‘Hollywood derby’ ends all-square as Cardiff win a thriller: Welsh football weekend round-up
The ‘Hollywood derby’ between Wrexham and Birmingham City ended 1-1 on Friday night as Cardiff City beat Leyton Orient 4-3 in a thriller.
On a weekend of contrasting results for the Welsh clubs in the EFL, Swansea suffered a 1-3 home defeat to Leicester and Newport fell to the bottom of the football league after a 0-1 loss to Swindon Town.
With club football paused for a couple of weeks and international football back again, Wales fans have been given an injury scare as Aaron Ramsey was left out of the Pumas UNAM side for Sunday’s 2-1 defeat against Guadalajara.
It is unclear whether Ramsey will return to Wales or remain in Mexico to undergo rehabilitation. For the meantime, we’ll leave Craig Bellamy to sweat over his captain’s fitness and get into this weekend’s football.
Lawlor wondergoal sees Cardiff through in thriller
Cardiff overcame Leyton Orient in an excellent match, with Wales centrehalf Dylan Lawlor scoring the pick of the seven goals.
Callum Robinson gave the home side the lead on 20 minutes, but Brian Barry-Murphy’s team were pegged back by Aaron Connolly, who was gifted a guilt-edged chance by Gabriel Osho’s poor backpass.
Just minutes after the break, Lawlor strode forward out of defence, powered past two of Orient’s midfield and curled an excellent effort into the bottom corner.
Again, the Cardiff lead was short lived as Idris El Mizouni to hit back immediately with a shot that took two deflections on its way in. Dom Ballard then curled a beautiful left-footed strike into the top corner from the edge of the penalty area to put Orient ahead for the first time.
In the final twist of a thrilling game, Yousef Salech equalised from Rubin Colwill’s cross, and, less than two minutes later, they were back in front as a sweeping, coast-to-coast counter-attack was finished off by Robinson.
“The overriding feeling from myself is one of immense pride for the players, especially in the second half,” said the Cardiff boss.
“Again, I don’t know what went on here over the last couple of years. But it’s quite a difficult thing for the players when you give away goals of the nature we did. The second goal was a crazy goal – multiple ricochets and deflections – and I’d just put that down to the nature of the game and the anxiety in the performance.
“It was pretty stressful. We made it stressful for ourselves but also the opponents did. For the players, you saw us at our best and most dangerous when we flooded forward and really freed ourselves up and attacked in wide areas, getting beyond the Leyton Orient defence.
“Then you saw Callum Robinson and Yousef [Salech] become so dangerous. There’s so much we can learn from the first half and from the second half.”
Hollywood derby ends all square on lowkey night
Despite a big billing, and no little needle between the two sets of fans and owners, Wrexham’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham City was remarkably lowkey on Friday night.
In the end, none of Rob McElhenney, Ryan Reynolds, nor Tom Brady were in attendance at Cae Ras as goals from George Dobson and Patrick Roberts as both sides continue to languish in the bottom half of the Championship.
While a trio of draws for Wrexham are not quite the run that the fans want, coupled with that 3-2 win at Norwich a few weeks ago, Phil Parkinson’s side are now four games without defeat in the Championship and looking more at home in such a competitive league.
Parkinson has also confirmed that Wrexham will hold an internal match to help his cohort of injured players return to match fitness as quickly as possible.
“We’ve got to look at these two weeks and have some 11 vs 11 game time for Ollie Rathbone, George Thomason and get Libby [Liberato Cacace] as close as we can,” he confirmed.
Swans suffer rare home defeat
Swansea City manager Alan Sheehan was left frustrated by his side’s performance against Leicester City, saying that he does not want his team to be “nearly team”.
After falling behind to a spectacular early goal from Jordan James, Swansea stayed in the contest and eventually levelled thanks to Adam Idah’s second-half penalty.
But any hope of a late push for a home win was wiped out as Adbul Fatawu’s sparkling finish restored Leicester’s lead before Jannik Vestergaard headed in to seal the Foxes’ 3-1 win.
“I want us to have the belief that we can go toe to toe with everybody in the division,” he said.
“That’s got to be our mentality to keep progressing as a football club.
“I think this season, teams who have come here, we have gone after them. Today we have gone after Leicester and two moments of quality [from them]… we have to keep competing and be the best we can be.
“The next thing is can we have a bit more quality in the final third and be more of a killer team.”
Exiles bottom of the pile after home defeat
Swindon Town sent struggling Newport County to the bottom of League Two with a 1-0 win at Rodney Parade.
Ian Holloway’s side briefly climbed top of the table – Walsall went back above them later in the afternoon – thanks to a cute early finish by former Wrexham striker Ollie Palmer.
It was a result to heap more pressure on Newport manager David Hughes, whose side have lost nine and drawn one since their 9 August success at Crawley.
The Exiles, who finished last season with a nine-game winless streak, now prop up the Football League after Cheltenham won against Fleetwood and Shrewsbury drew at Barrow.
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