the best team in the Championship this season and will rightly go up as Champions. The main difference between us and Wolves is their midfield playmaker Ruben Neves. He has the ability to conjure up passes and goals that no-one else can do in the Championship. He has scored half a dozen exceptional goals in his own right this season. But ultimately, the first thing that Wolves did when they created this team was build a solid defence. The reason they are where they are is that they have the equal best defensive record in the division (with us), but have the creativity of Neves to score more goals.

Fulham are an exciting attacking team but are not automatically promoted with Wolves because they don't have a secure defence. Tom Cairney is a talented creative footballer - the Fulham equivalent of Reuben Neves. Not such a prolific goalscorer, but his creativity and passing is impressive. He must be getting tired of the "best player in the Championship" tag and must certainly be on his way from Fulham if they don't get promoted this season. But Fulham's weakness in defence, especially before Christmas, has left them playing catch-up ever since the New Year came in. They may yet achieve automatic promotion, but have made it hard for themselves.

Aston Villa are also an equal team to ourselves. But they started slowly this season. They have found a defensive strength eventually. They spent a lot of money on 2 strikers - Jonathan Kodija and Lewis Grabban (who must have cost a hefty loan fee from Bournemouth). The creative spark for their strikers comes from the rather annoying Jack Grealish: annoying to the rest of the teams in the league because he falls over and whines if a player comes within 2 yards of him. Annoying to Villa fans because of his inconsistency brought on by constant injuries. It was hard to believe that the match he played against Cardiff recently was the first time he had played 6 consecutive games for Villa since 2015! But on his day, a match winner.

But at Cardiff we do not have a Neves, a Cairney or a Grealish. So how do we compensate for this? By sheer hard work, team spirit and doing the basics right. We may not have a creative genius, so we have to rely on scoring goals from set pieces. We have to play to our strengths. Its up to our opponents to overcome this. Despite two defeats to our rivals Wolves and Villa recently, we came back to beat Norwich and Nottingham Forest. Our fate remains in our own hands. It may not be pretty at times, but it is effective.

I only do it for fun, but feel free to read my occasional blog at http/lifeofabluebird.blogspot.co.uk

Football is all about styles otherwise it will be boring watching possession football every game! Yeterday was boring watching man c keep football until last couple balls when they were brilliant!! Prefer get up and get them approach at least it makes for more action in pen areas as our stats show.

Blog update:

http://lifeofabluebird.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... ivals.html

Football is all about styles otherwise it will be boring watching possession football every game! Yeterday was boring watching man c keep football until last couple balls when they were brilliant!! Prefer get up and get them approach at least it makes for more action in pen areas as our stats show.

I know some people love it, but I couldn’t watch Man City’s football every week. They have about 80% possession but not that much of it is in the final third in a lot of games. Very much like Barcelona when Guardiola was there.

As they said on Sky, we don’t always have much of the ball but when we do we attack as quickly as possible - and it’s proven to be very effective.

In terms of those in the top eight and style of play, I’d say Middlesbrough and Millwall are the closest to us.

Football is all about styles otherwise it will be boring watching possession football every game! Yeterday was boring watching man c keep football until last couple balls when they were brilliant!! Prefer get up and get them approach at least it makes for more action in pen areas as our stats show.

I know some people love it, but I couldn’t watch Man City’s football every week. They have about 80% possession but not that much of it is in the final third in a lot of games. Very much like Barcelona when Guardiola was there.

As they said on Sky, we don’t always have much of the ball but when we do we attack as quickly as possible - and it’s proven to be very effective.

In terms of those in the top eight and style of play, I’d say Middlesbrough and Millwall are the closest to us.

Yes they have has highest possession stats in a game for last 5yrs??? 80%+ no wonder they cannot sell out etiad it turns people off despite their brilliance? It can be as bad as watching hoofball as it's called