West Ham United Vs. Cardiff: Hammers Cruise To Final

Cardiff City are regular fixtures in May’s League Championship playoffs, but once again, they appear to be coming up short of promotion to the Premier League. Because of some great defending, some bad bounces and some bad finishing on their part, Cardiff trail West Ham United 2-0. They’ll need something resembling a miracle to beat Sam Allardyce’s side by two goals at Upton Park.

West Ham have been a more attacking side than most of Allardyce’s past teams, but their organization and defense is still a foundation of their game. They’re heavy favorites to advance, but there’s good news for Cardiff. While West Ham’s home defensive record was good for most of the year, it wasn’t great at the end of the year. They drew Birmingham 3-3, lost 4-2 to Reading and conceded against Hull City in three of their last four home games. Cardiff shouldn’t be able to win by two goals in West London, but at least there’s a bit of precedent for decent teams scoring at Upton Park.

Unless they can engineer a serious turnaround in the second half, Cardiff’s chances of reaching Wembley are going to be over before they even play the second leg of their Championship playoff semifinal. West Ham United scored an early goal at Cardiff City Stadium and in typical Sam Allardyce fashion, he got his team to defend that lead very well. Late in the half, they found another goal in somewhat lucky fashion, and the Hammers lead 2-0 at halftime of the first leg.

Jack Collison scored both goals for West Ham, though neither was particularly pretty. The first came just nine minutes into the game and took some real fight and determination to score. He forced a very good save out of David Marshall with a volley off of a Ricardo Vaz Te cross, but Marshall couldn’t push the ball out of play. Collison got back to the ball and nodded his second effort into the back of the net.