They lost their last game 5-0 at home to Norwich and stand second bottom of the First
They lost their last game 5-0, at home to Norwich, and stand second bottom of the First Division table with just five wins from 27 matches. They have won as many games in the Worthington Cup, including a 4-2 success at home to Sunderland in the second round and a 1-0 victory away to Aston Villa in round four.”For a long time now it just seems to have been one disaster after another for this club,” Yorath says, addressing a state of affairs he – or Alex Ferguson, for that matter – could hardly be expected to arrest in the space of seven weeks “It’s been going on for years It’s been downhill all the way But it’s got to stop at some point That’s what I keep telling people. It’s got to stop.”Over the years there’s been all sorts of bad judgements. But there’s actually a wage structure now, probably for the first time ever, and we won’t over-reach it. My job is to turn it round on the pitch.” That job hasn’t been helped by a run of injuries and suspensions that is still in motion. Trond Soltvedt and Gerald Sibon will both be serving bans when Blackburn visit Hillsborough on Tuesday night.
“With the side Blackburn can put out, we’re certainly the underdogs,” Yorath says. “If we can frustrate them, even at home, and maybe sneak something, we could have an opportunity of getting through. When we went to Villa it was like a siege for the last 20 minutes. We were throwing bodies in front of the ball, getting tackles in all over the place.
That’s what we had to do.”Then, of course, there are the battles beyond the Worthington Cup: to stay in the First Division, and to win round the restless natives. The manager who guided Wales to within a match of the 1994 World Cup finals is savouring the challenge. “Compared to what I had to face in Lebanon,” Terry Yorath says, taking aim at the local snipers, “this is nothing”.. Cardiff City and the FA Cup are synonymous with one match, the 1927 final, when a shot by their Scottish centre- forward Hugh Ferguson slid off the shiny new jersey of Arsenal’s goalkeeper Dan Lewis (a Welshman) and City became the only non-English club to win the competition. Victory over the Premiership leaders Leeds United at Ninian Park today would run that famous day a close second and might even convince the more sceptical element among the club’s long-suffering followers that there is something more substantial to Sam Hammam’s new regime than hot air and headlines.