Neil Warnock believes Cardiff City can stay unbeaten at home for the rest of the season after Lee Tomlin preserved their record with a late equaliser against Sheffield Wednesday.
The Cardiff manager was in bullish mood, despite an at best mixed performance in their 1-1 draw on Friday night.
Cardiff were outplayed for an hour, but managed to rouse themselves in the late stages and were thankful to Tomlin’s set-piece skills.
The midfielder, who came on as a late substitute curled a stunning 25-yard shot into the bottom corner in the 87th minute.
It was enough to cancel out Julian Borner’s first-half goal – created by impressive former Cardiff winger Kadeem Harris – and means the Bluebirds are yet to taste defeat in front of their own fans so far in this campaign.
Warnock said: “I’d like to go unbeaten all season if I’m honest and I don’t think it’s impossible.
“But I’d like to win away now next week. We’ve got two tough away games and it’s about time we won away on the law of averages.
“I think we can get better in the second half of the season. There are one or two areas we are working on and we’ve got players coming back in. I think we can be in the mix, I’m sure of it.”
Cardiff had looked to be heading for defeat after an insipid first-half in which Harris’s low shot was steered home by Borner.
Harris then crashed a free-kick against the cross bar as he tried to make Warnock realise what he has let slip through his fingers with a free transfer this summer.
Tomlin has been a peripheral figure at Cardiff for much of the time since leaving Bristol City, but his dead-ball skills are renowned and when the opportunity arose he showed an accuracy and composure his teammates had been lacking.
Warnock added: “It could be a big momentum swing with that late goal.
“These three games this week are tough, but they’re tough for the people we’re playing against.
“We’ve got to stick together like we did tonight when we showed a lot of resilience.
Wednesday manager Garry Monk accused the officials of twice getting it wrong in the build-up to Cardiff’s goal.
He claimed the free-kick should not have been awarded and suggested that Aden Flint was offside and interfering with play when he stood behind the defensive wall and jumped with his arms in the air.
Monk said: “We are frustrated that we didn’t get the win, because we had enough chances to make it comfortable.
“We just didn’t have control in that final period, although I am disappointed with the goal.
“If it had been a legitimate goal, fair enough, but I am told it wasn’t even a foul for the free-kick. Then, they had one of their players behind the wall doing star jumps, trying to distract our keeper.
“How they missed that, I don’t know – because it’s not hard to spot – a 6ft 5 inch player doing star jumps. But there we are – it is what it is.”
“We are frustrated that we didn’t get the win, because we had enough chances to make it comfortable.
“The first 50 or 60 minutes was exactly what we wanted. We didn’t allow them to turn the game into a physical scrap, which is what they wanted.
“But we just didn’t have control in that final period.”
