cardiffcity.no

Another defeat for Gamst Pedersen at the CCS as Wembley beckons 04/12/2011

Cardiff City 2 Blackburn Rovers 0, League Cup

Just a few weeks after being embarrassed by Wales when playing for Norway at the Cardiff City Stadium, Morten Gamst Pedersen returned to Cardiff only to be humiliated again. The experienced midfielder even made the error which led to Cardiff’s first goal on Tuesday, and although it was hardly an upset that Cardiff managed to beat the Premier League strugglers, it still was a great result for us. Mother luck stood us by in the semi-final draw. Crystal Palace is a tough but beatable opponent. Wembley beckons!

When Cardiff met Blackburn in the FA Cup back in 2005, Blackburn beat us after a replay, and Gamst Pedersen scored in both of those matches. This time around Gamst Pedersen made a costly error when Gunnarsson robbed the ball off him and quickly sent a perfect throughball to Kenny Miller who made no mistake putting the ball in the goal. Great work by Gunnarsson, and a brilliant finish from or fantastic Scotish striker!

Goalmouth scramble (photo: Jon Candy).

Blackburn have struggled in the Premier League this season and was bottom of the table when they came to Cardiff. Manager Steve Kean is very unpopular among the majority of the Blackburn supporters, and the TWitter activity at #keanout increased as the game progressed. It didn’t take long before the “Kean out” chants started at the CCS either.

On Wednesday I watched on Sky Sports as Crystal Palace remarkably knocked Manchester United out of the competition, and I couldn’t believe our luck watching the semi-final draw afterwards.

We’re now only a two legged semi-final against Crystal Palace away from Wembley!

The League Cup is a strange competition as almost all teams from the top two divisions use it to let fringe players and youth players get some playing time. Malky Mackay did so during the first rounds this season, and we almost got knocked out because of it. Against us Blackburn made five changes from their last Premier League match, and in the following match against Swansea they fielded a stronger side to beat the Jacks 4-2.

Still, it’s a Wembley final and a possible Europe League place at stake, and that wouldn’t be bad at all!

Hopefully we’ll be at Wembley on Sunday the 26th of February!