FA Cup 4th round, Liverpool vs Cardiff Anfield, Sunday Feb 6tth, High Noon, The Reds and The Blues.Referee Andy MadleyAssistant Referees Nick Hopton & Shaun HudsonFourth Official Geoff EltringhamVAR Andre MarrinerAVAR Sian Massey-EllisWell well, Cardiff. It’s all about the managers of late. Thanks. You gave Ole Gunnar Solskjær (yes !) his break in English League Football management and we know how that ended up. Of late you’ve hosted the Barnsley Barnstormer himself, Mick Mc Carthy and held hands with Neil "Subtle" Warnock. We also beat you (after a draw actually) in the League Cup in 2012 to give our Kenny (probably) his last Cup as our manager.Steve Morrison (Ex Milwall player) is the latest in a line of 2 prematurely grey managers, Good ol’ Mick Mc Carthy being the main man until a spectacular run of 8 defeats win a row did for him in November. Mick seems to be getting the blame for playing a very youthful team in his (short) tenure though the policy seems to have been implemented from above. There does seem to be a change now though. They have brought in a few new players this month. All started against Forest on Saturday and two of them scored as well.They are having a dreary season and presently sit in 20th place, 6 points above the relegation zone. Having said that they tripped up high flying Forest last weekend, 2-1 and they play bottom club Barnsley mid-week. A win and it really takes the pressure off for Anfield.Their big problem has been scoring (15 goals in 27 league matches).It all seems a bit grim on the forums generally. Moribund. Drifting. Scrabbling along. They still have one Vincent Tan (remember him) at the helm. Changing their name to the Cardiff Dragons and their shirts from blue to red were amongst the ideas for a “new brand Cardiff” back in 2012. In fairness to the supporters they forced Tan to reverse his colour scheme after 3 seasons in the red. The man who introduced McDonald’s to his homeland in Malaysia has as yet not turned Cardiff into a force in Asia it seems. Mind you I shouldn’t be scoffing, we had Hicks and Gilette in charge around the same time and for a while it could have been the Cardiff Dragons against the Liverpool Bullwhips. All hail fan power!Their recent flirtation with the EPL ended with one of RAWK’s favourite dartboard characters, one Colin Wanker, taking them down. Unfortunately that season will be remembered for the harrowing, untimely death of new signing, Argentinian, Emiliano Sala, in a flying accident on his way to Cardiff to be unveiled. A sad moment indeed.We've locked horns with Cardiff at 3 different eras over our History. The 20’s where we generally came off worst. 1927 they won the FA Cup, a massive big deal in those times and 40 years before we landed the pot ourselves. To this day they are the only recognised non-english team (Not counting Abu Dhabi) to win it.The 50’s they dominated us, 8 victories to 2. We both fell into the old second division at the end of that decade and then along came Zeus, (Shanks) and we went our separate ways.We’ve won the last 4 league meetings with Brendan and Jurgan in charge as Cardiff twice, briefly surfaced to see how the other half live, before immediately going under again.Their ticket allocation, 7,000 sold out fast and I think they’ll be coming up to party and sing and give it a good lash both on and off the field. It’s nothing to lose time for them. Let’s hope they do Wales proud and belt out a few of their own songs instead of the usual “scouser this and scouser that” nonsense. As for us. As I write this, (Monday night), both Taki and Divvie (unavailable ?) as well as Neco (gone !) are still with us. Thiago and Harvey are due back, Keita will be back while 5 of our top players are in Africa and South America. I assume none of these 5 will play, including our new Luis. The line-up ? I think the single biggest factor for Klopp is to balance rest and rhythm. Does he use the Cardiff game to give his main players a run out or does he keep them seated and go for a “Shrewsbury” mix ? Will the likes of Kelleher, Bradley, Morton, Gordon, Woltman, Dixon-Bonner, Frauendorf and Norris get starts and minutes I think he’ll go stronger this time. I think we’ll need minutes, rhythm, in the legs.Kelleher from Cork, my home town, will play. Aside, I played against his old team, Ringmahon Rangers, when I was a teen. I actually scored a rebound, from 3 yards, narrowly avoiding the cowpats in my heroic, goalhanging slide. I was probably playing against his Dad, Jesus, maybe it was his Grandad ! Anyway … Given there are 5 subs available;Tsimikas, Konaté, Gomez and Bradley. (Maybe Virg gets a half ?)Thiago, Keita, Morton, Hendo, Milner, Jones, Elliott (60 - 30’s)Taki, Bobby, Jota, with a splash of Gordon ?Should be a good, interesting mix of a team. I’m going for a rough and tumble, noisy, 3-1 to the reds.
Isn't it some kind of incredible Liverpool have such a strong team out, Salah and Mane are away and all you are thinking is "Man, I hope Thiago, Elliott and Diaz come on soon!"
Cute dive by the Cardiff player - fools no one
