Cardiff boss Omer Riza lauds players for ‘desire’ and ‘grit’ in draw at Stoke

Cardiff manager Omer Riza saw his side concede at the death but was still pleased with the performance in the 2-2 draw at Stoke.

He said: “The main thing about today’s game was a reaction off the Preston game because it was unsatisfactory from all our standards.

“I’m very pleased with them in respect to how they performed and the way we went 1-0 down and still showed the desire and the grit to get back in the game.

“We were very close to getting a win and we’re disappointed not to take three points.

“If I need to make changes because I’m not happy with what happened the previous week, there’s players who can come in and do a job and, to a man, today they were excellent, so I was pleased with that.

“To take three points today coming off a loss against Preston at home would have been brilliant for us, and they deserved three points, but if you give fouls away around the edge of the box in the 95th minute, you always put yourself in dangerous waters.”

Stoke head coach Narcis Pelach remained angry with his team’s performance against Cardiff despite them snatching a draw at the death.

Ben Gibson spared the Potters’ blushes, and his own, by heading in an equaliser in the fifth minute of stoppage time to cancel out his earlier own goal and deny the Bluebirds their first away win since April.

Cardiff are at least now out of the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone, one point clear of 22nd-placed Portsmouth, but this was a result that extended both teams’ winless runs to seven games.

Stoke’s display led to frustrations among home supporters boiling over inside the bet365 Stadium and Pelach understood their show of anger.

He said: “Of course I understand, and they are right to do it.

“I’m not angry with this because they are not pleased with what they have seen and I’m on the same page because we need to go on the football pitch and compete better than we did.

“There is a feeling of anger and disappointment – I’m really disappointed with the performance we put in today and I feel like this is unacceptable.

“Of course I am responsible for this, but we have to compete much better than we did today.

“We talk about competitiveness and at the minute, it looks like we don’t understand what it is.

“Competing in football means win your duels and win your second balls, and we lost plenty of that, so of course it is my responsibility but if we want to win this league, we need to win duels and second balls.

“If the 50-50 ball is for them and not for you, you are defending and not attacking.”

Stoke broke the deadlock after 17 minutes when Andrew Moran smashed into the roof of the net after Cardiff goalkeeper Jak Alnwick parried Million Manhoef’s shot.

Anwar El Ghazi equalised for the Bluebirds in the 32nd minute when he tapped in Joe Ralls’ deflected volley from close range at the back post.

Cardiff looked set to record a priceless victory when Chris Willock’s shot was beaten out by Stoke goalkeeper Viktor Johansson only for the rebound to bounce in off Gibson.

But another error by Alnwick led to a very late Potters leveller as he came and missed Lynden Gooch’s free-kick and Gibson redeemed himself by heading into an empty net.