Cardiff City manager Dave Jones locked his team in the dressing room for 40 minutes after yesterday’s home defeat to the Chamionship’s money men QPR.
Dave Jones emerged from the after-match inquest with his Bluebirds to say: “Nobody emerges from that dressing room with any credibility apart from an 18-year-old.”
Manager Jones singled out teenage sub Josh Magennis as the only player to escape criticism after the 2-0 defeat by QPR.
He said: “Nothing seemed to come off for us today. People looked devoid of any passing movement. Too many people weren’t prepared to put a shift in. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.
“I don’t believe that it’s because we played Wednesday and it took a lot out of us. Today, maybe one or two thought it was going to happen for them, and football has a tendency to kick you in the teeth. We showed all our strengths at Reading, and we were the opposite of that today.
“We had an 18-year-old who ran around and tried to make things happen. One or two others need to take a leaf out of that book somewhere along the line. And you can’t rely on an 18-year-old to go on and set our play up. Our forward play was non-existent today. Burkey tried and tried and tried but if there’s no movement in front of him, he’s just going to run up blind alleys.
“You get games like that through your career as a player but it”s the ones who keep running and chasing who can make it happen. Everything will desert you – your passing, your decision making – but it never stops you running.
“Before the match, we spoke about Rangers being more dangerous away from home because they are getting flak at home. They are probably more comfortable away. We didn’t shut them down and make life difficult for them.
“The first goal was offside but we shouldn’t have been playing offside anyway. We were caught out of shape because somebody didn’t want to run five yards to stop them from playing the ball.
“Too many of our players want to play the way they want to play instead of the way we want them to play.
“Young Josh tried to make things happen, but I’m relying on a kid to get us back into a game of football. He’s learning his trade and training with us and he needs to play, but not lead the line. There were enough people on that pitch today to lead the line but they didn’t want to do it. That’s a bitter pill for them.
“We never started with any tempo. Sadly that was true of my front line. People at the back will lump balls if there is no movement in front of them.
“There are not many times I’ve come in as manager of this club and said that about the players. But this was probably the most lacklustre performance I’ve seen from us in a long time. They didn’t compete hard enough.
“I can’t defend them in any way whatsoever. What I can’t accept is that we didn’t work hard enough. I’ve been in the dressing room and that all know that.”
Photograph: Wikimedia creative commons 2.0: joncandy/Jon Candy.
