Chris Lakey Glenn Roeder is concerned that Jamie Cureton will soon begin feeling the after-shock of a series of missed scoring opportunities. Cureton - 33 on Thursday - has now gone 10 games without a goal, since a hat-trick against his former club Colchester back in March.

Chris Lakey

Glenn Roeder is concerned that Jamie Cureton will soon begin feeling the after-shock of a series of missed scoring opportunities.

Cureton - 33 on Thursday - has now gone 10 games without a goal, since a hat-trick against his former club Colchester back in March.

He had the perfect opportunity to break his duck at Cardiff on Saturday when City were awarded a penalty after just eight minutes - five minutes after going behind - but he missed the target.

“Even a negative thinking person thinks you score a penalty,” said Roeder.

“It never crosses my mind that we are going to miss. Cureton needs a goal as well, badly, and we have to make sure it doesn't start to affect him in terms of his game, because if you look at last week against Blackpool he should have wrapped the game up in the first half, but he didn't.”

Cardiff were 2-0 up by the time Arturo Lupoli was introduced on 73 minutes - but eight minutes later it was all square as the Italian bagged goals one and two of his City career.

“The second goal especially pleased me - I think heading has become a lost art in the modern game. He angled that ball away very, very well,” said Roeder.

“He is unbelievably enthusiastic, he gives everything when he is playing. You can see by the energy he puts in closing defenders down. The motivation is there, I believe the ability is there, if we can just get it out of him on a regular basis. I am looking forward to working with him this season.”

Roeder admitted that while he was happy enough with the point, there was a tinge of regret that City hadn't got all three.

“It was a very strong finish, if there was going to be another goal scored I would have fancied us to score it,” he said. “I'm not being a greedy person, not today anyway, we have to settle for a point because with 15 minutes to go, I didn't think we deserved to be 2-0 down on the balance of play.

“But we were and we needed to do something about it and thankfully Arturo Lupoli did something about it.

“There are lots of teams, on 77 minutes and two down, who virtually throw the towel in. That's the last thing we did; we kept chasing, we kept putting Cardiff under pressure and one thing that we are this year and this will get even better, is we are super fit. We are lasting the 90 minutes quite easily, we have changed the fitness regime at the club, we have new fitness coaches in and I think that's paying off.

“It is definitely a point gained. The dressing room was both happy and subdued because the standards they have set themselves and we have set them are so high they shouldn't be 2-0 down in the first place.

“So I'm grateful to get the point but hugely disappointed we have not taken all three. We certainly have to stop giving penalties away - that's three in three games.

“Hopefully we can carry this forward into the game against Birmingham next week.”