Steve Morison insists Cardiff have to stop giving teams head starts

Posted Sunday, December 12, 2021 by PA

Steve Morison hailed the heart and character of his Cardiff team but admitted they cannot keep coming from behind after securing a last-gasp 2-2 draw against Birmingham at St Andrew’s.

Cardiff have fought back to gain a result in five of their nine away games this season and Mark McGuinness’ third goal in five games completed yet another comeback for the Welsh club.

Birmingham led 2-0 at the interval courtesy of strikes from Troy Deeney and Ivan Sunjic.

Morison’s men started their rescue mission with top scorer Kieffer Moore’s fifth goal of the season after 66 minutes.

And in the first minute of second-half stoppage-time, McGuinness rose to head home from Joe Ralls’ corner to level the game and spark joyous scenes amongst the Bluebirds’ travelling supporters behind that goal.

“You come off at Stoke when you’re 3-0 down and you’re back to 3-3, and today we’re 2-0 down and come back to 2-2 with a goal in the last minute, and there weren’t happy faces in the dressing room because we know that can’t be the norm,” said Morison.

“We can’t keep giving ourselves a mountain to climb, but you can’t fault the heart, the character, the attitude, the application. We could have rolled over and let it go.

“We haven’t and 1,700 Cardiff fans have gone home slightly happier than they were half an hour ago. And that could end up being a really good point in the scheme of things.

“It’s a point rather than none and adds a bit of positivity as we leave, but we need to be better. We’ll keep driving it at the training ground and in the games, but at some point we need to take a little bit of responsibility for what’s happening on the pitch.

“It can’t always come from us to do that, but there is enough experience in there that’ll make that happen.”

Lee Bowyer cut a frustrated figure as he reflected on two points dropped by his Birmingham team.

“We switched off at the end and got done. We know that’s their strength, they’re a big side. A lot of their goals this season have been scored from set-pieces. We worked hard on it and just got done at the end,” said Bowyer.

“Did they (Cardiff) deserve a point at the end? I don’t think so. But you have to give them credit, they kept pushing and pushing and didn’t give up. We should have finished the game way before that. We missed too many chances again.

“We had two better chances from headers from set-pieces ourselves. The difference was they took them, and we didn’t.”

Bowyer still found some positives to take from the afternoon.

He added: “Our work ethic was really good, we showed passion. Both goals were really good. I thought Troy took his goal really well, nice and composed, and same with Ivan.”