Brian Barry-Murphy sees room for improvement as Cardiff continue unbeaten start

Leader Live

a day ago

Yousef Salech headed the Bluebirds into a deserved lead two minutes before the break and that dominance continued after the interval, with further goals from Cian Ashford and skipper Rubin Colwill to make it seven points from nine for Cardiff in League One.
They have three wins from four under Barry-Murphy, having seen off Swindon in the Carabao Cup in midweek, but the Irishman is not entirely satisfied with what he has seen so far.
'I think consistently the players are applying themselves really well, the mentality seems really open to improvement,' said Barry-Murphy.
'There are going to be games where it goes different ways and I was very pleased with the performance of the team today – but I thought there were large parts of it that we can improve.'
Although Cardiff's attacking players will grab the headlines after this performance, Barry-Murphy was also keen to praise his young central defenders Will Fish and Dylan Lawlor.
He said: 'A lot of the focus will be on how we press from the front to try and protect those guys and deal with as least attacks as possible.
'But I thought when the balls came into the box, there were moments where Dylan and Will had to defend the box against Jordan Hugill, who is a really experienced striker, supported by (Cardiff goalkeeper) Nathan (Trott) and both full-backs.'
Trott was hardly troubled, with only Rotherham substitute Marvin Kaleta's shot from distance late on needing him to make a testing save in what was the visitors' only real effort of note on a disappointing afternoon.
Millers boss Matt Hamshaw says his side need to do better.
He said: 'The game plan first half was try and frustrate them and I think we did that. I was pleased with some aspects, but then to concede from such a soft set piece is disappointing.
'And then all in all we weren't good enough second half.
'We were just too open and I think we showed our inexperience a little bit and it's something we've got to get better at.
'We should be better and the goals we've conceded were really poor.
'We're a work in progress – I've said that all summer – but the level of performance has to be much better and certainly in that second half.
'I'm well aware we're missing a few key players at the minute. We need to strengthen in certain areas, I think it's quite apparent.
'We're not scoring enough goals at the minute and as soon as a team gets a goal we're sort of struggling a little bit.
'But it's down to me and my staff to try and put that right.'