Cardiff City 0 Wolves (& Referee) 1

They (pundits and people in films and that) often say football is a ‘game of inches’ hinging on tiny details & Saturday was an example of that.

You can analyse the game as much as you want but the facts are that the game hinged on a weird sixty seconds for the Referee Robert Madley who had presumably fired up a doobie at half time and lost his mind. 

On a yellow card, Wolves full back Dominic Iorfa smashed Craig Noone to the dirt (below snap). Right in front of us Iorfa winced after the tackle expecting his second yellow, a dismissal and the wrath of his Manager for swaying the game in Cardiff’s direction.

The card never came though and ten seconds later Wolves subbed him to prevent going a man down with the home team in the ascendancy.

City’s support was incensed and let the ref know (A lady in the row in front even called him a ‘F**king Muppet’ at the top of her voice and shook her head for the remainder of the game).

This injustice was also felt on the pitch with a few tackles bubbling beneath the surface but then Peter Whittingham (himself already on a booking) turned into a cross between Roy Keane and the Incredible Hulk.

The mercurial midfield playmaker, he of the deft pass, has barely made a tackle in his career – nevermind one that resulted in the recipient being booted airborne and five yards off the pitch.

Completely out of character, it was a bizarre and hilarious moment that left City a man down and with too big a mountain to climb. 

With Whittingham now suspended and presumably sat in his house playing Xbox, the Manager has decisions to make in how to replace him. With so much of City’s game based around set pieces at the moment, without him, we could be even limper. On the flipside though, the haters will now quench their thirst for a Whittingham-less Cardiff City team and we will see how influential he really is (or not) while he’s missing for the game at Rotherham on Tuesday.

Fans we were chatting to on Saturday over a half time brew / Toffee Crisp (above snap) were happy at the recent run of five games unbeaten which ended with this defeat but on that run Cardiff only scored three goals. Two of these have come from a centre back (Morrison) and a sitting midfielder (Gunnarsson).

Alarmingly, Big Kenwyne Jones is the only forward to hit the net in City’s last nine games and even he hasn’t scored in five. These stats are not great reading before you even get to Eoin Doyle who needs his first goal badly after joining in January following 25 goals for Chesterfield.

We’re dry on goals and City have earned only one win in their last 10 league and cup matches. So, have they really turned a corner? I beg to differ. 

Post game, moving on to lift sporting spirits, myself and @gavinbonson made our debuts at the ice hockey on Sunday to watch Cardiff Devils (below snap). Russell Slade would not have been happy at all the positivity in the game but he may have enjoyed the hot dog I sample which was off the hook.