Carling Cup Results 24th August 2010 Part 3

Peterborough United 2-1 Cardiff City
This was one giant-killing I didn’t want to see. True, Cardiff left out Craig Bellamy, without whom they are admittedly considerably weaker, but it still wasn’t nice to see. And manager Dave Jones said the result wouldn’t have been different f Craig had played. Cardiff took the lead just after the half-hour mark but Peterborough scored a couple of really good goals to go through to the next round.
Arron Davies came close to scoring two goals for Peterborough. He played ninety minutes but he didn’t play the full match. Work that one out.
Craig was probably just rested but Jason Koumas made his first start for Cardiff, or rather his first start in this loan spell. He had a great first half and he got the assist for the first goal. He was understandably quieter in the second half but he completed his first ninety minutes for ages and ages.
Darcy Blake was still out with an ankle problem but Adam Matthews kept his place in the starting line-up and did well in the first half especially. Aaron Wildig wasn’t expected to be fit enough to return to the squad but he was an 84th minute substitute. Nathaniel Jarvis was on the bench.

Portsmouth 1-1 Crystal Palace (Portsmouth win 4-3 on penalties)
Portsmouth looked set to win this in ninety minutes but they messed it up for themselves when they accidentally put the ball in the wrong net. Their problems with putting the ball in the net continued. Portsmouth were unable to find a winner in extra time and they were just lucky Palace couldn’t find one either. Then came the shoot-out. Portsmouth won 4-3 but Palace (I think¬) won 4-3 on misses.
Andy Dorman started for Crystal Palace but he was substituted and therefore missed the penalty drama. Lewis Price was on the bench.

Reading 3-3 Northampton Town, Northampton win 4-2 on penalties
Welsh players don’t have the best reputation when it comes to penalties. And England think they’ve got it bad. Reading were the team to open the scoring but the League Two side got an equaliser just two minutes later. When Welshman Hal Robson-Kanu put Reading back into the lead in the 62nd minutes - his first for the club - the same thing happened, only quicker. Two minutes later, Northampton had levelled the score. This took the match into extra time and Reading really thought they’d done it. They scored and in the 4th minute of stoppage time, there had been no reply from Northampton. The reply came a minute later. Except it wasn’t so much a reply as an own goal.
And so to the penalties. By this stage, Reading had all three of their Welsh strikers on the field. Hal and Simon Church had played the full match whilst Jake Taylor came on in the 50th minute. Having already scored one goal that night, Hal was perhaps a little more confident than the other two. At any rate, of the three of them, this was the only goal that went in. Simon went for power rather than placement in the first penalty and it backfired. Probably not literally though. Jake’s penalty went wide. But I still love them and I’m sure they’ll get a lot of sympathy from their Welsh team-mates.
Paul Walker was on the bench for Northampton.