GET OVER IT, SAYS DAVE
Dave Jones has told his players to get over Friday's 5-1 defeat at Newcastle and focus on taking three points off Peterborough on Tuesday.
Manager Dave said ahead of Peterborough's visit to Cardiff City Stadium: "The match gives us a chance to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. There were one or two sad faces yesterday, but once the players got back into their training kit and out on the pitch they were fine. Now we'll get focussed for the next one. We've lost games before, but what's important is how we respond to it.
"Defeat hasn't done anything to our confidence. Fans must be realistic - we will come across teams that on their day will turn us over if we're not at it. We can't make changes, so it's a case of go with what we've got and get used to it.
"But we won't come up against many teams like Newcastle when you look at what they spent in the January transfer window - £5million, six players coming in. Look at who they had sitting in the stand - Smith, Butt, Taylor - we're a million miles away from it. So it's a reality check sometimes for us. But we're doing OK. If we can get our best eleven out we're a match for anybody, but if we play like we did at Newcastle, then it won't happen for us.
"We've just got to get on with it. It's no good bleating about it, we can't change it, so what we have we go with.
"I heard the fans singing sort it out - sort what out? I can't sort it out. They're better than me if they think they can, so apply for the job and go and do it. It's disappointing and it's hard but we'll just get on with it.
"The players have been superb, they work their socks off, they give everything they've got, but on the odd occasion it doesn't come together. When it does come together we could quite easily beat Newcastle on another day. But they brought in five new players, they wanted to do well, there was a big crowd and the momentum was with them."
Cardiff fans will be looking for an emphatic victory after the Christmas holiday clash at London Road which ended in a 4-4 draw after City squandered a 4-0 half time lead.
But Dave said: "We've got over the result at Peterborough. Since then we've been on a fantastic run. We knew we didn't play well in the second half there, but we've put that to bed. We were 4-0 up at half time at Bristol City and went on and won the game comfortably. Hopefully lessons have been learned. The Peterborough game has well and truly gone. There'll be reminders, but we've moved on from that.
"If anybody wants to talk about putting things right, we did that in the following game. It's important that we don't get carried away and focus on one thing when we know what we really want to focus on is getting the points.
"I managed Jim Gannon at Stockport. He's come in as Peterborough's new manager and his players will want to impress the new boss. They had a victory on Saturday and are coming to us in his first away game, but I'm more worried about what we do and how we react to a defeat in our last match. We've shown the players certain things we can certainly improve on. The Peterborough match gives us a chance to stop feeling sorry for ourselves."
Dave revealed thnat hamstring tear victim Gavin Rae is another two weeks from fitness. Mark Hudson goes in on Tuesday for an operation on a ruptured ankle tendon, and Joe Ledley will have the second operation on his hips next week.
Dave said: "Joe's first operation went really well. He's walking round and looking good and said he's got a good range of movement which is fantastic such a short time after the operation."
Striker Jay Bothroyd looks 50-50 to face Peterborough after suffering a dead leg at Newcastle. Dave said: "He'll have more treatment today and a fitness test tomorrow".
