We committed suicide

CARDIFF CITY boss Malky Mackay said his side had committed football suicide by allowing Crystal Palace to battle back to victory despite trailing by two goals at half-time.

Despite leading 2-0 at the break via goals from Aron Gunnarsson and Don Cowie , a second-half hat-trick from Palace striker Glenn Murray, saw Cardiff lose 3-2 and suffer their second defeat of the Championship season.

Two of the Eagles' goals came via the penalty spot, but Mackay said he had little problem with the referee's decisions, putting the blame for the spot-kicks firmly on the shoulders of his players.

"We committed suicide really by gifting Crystal Palace two penalties," said Mackay.


"That is exactly what happened. I don't need to look too far to see what happened. “The first one , a player has raised his arms during a free-kick and given it away and the third one Heidar Helguson has come out and made a rash challenge on the edge of the box. That's penalty number two.

"I don't have any qualms about them. Maybe the second one was on the line or just outside, There's a case for either.

"As for their second goal I thought it was bit fortuitous as their player's shot has had a huge deflection. David Marshall has palmed it onto Matt Connolly and it's gone in the net. It was a bit calamitous and it cost us the game.

"We felt fairly comfortable at half-time. We were two goals up and Craig Bellamy had a chance he probably should have scored to make it three.

“He scores that nine times out of ten. When you give two penalties to a team like that though you do deserve to be punished."

Cardiff currently sixth in the Championship table, three points behind new leaders Brighton, and despite the defeat at Selhurst park, the Cardiff boss declared himself reasonably satisfied with his side's start to the campaign.

"I'm disappointed, if we had not given the two penalties we are sitting near the top of the table. But there's no need to overreact. We know exactly where we went wrong," added Mackay.

"We scored two good goals, we took our chances, but you give yourself a mountain to climb when you gift two goals, we can't legislate for that.

"But I've got a great group of boys there. We are three points off the top at this point. They are a fantastic group and we don't have to look too hard why we were beaten."

Palace manager Dougie Freedman was delighted by the fight-back, commenting: "That's the best fight-back I've had as a manager. We showed character and energy and in the end I thought it was the correct result. We played very well."

Agreed. It's early days yet and a bad day at the office. Not worried and this seems like a team and manager who learn from their mistakes. Beat Blackpool and everyone will forget about this.

Either way, there's still a helluva lot of season left to go.

Couldn't agree more.

Just a bad day in the office so lets move on.

malkys absolutely right,

players let him down they switched off

Does anyone question why he messed up by rotating the squad when he could have stuck with an in-form team ( aside from Maynard obviously)?


For me, I find the decision to rotate a bit strange. Its not like it was a mid-week fixture and the next game is in a few days, or its getting late into the season and the lads are getting tired.
Why not stick with the same team that had won the last three?
Question- was Mutch on the bench? If not, perhaps he was injured.

I just saw it on the league show and il make one further point - Andrew Taylor is a prat of the highest measure. Why the hell would you stick your arm out like that when the referee is RIGHT in front of you? It was 100% deliberate and he didn't even think of having a glance at where Marshall was. He just assumed Marshall was going to let it in and decided to gift wrap them a penalty.

Rhys wrote:Does anyone question why he messed up by rotating the squad when he could have stuck with an in-form team ( aside from Maynard obviously)?


For me, I find the decision to rotate a bit strange. Its not like it was a mid-week fixture and the next game is in a few days, or its getting late into the season and the lads are getting tired.
Why not stick with the same team that had won the last three?
Question- was Mutch on the bench? If not, perhaps he was injured.

The squad wasnt rotated Rhys. Mutch was injured so Gunnarrson was simply the replacement. Maynard also injured so Bellamy was the replacement. The only true rotation was Noone off for Cowie, and to Malky's credit Cowie picked up the fans man of the match so he was a decent call.

There should definetely be a rotation for Blackpool though. I'd like to see Malky instigate a Mourinho-sequence level of severity on performance. He wasnt afraid to drop Didier Drogba if he had a bad game to teach him a lesson. If like to see most the squad rotated now simply to send out a message that this sort of collapse isn't acceptable. Only problem is I don't think we have enough defenders to actually rotate them out.

