POSF1: Cardiff City 0 West Ham Utd 2 (03/05/12)

[ninian]

Think we have a good chance to be honest, no disrespect to you. Blackpool are the strongest force in the play-offs though in my opinion. The play-offs require a certain ingredient and they have it.

I can see our matches being very entertaining. At least I can take solace in that.!

[sendô]

All about who turns up on the day.

We're probably seen as the strongest side but Cardiff, Blackpool and Birmingham are all good sides more than capable of winning it.

Lottery.

[chunkay]

We get seven subs throughout, as it is considered a separate tourney to the Championship

That said: Henderson, Faye, McCartney, Diop, Lansbury, Carew, Baldock

[roblo]

I hope they open the voucher exchange at a sensible time.

[Chicken Run Supreme]

Bit nervous about going to this on my own, I'm 15.

As Doc H says, high profile game , heavily policed, ticket collection from Cardiff West, as long as you stick with the others you will be fine. Just as a note of caution I wouldn't wear colours just in case you did end up on your own somewhere.

[Willtelll]

It's going to be tough. Their last two month's results are as follows going backwards from this weekend -
away win 1-2 (Palace);
home draw 1-1 (Leeds);
home win 2-0 (Derby);
away win 0-1 (Barnsley);
home draw 1-1 (Watford);
away win 2-0 (Middlesbrough);
home draw 0-0 (Millwall);
away draw 1-1 Birmingham;
home draw 2-2 (Coventry);
home draw 0-0 (Burnley);
home defeat 0-3 (Hull);
away win 1-2 (Bristol C);
away draw 2-2 (Brighton);
home defeat 0-2 (West Ham)

It seems to me that Cardiff are similar to WH in recent matches - scoring very few at home and not being able to break down teams easily but finding it easier to pick up points away from Cardiff.

Our best chance should be to win at Cardiff and keep a clean sheet at home but you never know in football. I never expected Wigan to go on such a brilliant run so I just hope our players are as up for this as us fans are.... :raver:

[Chicken Run Supreme]

It's going to be tough.
It seems to me that Cardiff are similar to WH in recent matches - scoring very few at home and not being able to break down teams easily but finding it easier to pick up points away from Cardiff.

Hadn't noticed that - very similar pattern of results apart from one thing, we have scored more goals and I expect us to score more goals than them in both legs. Right, I'm off for singing lessons................................



She wore She wore She wore a claret ribbon.
She wore a claret ribbon in the merry month of may.
And when I asked oh why she wore that ribbon,

she said its for the West Ham boys who are going to Wembley!
Wembley! Wembley!
She said its for the West Ham boys who are going to Wembley.

[EugeneSpeed]

Not confident about this.

First thing tomorrow I'd be asking for 5 players willing to take a penalty.

Either this or the final (Should we get there), will come down to a penalty shootout.

Time to start washing the underwear

Vaz Te, Noble, Nolan... Who else??

[poplargeezer]

Still think it's out of order and gamemanship the way they are doing the tickets at their gaff - I just live 20 minutes away from their ground and seemingly won't be able to get a ticket in our end

Hope we can give them what the standard allocation is at our place to show we re above pettiness

[bobo]

Vaz Te, Noble, Nolan... Who else??

[/quote]

I reckon Lansbury won't be shy to step up, Taylor I'm sure would be good from the spot.

Didn't Cole use to hit pens for us under Zola? And I'm sure Maynard was Brizzol's pen taker!

But then again Sam Baldock was MK Dons penalty taker & look what happend against Wednesday.

[17 years of hurt]

In my opinion the only thing that's gonna cost us winning the play offs is ourselves. If we cut out the stupid mistakes then we should have more than enough to beat anyone. We amassed 10 more points than the next placed side which would indicate over the season that we have been much better than the rest. We're pretty much free scoring at the moment with our 2 main strikers hitting form at the right time and defence looks fairly solid.

Mistakes and bad judgement have cost us automatic promotion, the big ones being the string of defensive errors against reading at home and Taylor stupidly getting himself involved and sent off v Southampton when we were battering them.

Yeah Cardiff are hard to beat and it will be a difficult game but like I said cut out the errors and we should have more than enough to get through the play offs.

[giantsteps]

apologies if already posted but has this game been announced as televised yet?

sky or bbc?

[bubbles1966]

Penalties?

Noble, Vaz Te, Nolan, Taylor, Reid (or Lansbury)

followed by Tomkins, O'Neil, Collison

Cole takes a terrible penalty ( too much thinking time). I'd let Green take one ahead of him.

[Matt of iron]

Reid?

[bubbles1966]

Reid?

He hits the ball very hard and straight Matt. He also doesn't get fazed.

[EugeneSpeed]

Didn't Cole use to hit pens for us under Zola? And I'm sure Maynard was Brizzol's pen taker!

Can't remember him even taking a pen actually, aside from missing one against Bolton.

[prophet:marginal]

Cardiff have one or two decent players, but on paper are not better than us

I've also had a chat about their game yesterday with one of their fans. Kenny Miller's best weeks of the season were at the front end of it. He's been a bit sub-standard recently. Rudy Gestede is 'all arms and legs'. One of their other strikers is injured, so, in the dying minutes yesterday, none other than Rob Earnshaw got a run out.

What he would say they are good at, but never got going with in Cardiff against us, is keeping the ball, patiently moving it around until the opening presents itself. However, for large parts of the game yesterday, in open play, Palace matched them and deprived them of decent chances. As noted up the thread, both their goals came from set-pieces.

It obvious Peter Whittingham has a very sweet left foot. No stupid free-kicks around Green's area and we should be able to match this lot. And beat them over two legs.

[jonnyboy]

Think we have a good chance to be honest, no disrespect to you. Blackpool are the strongest force in the play-offs though in my opinion. The play-offs require a certain ingredient and they have it.

I can see our matches being very entertaining. At least I can take solace in that.!

Is that because of previous playoffs or because of Blackpool's performances against you? Because we've thrashed them last few times we have played them!... Not that I don't fear the uncertainty of the playoffs, I just see Blackpool as least dangerous.

For what is worth, I'm looking forward to these games. It's exciting being involved. I would love to see west ham at wembley for the first time in my lifetime (been to millennium 3x but not the same). I've also made my peace with staying in the Championship should that be the case.

[cockney farmer]

I think we have broken our home "hoodoo" so a draw in Cardiff would not be a disaster for us.

[bubbles1966]

I think we have broken our home "hoodoo" so a draw in Cardiff would not be a disaster for us.

If anyone has a home hoodoo at the moment, it's Cardiff.

One win in two months - failed to score four times.