By Terry Phillips
Brentford 2, Cardiff City 2
Irish goalkeeper Brian Murphy made his Bluebirds’ first team debut, as exclusively predicted by Dai-Sport last week, and produced a five-star performance in this Championship draw against Brentford at Griffin Park.
Murphy, 33, may not be the long-term answer in goal for Cardiff City and manager Neil Warnock will bring in a new signing to he his number one during January, but right now the former Swansea keeper is a safe pair of hands.
It seems former Manchester United goalkeeper Ben Amos, a 26-year-old who kept a Premier League clean sheet against Stoke in an Old Trafford win four years ago, is far from up to the task at Championship level, while Ben Wilson has not been able to give Warnock confidence in his ability.
The 24-year-old has made three League appearances for City this season, but it looks highly unlikely that either Amos or Wilson will play first team football under Warnock.
Murphy, cool, calm and decisive throughout, may be given the chance to fight for the starting place after the New Year, but there is no doubt City want another goalkeeper – and fast.
How Warnock would love to have David Marshall or Simon Moore, who both left the club in August, at his disposal right now.
The Bluebirds boss changed the team formation at Brentford, switching Matt Connolly inside to join Sean Morrison and the impressive Bruno Manga in a three-man central defensive unit.
Lee Peltier looked far more comfortable in his usual place on the right of defence with Joe Bennett back on the left. Both adapted well to their wing-back roles.
Once again there was so much for Warnock to admire in this City display plus an awful lot which left him angry and frustrated.
Manga was magnificent, while Kenneth Zohore led the attack with pace and power. He even fired City ahead after 89 minutes.
But for the second week in succession they threw away a golden chance to leave fans furious.
They fought back from 3-1 down to draw level against Barnsley at home only for a 90th minute strike to kill off City celebrations. That 4-3 defeat was a devastating blow.
Then, at Griffin Park, Zohore struck what looked certain to be the winner, but once again City wilted and threw away their chance of an away win when the Bees equalised in the last minute.
Where are the leaders? Where are the men on the pitch to make certain every player carries out Warnock’s instructions? Cardiff should have earned four points from the last two games, but have finished with one!
“We’ve snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” said a shocked Warnock. “The lads obviously want to punish me. They don’t want to make it easy for me! This feels like a loss.
“I was pleased with quite a few and disappointed with one or two today, I thought the desire at 2-1, to keep your goal intact, was poor and disappointing.
“One or two players really have to have a look at themselves, you’ve got to have the desire to stop a cross, a header. Put it this way I was very disappointed to concede like that, you’ve got to take responsibility. Some of our experienced lads have got to stand up as well, we’ve got one or two lads who just please themselves.
“We should be grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and telling them where to go. We just allowed them Brentford to build, it was like slow-motion.”
City went ahead after 24 minutes when Morrison was fouled and Peter Whittingham fired home from the spot.
Whittingham was forced to go off at half-time because of a minor injury, Stuart O’Keefe taking over, while Warnock had to rejig things again when Peltier had to leave the action just after the hour.
The wing-back was feeling unwell and Anthony Pilkington was sent on from the subs bench with O’Keefe taking over Peltier’s position.
City held their lead until the 83rd minutes, Crystal Palace loanee Sullay KaiKai scoring, and then went ahead again when Zohore made it 2-1 on 89 minutes.
There were 1,200 Cardiff supporters in the away end and they were ecstatic, but their team were simply unable to hold on to their advantage and KaiKai struck with his and Brentford’s second 50 seconds into injury time.
Warnock will happy to hail the New Year when he will at last be able to bring in new players. There will be four, maybe even five.
For the moment, though, he has to focus on the Championship away match at promotion-chasing Brighton this Friday(7.45pm).
City have the players to take on Brighton and earn some reward, but not many fans will have confidence their team can succeed at the Amex Stadium.
Brentford: Bentley; Egan, Dean, Bjelland (Hofmann 77); Colin, Woods, Yennaris, Sawyers (McEachran 63), Field; Vibe (Kaikai 63); Hogan. Subs not used: Bonham, Saunders, Kerschbaumer, Barbet
Cardiff City: Murphy; Peltier (Pilkington 64), Connolly, Manga, Morrison, Bennett; Gunnarsson, Whittingham (O’Keefe 46); Ralls; Hoilett (Noone 77), Zohore. Subs not used: Wilson, Lambert, Harris, Huws
Attendance: 11,098 (1.103 away fans)