Red614 wrote:

Rhys wrote:Does anyone question why he messed up by rotating the squad when he could have stuck with an in-form team ( aside from Maynard obviously)?


For me, I find the decision to rotate a bit strange. Its not like it was a mid-week fixture and the next game is in a few days, or its getting late into the season and the lads are getting tired.
Why not stick with the same team that had won the last three?
Question- was Mutch on the bench? If not, perhaps he was injured.

The squad wasnt rotated Rhys. Mutch was injured so Gunnarrson was simply the replacement. Maynard also injured so Bellamy was the replacement. The only true rotation was Noone off for Cowie, and to Malky's credit Cowie picked up the fans man of the match so he was a decent call.

There should definetely be a rotation for Blackpool though. I'd like to see Malky instigate a Mourinho-sequence level of severity on performance. He wasnt afraid to drop Didier Drogba if he had a bad game to teach him a lesson. If like to see most the squad rotated now simply to send out a message that this sort of collapse isn't acceptable. Only problem is I don't think we have enough defenders to actually rotate them out.

Sure, there is no question the game was list because lapses in concentration and two stupid mistakes.
But if Cowie was able get a goal and fans motm, then imagine what Noone would have managed if started. The only conceivable reason that Noone was on the bench, based on his form, was because he was struggling for fitness. Even then, Malky, in my view, had better options.
Why not chuck Bellamy out the left and give mason a go?

Bellamy played the left winger role admirably to be fair, he was involved in every attack and was one of the main instigators in both our goals. To be fair the midfield had a fine game with the only real doubting point being Whitts had a quiet game. Helguson up front...he should of been the right call, but he wasnt. He's worryingly becoming quite Miller-esque. He's a fine striker who has great championship experience and some premiership on top of that, and he pops Mason paper as first starter because Mason in reality isn't proven as a consistent first team striker, he's yet to do a full season. But I see the point there's only so many times I can say 'Helguson makes sense' and have him make me look silly. He needs a goal, and he needs it fast. He barely appears in match commentary, all our attacks came through the midfield and the reality is that shouldn't be the case. There's no way Whitts should be top goal scorer, not because he's not good enough but because a striker should be there to finish off attempts, he should just create them. Especially with Maynard gone, we need a striker to step forward and take a role like Mackail-Smiths for Brighton, Rhodes for Blackburn, Becchio for Leeds. Helguson is good enough to take that role, but right now he's not. Malky simply needs to sort him out or drop him, really.

I haven't read our alternative forum options but I assume all hell has been let loose. I listened on the radio and it just seemed like what was said above, a bad day at the office. Comfortably in the lead, should have been 3 up, but this is a tough division and Palace were just shell-shocked after conceding those 2 goals and a half time pep talk sorted them out.

We just didn't boss the game second half.

Disappointing but the last time I looked it was still September and we surely all agree this is a very good squad with competition everywhere other than FB. This squad and manager will give us a good chance of promotion.

Obviously the entire team need 40 lashes after fecking up, then back into training tomorrow.

Malaise Yeah! wrote:I haven't read our alternative forum options but I assume all hell has been let loose. I listened on the radio and it just seemed like what was said above, a bad day at the office. Comfortably in the lead, should have been 3 up, but this is a tough division and Palace were just shell-shocked after conceding those 2 goals and a half time pep talk sorted them out.

We just didn't boss the game second half.

Disappointing but the last time I looked it was still September and we surely all agree this is a very good squad with competition everywhere other than FB. This squad and manager will give us a good chance of promotion.

Obviously the entire team need 40 lashes after fecking up, then back into training tomorrow.

Exactly - just need to move and put in a good performance next week.

We are unbeaten at home in the lucky red kit so lets hope we can keep that going

& Also that huddersfield can get something there tomorrow

Shame we haven't got a midweek game, would have been good to get straight back to it and learn from our mistakes. Oh well, nice easy games next weekend.............