Wycombe Wanderers achieved a rare away win as they beat a ten-man Cardiff City 2-0 on Tuesday night in the Welsh capital.
Going into this game, fans would’ve been happy with nothing more than a draw, as they had managed to do on their New Years’ Day fixture when the, at the time, league leaders visited Adams Park.
Since then, however, Cardiff have slipped up and lost the first-placed position to Lincoln City and now see themselves five points adrift. Their opposition, Wycombe Wanderers, as we all know, had just suffered from defeats at the hands of Luton Town and perhaps more famously, even if it is for all the wrong reasons, Bolton Wanderers.
One change was made to the squad after Saturdays’ defeat to Luton, with Ewan Henderson replacing Jamie Mullins who moved to the bench. Will Norris was once again named as a starter, who had recently found himself under the spotlight once again after some poor goalkeeping in the previous couple of matches.
Dan Casey is expected to be out for another few weeks so Taylor Allen and Connor Taylor once again made up the backline alongside Daniel Harvie and Jack Grimmer, so no major changes were made from the weekend, even if performances weren’t up to the standard needed then.
Just before the game started Cardiff put on some kind of lightshow, and I’m not entire sure if they do it every match when it’s dark, but if not, it definitely seemed a bit overkill for Wycombe visiting.
The game started how we all probably expected it to start: with Wycombe trying to quell Cardiff’s attacks, but their opening attempt on goal from Rubin Colwill was deflected just before Colwill once again had the ball in a dangerous position thanks to a mistake from Will Norris who took too much time on the ball and found Omari Kellyman whose effort very nearly opened the scoring.
There was a lot of end-to-end action during the first half hour of the match, with Ollie Tanner’s shot for the hosts off-target.
Wycombe’s first real attack ended in a shot from Caolan Boyd-Munce, his effort deflected, resulting in a corner for the Chairboys, but nothing came of that.
Just before half-time, the game was changed massively as Gabriel Osho was sent off for a late challenge on Henderson, and suddenly, the hosts found themselves down to ten just before half-time.
During the break when everyone was getting refreshments or just taking a general break in the concourse, the general consensus around the away end was that it was now Wycombe’s game to lose, they needed to pick up the pace a little bit and stop constantly inviting pressure onto what’s already been proven to be a shaky defence as of recently.
Shortly after the 50-minute mark, Wanderers had a bit of a flurry in Cardiff’s box with about five separate players having a go on goal, but none of which resulted in the opener, but it was already much better. There was more end-to-end action this half, with Cian Ashford’s strike on goal flying narrowly off-target.
It was after this that Duff decided to make his first changes of the night, with Nathan Lowe and Henderson coming off for Cauley Woodrow and Junior Quitirna.
Boyd-Munce had another chance on goal with a free-kick given not too far from the box, his effort saved. Junior was next to try and score, with his effort off-target.
Another change was made, with Andre Vidigal coming on for Luke Harris, Wanderers in need of more pace down the left as it seemed like Harvie was struggling taking on the defenders, the substitution nearly making an instant impact who crossed into the box, eventually finding Grimmer, but his header hit the side netting.
But it wasn’t much longer after this that Vidigal managed to score his first goal for Wycombe to open the scoring, after a crossfield pass from Aaron Morley unleashed his fellow winter signing in the box. Vidigal took it down excellently, and cooly slotted past Nathan Trott for his first goal for the club.
Only five minutes later, Wanderers were on the attack again, Taylor of all people finding Woodrow who headed it past the Cardiff keeper, killing the game off for good, even if some were a bit nervous after what happened the last time Wanderers’ went 2-0 up away from home.
But after that, Wanderers managed to sustain Cardiff’s attacks and after four minutes of additional time and Boyd-Munce coming off for Luke Leahy, the final whistle was blown and the three points came home with Wycombe.
The mood after the game was great, fans staying behind to clap off the players who were all smiles, and suddenly, there’s hope. Wycombe now find themselves in ninth, only two points away from the playoffs after Huddersfield drew and Stevenage lost, some good results for Wanderers.
Next up is Leyton Orient away on Saturday as Wycombe’s play-off push continues, 750 tickets sold already. If you can, get down into the capital and give the team the push they need.
