The Bluebirds boss made a couple of really tough calls as his side beat Reading

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Cardiff City head coach Brian Barry-Murphy(Image: Huw Evans)

Brian Barry-Murphy says his decision to haul Cian Ashford off during Cardiff City’s win over Reading at the Cardiff City Stadium wasn’t one he took lightly – but insists it was the right call.

Ashford was hooked in the 89th minute of the 2-1 win over Reading, just ten minutes after being introduced off the bench himself.

“I didn’t like it,” he said when asked about having to make the call. “We’d made all of our changes to try and win the game. The game was chaos and we have an obligation to try and win the game to be at the top of the table.

“For me, it just looked inevitable with all those attacking players on the pitch that we were going to concede chances and obviously Yousef could have come off, but they were so dangerous with their set-pieces, free-kicks on corners that, for us, that would have been a huge problem.

“At that point, I made a decision that I thought it was best for us to win the game. Cian was the victim of being taken off. It’s not something that I enjoy based on the value we hold Cian in.”

Barry-Murphy clearly isn’t afraid to make tough decisions, as evidenced further by the move to bring Gabriel Osho off at half-time.

Osho endured a difficult first half on the day, and was replaced at the interval by Will Fish, who made a huge goal-line clearance deep into the second half to keep his side on course for victory.

“I just don’t think he played well,” Barry-Murphy said when quizzed on Osho’s withdrawal. “I think Gabriel in his home games so far has made a lot of mistakes that I would never associate with him and he’s not in a great rhythm yet.

“He’s missed quite a lot of training with different niggles, so he came back into training on Thursday and I’m putting him in the team pretty quickly.

“I just thought in the first half, he made some obvious mistakes that I thought could have an impact on the scoreline. So I thought it was best for him to come off and for Will to come on.

“But we have some problems in that area of the pitch because Will Fish, as you might have seen, his knee was pretty heavily strapped. He hasn’t really completed training properly this week.

“Dylan Lawlor isn’t fit to play today based on his time with the Welsh squad and Gabriel came back in training on Thursday. So Calum Chambers was our only fully fit centre-back.”

Asked how Osho had reacted, the Bluebirds boss continued.

“He’d be disappointed. He’s a player who’s played at the highest level, but it doesn’t mean when you play at the highest level, you’re going to come to games in League One and have flawless performance where you don’t make any mistakes.

“The opponents have quality too and you saw how dangerous they were when they put the ball in behind. And I’ve seen him defend those situations perfectly time and time again, but in this moment, football is about ups and downs and he’s finding it difficult.

“We have to support him and really make him feel better in those situations and simplify his game so he’s not taking unnecessary risks.”