Match Report: Wolverhampton Wanderers V Cardiff City – Oh Keeps!

February 23, 2009 at 10:13 pm | Posted in Match Reports, Team | Leave a comment
Tags: Bothroyd Injury, Cardiff City, Cardiff V Wolves, Coca-Cola Championship, Dimitrios Konstantopoulos, Konstantopolous error, Michael Chopra, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Wolves

A Dimitrios Konstantopoulos clanger cost Cardiff City all three points against league leaders Wolves on Sunday, gifting Wolves a 2-2 draw and a point.

Debutant Konstantopoulos makes a clanger to gift Wolves a Point

The on loan Goalkeeper dropped a Kyel Reid cross over his own goal line in one of the clangers of the season. Very frustrating for a Cardiff side looking to push up the table.

Sylvan Ebanks-Blake nodded home the opener for Wolves only for deadline day signing Michael Chopra to equalise from a brilliant Paul Parry pass.

Roger Johnson netted in  Paul Parry corner only three minutes into the second half only for Konstantopoulos to gift Wolves a point with only nine minutes to go.

But Cardiff boss Dave Jones was quick to defend his debutant telling the South Wales Echo: “The cross took a deflection and Dimi lost it in the lights. You lot will have a go at him, but he has made a mistake and put his hands up to it. We are all right behind him.

“But he has got to get on with it because we have another game coming up straight away now.”

Konstantopoulos was making his first start for the Bluebirds having been signed on an emergency loan deal from Coventry earlier in the month and would have been devastated to gift a point to Wolves.

But Jones feels the top three are still within reach adding: “We are still mathematically in with a chance of the top two and, as long as that is there, we will keep going.

“We are still mathematically in with a chance of the top two and, as long as that is there, we will keep going.”

Cardiff let it slip against the top three

If Cardiff do miss out on promotion this season they will point to the away games of Reading, Wolves and Birmingham as to why why, conceding late goals in all three games in recent months allowing the top three to maintain their gap over the Bluebirds.

But in the early stages of the game you would have thought Cardiff would have been very happy with a point from Molineux. Wolves should have been out of sight after the first half an hour.

Ebanks-Blake did open the scoring for Wolves with 11 minutes gone only for Wolves to miss numerous opportunities that could have rendered the later drama insignificant – Andrew Keogh guilty of missing two golden chances to double the lead.

Former Wolves misfit Jay Bothroyd left the field with a calf injury on the half hour mark, Chris Burke coming on the replace the towering centre forward.

Chopra marks his latest return with a goal

The change of player and emphasis brought immediate rewards for the Bluebirds as Michael Chopra buried Cardiff’s first real chance of the game, converting a brilliant Paul Parry pass to level the proceedings.

The league leaders became nervous, Wolves boss Mick McCarthy happy to see out the remainder of the half at 1-1.

Cardiff built on their dominant end of the first half and took the lead only three minutes into the half – Roger Johnson nodding home a Paul Parry cross to celebrate the birth of his newborn child.

Molineux went silent and anxious, the home fans nervous of a continued poor run of form that has seen the leaders win only once in the last ten games.

Cardiff should have had the points sewn up

And Cardiff should have made sure of the win as Gavin Rae and Chopra expertly set Parry through on goal, his audacious chip not quite enough to beat Wales internation goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey.

Cardiff’s late goal voodoo was fresh in the minds of the City fans in the ground, surely City would not let another brilliant victory slip away.

But it did and in the worst way imaginable.

On Loan goalkeeper Dimitrios Konstantopoulos dropped the ball over the line from an aimless Kyel Reid cross, the former Swansea player losing all three points for Cardiff with only nine minutes to go.

Cardiff will now have to pick themselves up quickly before the visit of QPR to Ninian Park on Wednesday night, one of the games in hand City simply need to win to maintain the pressure on the top three.

YourBluebirds Man of the Match- Dimitrios Konstantopoulos (only joking) Roger Johnson

Wolverhampton Wanderers Team: Hennessey, Foley, Craddock, Berra, Ward (Stearman 80), Kightly, Henry, Edwards, Jarvis (Reid 76), Keogh (Vokes 76), Ebanks-Blake. Subs Not Used: Higgs, Iwelumo.

Booked: Berra.

Goals: Ebanks-Blake 11, Konstantopoulos 81 og.

Cardiff City Team: Konstantopoulos, McNaughton (Comminges 90), Gyepes, Roger Johnson, Kennedy, McCormack (Whittingham 85), Rae, Ledley, Parry, Bothroyd (Burke 32), Chopra. Subs Not Used: Owusu-Abeyie, Scimeca.

Goals: Chopra 31, Roger Johnson 48.

Att: 22,093 (Molineux, Wolverhampton)

Ref: Darren Deadman (Cambridgeshire)