By Gareth James
Steve Morison has made a plea to stay on as Cardiff City manager next season – on the back of the Bluebirds’ best performance of the current campaign.
The Cardiff manager praised his players after their 4-0 routing of Peterborough United at home on Wednesday night.
The result – the team’s most emphatic win of the season – means Morison’s team have now won three Championship matches on the bounce, a sequence that has pulled them 12 points clear of the relegation zone.
It also led to the rookie manager suggesting for the first time the club should extend his contract, which only runs until the end of the season.
“That performance shows where I want to take this club and how I want the team to look on a weekly basis if I get the chance,” said Morison who took over from Mick McCarthy in October.
“Winning breeds confidence and we have to go again in 48 hours. The good thing is the players are starting to believe in themselves.”
Morison made an encouraging start to his time in charge last year as he ended a run of eight successive defeats to take 10 points from six matches, which included three wins.
4️⃣ #Bluebirds on the scoresheet tonight! 💙#CityAsOne pic.twitter.com/c2tPHQv380
— Cardiff City FC (@CardiffCityFC) February 9, 2022
The new manager bounce effect then seemed to wear off as he went seven matches without winning, but he has turned things around again with three wins on the trot, interspersed by last Sunday’s FA Cup defeat at Liverpool.
The win over Peterborough has not moved Cardiff up the table – they remain in 20th spot – but they are 12 points clear of the relegation zone and only three points behind rivals Swansea City, who are in 17th place.
A victory for Cardiff this weekend away at Millwall and a heavy defeat for Swansea at home to Bristol City on Sunday, could even see the Bluebirds go above the Swans in the table.
Morison added: “That was the most complete performance since I took over.
“We controlled the game without the ball really well and when we had our moments we were spot on. To a man we were top drawer and it was a good night.
“This game was always going to be much bigger than the FA Cup tie in Liverpool on Sunday. If I had been sat here having beaten Liverpool and lost to Peterborough we would have been dragged back to within six points of relegation.
“We had fresh legs tonight and I was able to bring some players off at the end to rest them ahead of Millwall on Saturday.”
if we don’t give this man a contract at the end of this year it would be the most cardiff city thing ever https://t.co/rRKBoJQSWF
— jac🏴 (@ccfcjac1927) February 10, 2022
Joe Ralls and Aden Flint put Cardiff 2-0 ahead before the break, with second-half goals following for Jordan Hugill and Uche Ikpeazu.
Peterborough manager Darren Ferguson admitted: “I’m devastated. It was a humiliation and a complete embarrassment to the club.
“A performance of that level in a game of this magnitude will never, ever be acceptable.
“When you come into a game knowing Cardiff have lost nine games at home, and on the back of a performance last weekend that everyone agreed was a positive one, I cannot take one positive out of that performance, not one. I could have made about two subs after 20-25 minutes.
“It’s not going to make much difference but I do have to apologise to the fans who came down to watch what was an unbelievable performance.
“It could have been four or five-nil after 20 minutes. From the top to bottom of the game, in terms of the fundamentals – tackles, second balls, headers, set-pieces, running on the ball – they annihilated us.
Posh boss Darren Ferguson was left devastated as his side put in a performance at Cardiff that he described as a ‘complete embarrassment to the club’ last night #pufc https://t.co/weCP1f3HUV
— Peterborough T’graph (@peterboroughtel) February 10, 2022
“To see a performance like that is worrying. We changed formation three or four times and I’m trying everything I can to try to salvage a run of games where we can get wins, but it just isn’t working. That’s football and that lies with me.”
Cardiff now face Morison’s former club Millwall at The New Den on Saturday, before further home matches against Coventry City and Blackpool.
