Cardiff boss Brian Barry-Murphy: We have to be ruthless and take our chances

Nation.Cymru staff

Cardiff City boss Brian Barry-Murphy urged his team to be more clinical in front of goal after suffering a 2-0 defeat to Portsmouth, which saw the Bluebirds slide into the Championship relegation zone.

“It’s been a disappointing week, naturally, when you lose two games in close succession,” said the manager, speaking to the official Cardiff City website. “We didn’t play well enough in the first half as a team to dominate the game in the way we wanted. In the second half, we had good chances but didn’t take them.

“We started off the game really well. I thought we were going to score, but didn’t. And then we just gave the ball away too much. Obviously, you could see it on Wednesday, the same here; if you give the ball away in any division you’re vulnerable to the counter attack, and that was the case.

“The goal we gave away after half time, again was at a similar time to Wednesday night, and that just took away any momentum we were building. We created enough chances to get back in the game, but didn’t take them.”

He added: “We want to be better. We want to play better than we did in the first half, and when we have momentum in the second half and are playing in the way we want, we have to be really ruthless in terms of how we attempt to take our chances – and keep the door locked at the other end.

“Seven days ago, we went away from Cardiff City Stadium with the players being lauded for what was an exceptional performance. But I knew then, we didn’t win and always if you don’t win and then lose your following game, you have to keep bouncing back.

“We’ll bounce back tomorrow, we’ll show up on Monday, and we’ll give it everything on Tuesday to try and win. We need to support the players, help them improve, and show them that consistency in how we play as the route forward.”

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.