By David Williams
Neil Harris has questioned his players’ attitude just a week before the start of Cardiff City’s Championship season and told them they have to improve the “dirty” side of their game.
The Bluebirds manager gave a withering assessment of his team’s display as they crashed out of the Carabao Cup at the first round stage with a 3-0 defeat at Northampton Town.
Harris had no arguments over the convincing manner of the victory for the newly-promoted League One side.
Cardiff have not managed to go past the second round of this competition for six years and Harris admitted: “Full credit to Northampton on their performance and willingness to compete and fight.
“They were better than us. No complaints in the result but disappointed in my players.
“Today they did the dirty side better than us. The running stats, they’ll be above us. The aerial duels, they’ll be above us. The tackles, they’ll be above us.
“These are the things we can’t lose on. We don’t often lose on them. It’s a reality check for everybody.”
Harris’s side begin their Championship campaign on Saturday with a home game against Sheffield Wednesday, but the manager who guided them to the play-offs last season conceded a big improvement is necessary if they are to get their campaign off to a winning start.
Clearly, the lack of appetite for the fight has alarmed Harris who reminded his players that their recent improvement was based on hard work, rather than natural talent.
“We have to fight and graft for everything we do in our careers. That’s the football club we are,” he said.
“I thought it was a competitive match for 25 minutes. We conceded a penalty and I felt mentality wise from then until the final fifteen minutes one team played it like a pre-season friendly and one team played it like a cup final.
““There are standards I expect from my group. There was enough experience and quality in the squad to get through the tie. I said to the team at the end, we got sucker-punched by a team that wanted it more than us.
“What I can’t have is players that get run past or outfought. That is not acceptable. That’s not Cardiff City’s traits – not as a club and not me as a manager.
“I hope that is gone. We have to learn from that as a group and as individuals and make sure we’re better for next week.
“You don’t just judge players over one 90 minutes in the Cup ahead of the League season though. You judge them over a period of time. Some are a lot better players than they showed today.
“The standards will certainly be showing against Sheffield Wednesday.
“We were light today in the squad. Six players were away on international duty with boys still missing for various reasons. It will be great to get the working group back together this week.
“Some of the young lads have done really well. I thought Tom Sang was excellent when he came on.
“I think, some of the young lads aren’t quite ready to be in the group. In the near future, they’ll get some minutes under their belt with Steve Morison and we’ll bring more seniors back into the group and the standard of training rises again.
FT Northampton 3 – 0 Cardiff City. Another pathetic effort in the League Cup. For the third season in a row City go out at the first attempt conceding three goals in the process. pic.twitter.com/9s37SnrYi0
— Cardiff City Mad (@cardiffcitymad) September 5, 2020
The Bluebirds narrowly missed out on the Premier League only a few weeks ago but they were blown away by the League One newcomers.
Harry Smith got the ball rolling with an early penalty before Matty Warburton and Ryan Watson secured Northampton’s place in the second round.
Home manager Keith Curle, who led the Cobblers to promotion back in June, was delighted with his side’s performance.
“It was a very good win and the whole of pre-season has been about rebuilding a new squad with new personnel and new characters and different skillsets,” said Curle.
“But we haven’t gone away from our fundamentals and today was an opportunity for the players to showcase the fact that they’ve picked up and they understand those fundamentals and believe in what we’re trying to do.
“There are things we can work on and things we can improve but there were also a lot of pleasing things to come out of the game and as a first competitive fixture of the season, you have to say well done to the changing room.
“We do a lot of work on the basics of the game and I thought we did them very well today.
“The players are attentive, they know what’s needed and their application was excellent. Once we do the basics, we can be more creative when we get into the final third but as a foundation, it was very pleasing.”