Cardiff City have extended their lead at the top of the Championship to four points, albeit temporarily, with a thumping 4-1 win against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park.
Mark Hudson headed in the only goal of the opening half, despite Cardiff largely dominating before the break.
In the second half Blackburn came out strongly and equalised through Josh King, before Craig Bellamy and two late strikes from Joe Mason and Kim Bo-Kyung gave Cardiff a resounding win.
Here, Sports Mole dissects the match to see where it went wrong for the hosts.
Match statistics:
Blackburn:
Shots 13
On target 7
Possession 49%
Corners 7
Fouls 18
Cardiff:
Shots 9
On target 4
Possession 51%
Corners 2
Fouls 11
Was the result fair?
Yes. Blackburn can say that they had more shots and more corners but Cardiff's four on target were all ones that you would expect them to put away, and they did. The possession was fairly even but Cardiff did so much more with the ball and late on picked off their hosts with ease.
Blackburn's performance
5/10 Sluggish and lacking in penetration in the final third. In the first half they were comfortably outplayed but they were better in the second period after the introduction of Colin Kazim-Richards. Even so, apart from one or two chances, they did not create enough real opportunities to win the game.
Cardiff's performance
9/10. It was a very efficient away performance. They were tight at the back apart from a 10-minute spell at the start of the second half and very clinical up front. They might have scored from their only four shots on target but each chance would be buried nine times out of 10 and Bellamy did hit the bar, too.
Sports Mole's man of the match
Mark Hudson: Who to pick? It could have gone to Bellamy, Heidar Helguson or Craig Noone, but Hudson gets it for the work he did at both ends. From the first whistle the Cardiff skipper was winning tackles and headers and got up the other end to score the vital first goal. The importance of the block at 2-1 on King as he was about to equalise cannot be overstated.
Biggest gaffe
Mauro Formica was guilty of a glaring miss when presented with the opportunity to equalise, and it was very costly. Jordan Rhodes did well after a David Marshall save to cut across to Formica but the Argentine could only clip the top of the bar from eight yards out.
Referee performance
Simon Hooper did nothing wrong tonight. He dished out a number of cards and but for the early one for King got them all right. There were no penalty shouts for him to decide on and he allowed the game to flow as much as he could, barring the several fouls.
What next?
Blackburn: Tonight's hosts visit Blackpool a week on Saturday to try to put a halt to the slow fall towards the bottom half of the table.
Cardiff: Cardiff have a home match against bottom of the league Peterborough United to extend their lead at the top further still.
Matt Domm
