Salech had not featured since Cardiff’s win over Charlton Athletic before last month’s international break, injuring a shoulder as the Bluebirds registered their first win since promotion back from League One.<\/p>\n
Bluebirds boss Brian Barry-Murphy \u2013 watching from the stands as he served a one-match touchline ban \u2013 was forced into a shuffle and introducing Salech earlier than expected when it emerged former Blues man Bielik needed to be withdrawn.<\/p>\n
But, as the rain fell, Cardiff did not look flustered by the change.<\/p>\n
Their game of pressure and possession continued as it has done in the recent win over Watford and eye-catching draw at Middlesbrough.<\/p>\n
And when Tomoki Iwta refused to let go of Perry Ng at a Cardiff corner, the chance to open from the spot came \u2013 only for James Beadle to save Salech’s poorly executed effort.<\/p>\n
Salech, though, showed textbook centre-forward play when, reacting to a low cross from Ollie Tanner, he expertly beat Phil Neumann before rolling home from close range.<\/p>\n
Salech may have added to his tally, going close with a glancing header from a corner and shotting just wide from a Cardiff high-press.<\/p>\n
Cian Asford, too, was denied finishing off a superb sweeping move with Beadle alert to the danger.<\/p>\n
Trott, in comparison, had a quiet afternoon until Birmingham finally found their energy and drive in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
But he stood tall to keep out Gray from inside the area, with Cardiff holding the late Birmingham rally at bay for a third win of the campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salech had not featured since Cardiff’s win over Charlton Athletic before last month’s international break, injuring a shoulder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-939449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}