Cardiff City Satisifed After Impressive Quarter

The full Championship schedule on Tuesday evening, followed by Blackburn Rovers` 1-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday last night means that one quarter of the season is now passed. Twelve games into the fourty-six fixture campaign and Cardiff City must be pleased with the progress so far.

The Bluebirds are joint top with Leicester City, a side who also spend a good deal of money in pursuit of the Premiership, but the Foxes have had an extra season to prepare and gel as a team after falling short of the play-offs last season.

Crucial to City`s success to date has been the unblemished 100% home record with no opponent managing to even take a point away from 'fortress CCS` so far. It certainly hasn`t been down to facing easy opposition either with Blackpool, Leeds United, Birmingham City and Wolves all leaving having suffered defeat.

Conversely, our away form is unspectacular. We have picked up 7 points, suffering three defeats on the road but certainly in one of those (at Crystal Palace) we should have done better, having led 2-0 at half-time. The away from needs to be looked at, especially because we have the players like Noone, Bellamy and Mason to really hurt teams on the counter attack. Our formation away from CCS has not been fully worked out yet - but if we can start becoming harder to beat, and pick up a few extra draws on our travels - we will be doing OK.

For City, we have been inspired by the continued magic of Peter Whittingham, while Craig Noone has mixed some sublime moments of skill with some definitely dodgy contributions. David Marshall remains a top Championship goalkeeper, while new boy Matthew Connelly has slotted in seamlessly to an already miserly defence featuring Hudson and Turner.

Probably the biggest surprise is that we are yet to see new multi-million pound signings Kim Bo Kyung and Etien Velikonja in action. Neither has featured for more than a few minutes, despite injuries to Bellamy, Mutch and Maynard recently. Understandably, Mackay is keen to integrate them slowly into the squad while Kim especially is so far unable to communicate effectively. Nevertheless, neither will be happy without playing and the longer they fail to feature, the less match sharpness they will have when called upon.

Quarter term report for Cardiff City is that we are well placed, showing good signs but must knuckle down to make sure the early promise is not wasted. Any complacency will be disastrous but with plenty of players fighting for eleven starting positions - we must look to, and have the quality to, capitalise on sitting (level) top after 12 matches.

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