Meh. Cardiff at home in round 4.
Flat home draws against lower league opponents always give you a mixed reaction.
On the one hand, viewing it from a match going supporters perspective, Cardiff away would have been brilliant. A weekend in South Wales is always boss. Cardiff at home is just
'meh.' You struggle to get up much enthusiasm for it. Which is amplified by the complete change in demographic of the crowd ala how flat it was today. I mean it's great that its cheaper, and there's far more chance for people who don't get to go to the match to do just that. Kids first games are always brilliant to see. But that change from a 'regular' crowd also has its downside in the atmosphere, Just a weird dynamic. And Cardiff will be like that as loads won't be arsed with that at home given everything else so they'll be loads of spares floating around.
On the other hand, it's a perfect draw for progression, For all the mad narking about City getting to domestic finals and L'pool invariably out early, nobody ever really considers the luck of the draw is one of the most important factors to any Cup run. And pulling PL sides like we consistently have, whilst City invariably have dropped lucky with lower league trash, tell's its own, end story. Thankfully, this season, our luck appears to be changing in that regard so this draw, all things being equal, has me already looking at round 5.
As for today, comfortable, professional job done. Not great. Not particularly bad. Just comfortable. Even if 4 was a tad harsh on Shrewsbury for all their commitment. But F them for their divvy fans singing the tawdry Gerrard slip song. Like exactly WHAT does that have to do with you again?
Shout out to Tyler controlling yet again, And the young combo down the right of Bradley, who I thought was our best player on the day, and Gordon, who took his first senior goal superbly. And in front of the Kop too. Those are the three from the kids that started that you feel have a real chance of a good career here and all looked all the better again for another great development exercise against grown men in front of 50-odd thousand.
Yanno', for a team that supposedly has
no squad, to be sat here in January still
WELL in every competition we've entered must be some kind of weird fluke right?
Roll on Thursday and the next leg of this special season in yet another different tourney.
Up the quadruple chasing Reds!