Championship :Cardiff City- Burton Albion
Albion are in big trouble now, battling and organisational qualities can take you far over 10-12 games , but a lack of quality in the squad will always find you out over 46 matches and I have spoken often about the size of the budget at Burton, which is more in line with a mid table League 1 team at best and that they were playing non league football in 2009 and at L2 level as recently as 20 months ago. That is a very long way to come in a short time and it now feels like things have caught up with them and it is time to pay the price ! They were one of the three weakest teams I have seen in the Championship at Griffin Park in the last three seasons and way below the quality that Cardiff showed there on Boxing Day and the two played at GP within 16 days of each other.
City are only five points better off, but I rank them as top 10-12 quality and simply cannot see how Burton can stay out of the bottom 3, they do have three teams below them at present, but both Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers look stronger and those above have money and a points advantage.
The hosts have been a slow burner under Neil Warnock (pictured), but look to be running into form now, shortly after he arrived, ahead of a game with Bristol City, it looked like his impact might be more immediate ..............
This is a keenly fought "derby" game. Despite the two teams being in different countries (Wales and England), they are separated pretty much by just the width of the River Severn, which is the longest river in the UK ( my geography fact of the day !). All change at Cardiff over the international break, the "going more Welsh than Wales" policy didn't work and head coach Paul Trollope was dismissed and replaced by Neil Warnock. Love him or hate him and few fall somewhere inbetween, no one could argue that Warnok has not been widely successful, saving many clubs from relegation and earning promotion seven times ! He has a big job to turn the hosts around, as they have lost confidence, but are a big club and the talent is there on paper (which we discussed pre season) and that is what he does and his influence has already been felt and captain Sean Morrison said : “Last Wednesday he had a meeting with us and instantly the place felt lifted. "The boys felt lifted and you could see it on the training pitch. "He's a very experienced manager and is very good at what he does. "I believe he'll get the boys going and get out of people what he needs."
Warnock has been busy and has signed Kieran Richardson, Sol Bamba, Junior Hoilett and Marouane Chamakh over the last 10 days, all were free agents, which is why they could move outside the window, all four are experienced players who have played at a very high level and have played for Warnock before, or were players he had attempted to sign. This is very much his modus operandi, stick with the tried and tested and attempt to get the last 1% out of every player on the pitch and he is very good at it and the reaction and improvement is often instant. If he can get the Bluebirds up and running over the next two months or so, he is bound to be given additional funds to spend in January and there are still a LOT of Championship points to play for. Today is all about Warnock for me, I expect him to have the crowd and players fired up, this is a fixture the hosts have dominated in recent years and we might not get odds against and level ball too often in the coming months, if NW can work some magic.
Afterwards I wrote ............They won that 2-1 and then took a point off Sheffield Wednesday, four points from two strong teams and the Warnock bandwagon is up and running, we have seen this before, many times actually and once his teams build up a head of steam, they are like a runaway train and very difficult to stop.
They are 4-3-2 from their last nine, deserved to win one of those defeats and have beaten Villa, Wolves and Huddersfield and taken a point from league leaders Brighton and they are heading in the right direction. Warnock brought in goalkeeper Allan McGregor on loan this week for the rest of the season and he should be the only change to the team who won the return at Bristol City last week. Albion have lost four goal (two assists) Jamie Ward who was recalled from loan by Nottingham Forest on Thursday, which was untimely and badly hampered preparation for today.
1.5 units Cardiff City -0.75 ball 2.14 asian line/Sportmarket.
Good Luck.
