OLE LOOKS FOR RESPONSE

City manager calls for squad to bounce back against Villa

With Tuesday evening’s Barclays Premier League clash with Aston Villa at Cardiff City Stadium fast approaching, Cardiff City manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær insisted that his players are ready to bounce back quickly from the weekend’s disappointing derby defeat.

“We’ve watched the game back,” the boss said of Saturday’s defeat at the Liberty Stadium. “We didn’t start well, but after Craig (Bellamy) put that cross in for Kenwyne (Jones) we got more into it. We had some great chances, although the second half was disappointing. We need to bounce back now.

“We are conceding too many goals – we can’t keep conceding two goals a game and expect to score three, so that is something we must address. We’re striving for continuous improvement, and we saw signs of that away from home against City and United. Swansea was a step back in terms of both the result and performance, but we have to come back and start again.

“There is obvious pressure, but the lads can certainly cope with that. They've reacted well to Saturday in training. The attitude is good, and the energy in training is very positive. They’ve reacted the right way after a bad defeat;  you can’t feel sorry for yourself in the Premier League - the players are ready for Villa.”

Paul Lambert brings his Aston Villa side to Cardiff on Tuesday night and Ole says that his men are ready for the challenge: “We're ready to go tomorrow,” he vowed. “It's a chance to get points, but Villa are a good side away from home and have a good record on the road. They’ve impressed many, especially in the game at Liverpool, so we know we’re going to face a tough team.”

And as for possible team selection, the Manager added: “We've got a slight injury with Craig Noone that we have to manage. He should be available for selection for tomorrow, but it might be a case of resting him again for a while after that.

“Fábio needs games to get to his optimum level in this league; he got sucked a little bit too close to Routledge [for Swansea’s first goal] but I’m not blaming him for that whatsoever, it was a fantastic pass. Juan Cala is a leader, he can organise the people around him and he’s a big character in the group, so he’s definitely in my thoughts for the game.”

Finally, Ole set out his targets for the remainder of the season: “We’ll probably need another 17 or 18 points to stay up, but it's never been so tight in the bottom half. We’ve got two home games next, and we’ve targeted them to get some points.”

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