Match Report | Cardiff City 2-0 Portsmouth
Cardiff City produced another scintillating performance as they defeated Pompey on Tuesday night.
Omer Riza named an unchanged side to the team that beat Plymouth Argyle 5-0 last time out, as the Bluebirds extend their unbeaten run to four matches.
The hosts were out of the gate quickly and nearly took the lead through Dimitrios Goutas in the third minute. After being found in the area by Rubin Colwill on the right flank, his cross was met by the head of the Greek, but he couldn’t direct it on target.
It wasn’t long before the opener came however. Perry Ng played in a dangerous low cross across the 6-yard box, forcing Regan Poole to take action, though he turned the ball into his own net.
And on the 13th minute mark, City doubled their lead. Following a corner-kick by Alex Robertson, he found Goutas in the box again, who directed his header towards the back post and pounced on by Callum Robinson, who fired home off the underside of the crossbar.
Ollie Tanner came close to adding a third after driving the ball 50 plus yards up the pitch, with Turnbull playing it back, before Tanner hit it sweetly with his right foot just wide of the post.
Chances continued to fall for City. Following a corner which wasn’t cleared far, Robertson picked it up, weaved through the Portsmouth defence and played it through to Anwar El Ghazi into Robinson, who headed over.
On the stroke of half-time, a magnificent team move by City was played all around before Tanner released Colwill down the right wing - almost drawing substitute 'keeper Jordan Archer off his line, - found Robinson at the edge of the box, but the forward couldn’t keep the shot down.
The Bluebirds continued as they left off after the break, continuing to look threatening and creating chances. Robinson played in Callum O’Dowda on the left wing, whose cross almost deflected in.
The resulting corner was played out to Turnbull, who hit a strike well towards Archer, who parried it away.
City keeper Jak Alnwick, who had little to do for the first hour of the game, was called into action and did well to keep out Kusini Yengi’s effort.
The Bluebirds again came close to adding the third to confirm the win in stoppage time. Substitute Yakou Meite was narrowly intercepted by Poole to deny him a tap in, and Colwill was himself denied by a save by Archer.
With the final whistle blown, City maintained their impressive form with another dominating performance. Next up is a trip to The Hawthorns to face West Bromwich Albion on Saturday, October 26th.
FINAL SCORE: CARDIFF CITY 2-0 PORTSMOUTH
Cardiff City: Alnwick ©, Ng, Goutas, Chambers, O’Dowda, Robertson (Rinomhota 66’), Turnbull (Siopis 66’), Colwill, Tanner (Willock 77’), El Ghazi (Meite 77’), Robinson (Kanga 85’). Subs Not Used: Horvath, Fish, Daland, Bagan.
Portsmouth: Schmid (Archer 31') , Williams (Devlin 45’), Ogilvie, Poole, Pack ©, Potts, McIntyre, Sørensen (Saydee 45’), Murphy (Ritchie 77’), Lane (Yengi 15’), Lang. Subs Not Used: Towler, O’Mahony, Dozzell, Kamara.