Home run ends with Cardiff

Tony Vidmar

This is their second season at this level following promotion via the play offs and they ended last season just below half way and were one of the clubs who never really threatened at the top of the league nor were they in any danger of relegation.

They have big plans with Premiership ambitions and a new stadium although they do have Sam Hammam and that should be a worry to any supporter of the club.

Manager Lennie Lawrence is under pressure according to the press but Hammam says that is not the case. He added that as Cardiff would not be going up or down this season there was no point in changing manager.

He has though recently brought in former Wimbledon coach Terry Burton from Watford and speculation remains that Joe Kinnear will also join up with the chairman again even though he is still in charge at Forest.

Lawrence brought in three new players during the summer, one of them had ended the previous season with Cardiff. That was York City’s Lee Bullock who had been there on loan and Cardiff paid £100,000 to make the deal more permanent.

Central defender and Cardiff fan Robert Page was next when he signed in from Sheffield United but things could have been oh so different with Page having looked almost certain to sign for the Clarets before the interest from South Wales.

The last pre-season signing was goalkeeper Tony Warner. The former Liverpool keeper had lost his place at Millwall after making 200 league appearances for them.

Less than a week after the start of the season former Franchiser Jobi McAnuff joined them after a short time at West Ham and then in the last week they have added two loan players.

Darren Williams signed for a month from Sunderland last Thursday and a day later Portsmouth’s highly rated England Under-21 midfielder Gary O’Neil was snapped up on a three month deal. Both of them were involved in the win at Wolves.

There have been departures and only last week Gareth Whalley moved to Wigan whilst the likes of Gavin Gordon and Spencer Prior have also left.

Those departures become insignificant compared to the sale of striker and crowd favourite Robert Earnshaw to West Brom at the end of last month. They pocketed £3 million in that deal.

Saturday saw them out of the bottom three for almost 24 hours when they won 3-2 at Wolves. They led 1-0 through a deflected goal from Paul Parry and then, after Wolves had equalised, went 3-1 up with goals from Peter Thorne (often one in our side) and a screamer from Graham Kavanagh. It ended 3-2 with a late goal from Paul Ince.

Click HERE to see all Cardiff’s results this season.

There were suggestions that Cardiff could be without midfielder Graham Kavanagh and former Burnley striker Alan Lee tonight. Both picked up their fifth yellow card of the season on Saturday but as ever the rules are somewhat confusing.

Last season all suspensions came into effect fourteen days after the offence but that is no longer the case. Suspensions following a red card are immediate but suspensions for accumulation of yellow cards comes into effect seven days after the fifth card and so Kavanagh and Lee are free to play and will be suspended on Saturday.

Lennie Lawrence has hinted that Gary O’Neil is likely to start. He was a sub on Saturday but admitted that Harry Redknapp would not be happy to see his player on the bench after sending him out on loan.

They have no new injury worries although will still be without Martyn Margetson, Rhys Weston, Robert Page, Richard Langley and Gary Croft. The likely team tonight is:

Tony Warner, Darren Williams, Danny Gabbidon, Tony Vidmar, Chris Barker, Jobi McAnuff, Graham Kavanagh, Gary O'Neil, Paul Parry, Peter Thorne, Alan Lee. Subs: Neil Alexander, John Robinson, James Collins, Willie Boland, Lee Bullock, Byron Anthony.

Our suspension is immediate and with referee Michael Jones not even prepared to take a second look at the incident it means that Michael Duff will miss his first game since joining the Clarets in the summer.

Rightly or wrongly he was sent off on Saturday for what was considered two bookable offences and he will have to sit out this one game. Loan player Richard Duffy came on just after Stoke’s equaliser on Saturday and after a nervous first few minutes he very much looked the part.

Lee Roche is still out with the hamstring injury he sustained at Wigan whilst Ryan Townsend is ruled out, as he was on Saturday, with shin splints. Other than that Steve Cotterill has a full squad to select from and I would expect us to line up:

Danny Coyne, Richard Duffy, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Mo Camara, Richard Chaplow, Tony Grant, Micah Hyde, Graham Branch, Ian Moore, Robbie Blake. Subs: Brian Jensen, Matt O’Neill, Joel Pilkington, Amadou Sanokho, Jean-Louis Valois.

Our last Turf Moor meeting was on 1^st November last year and came during a run of eight games without a win. This one should have been a win though after we went in front through Richard Chaplow just seven minutes into the second half.

However, a mistake by Graham Branch gave Cardiff a chance to equalise and they did that with a spectacular finish from Robert Earnshaw.

The teams were,

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Dean West, Graham Branch, Arthur Gnohere, Mo Camara, Glen Little (Gareth Farrelly 83), Richard Chaplow, Tony Grant, Ian Moore, Robbie Blake (Luke Chadwick 78), Delroy Facey. Subs not used: Lee Roche, Joel Pilkington, Matt O’Neill.

Cardiff: Neil Alexander, Spencer Prior (James Collins 90), Danny Gabbidon, Chris Barker, Tony Vidmar, Graham Kavanagh, Mark Bonner, Willie Boland (Julian Gray 72), John Robinson, Gavin Gordon, Robert Earnshaw. Subs not used: Martyn Margetson, Andy Campbell, Stuart Fleetwood.