The Bluebirds boss Omer Riza expressed his disappointment regarding the booing of Aaron Ramsey by Stoke City fans during Cardiff’s FA Cup penalty shootout victory at the Bet365 Stadium on Saturday.

Ramsey faced jeers from the home supporters each time he touched the ball, marking his first appearance for the club since August.

The animosity from the Potters’ fans relates to a previous incident at the same venue in 2010, when Ramsey suffered a severe leg injury inflicted by then-Stoke centre-back Ryan Shawcross.

This traumatic injury sidelined Ramsey for eight months, and seemingly it has stayed in the minds of Stoke fans, consistently booing the former Arsenal and Juventus midfielder upon his return to play at their ground.

Aaron Ramsey’s every touch was booed as he returned to Stoke, where in 2010 he suffered a gruesome leg break playing for Arsenal…

So when Cardiff won the FA Cup tie on penalties, Ramsey revelled in waving goodbye to the seething Stoke supporters 👋pic.twitter.com/l8ps2PUbuh

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) February 9, 2025

@rockin_russ Cardiff City’s Aaron Ramsey losing his head and offering Stoke fans on at the end of the FACup match against Stoke City, nice one Aaron, a great example to show the many kids in that stand. @carddiffcityfc #stokecity #stokecityfc #stokeontrent #stoke #cardiff #cardiffcityfc #wales #arsenal #footballtiktok #footbal #chant #footballhighlights #championship #tik_tok #tiktoknews #fypdong #fypgakni #fya #osmo #fyii #ulanzi ♬ original sound – rockin_russ(Rocked Dj’s)

Aaron Ramsey

Arsenal vs Stoke City (2010)
“Broken leg” pic.twitter.com/xGWkiKkitF

— Mal (@UTDMaI) October 10, 2024

“I was really surprised by that and disappointed for Aaron because it’s not nice,”

“But he’s got a character big enough to deal with it. He’s got a lot of people around him who care for him, a lot of people who love him.

“So a bit of booing at Stoke will only push him to be better.

“The qualities he’s got and had over the course of his career, you could see a mile away.

“Hopefully we can ease him in slowly and see him a lot more.”

“We made hard work of it, they showed good character to get back into it from being 2-0 down.

“We weren’t good enough at the start of the second half and got punished for it, but the boys showed good character to come back and win the game at the end, so that was satisfying.

“Rubin’s been excellent today, and out of possession h’s worked really hard. As I said, the boys showed really good character today and togetherness, so I think it’s really important moving forwards.

“I said to the boys afterwards that the togetherness and result elevates us, and I’m just really happy to be in the Fifth Round.

“This is about momentum for us. We’ve got the league in mind and now through to a another round in the Cup, and it’s good for morale for everybody. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re ready for our league games.

“Coming through that today, with all of the subs that we made and seeing the unity in the team, that sees us through until the end of the season. It could be a really big turning point for us.

“We’re in the Fifth Round now for the first time in 11 years, which is a good thing for the Club. It brings the fans together as well as the Club and the players, but now we’re focussing on what’s coming on Tuesday, which is a really tough game at Portsmouth. We’ll be ready for it.”

“In a game you can’t give goals away like we did. They were really poor goals to give away. They’ve not really had to work for anything whereas with ours we had to work for every one of them. While we went 2-0 down, we kept plugging away and showed some really good character. That’s the first thing but can we please just make sure we play properly from the start and not give those chances away.

“They continued to get chances because it became a basketball game and that was a disappointing thing, going away from what we’ve been doing in the league games. It’s a cup tie but the mentality should be exactly the same, it shouldn’t be any different.

“We concede two goals but get back into it with three really good goals to be fair, two from Lewis Koumas and a well-taken penalty from Lewis Baker and we get our noses in front. Then we contrive to concede another goal which was really, really disappointing.

“There is some good play in there amongst it but we scored three goals, conceded three goals. I’ll take the goals we scored as a positive, the goals we conceded were poor, but we’ve got to move on from the game as quickly as we possibly can do.

“It’s disappointing to go out and once it gets to a penalty shoot-out it’s a test of nerve, skill. We started off ok with that but it went against us.

“The disappointing thing was enforced changes that you have to make because of people going down with cramp. We shouldn’t be in that position when people are getting cramp from 120 minutes of football but it is what it is, that’s where we find ourselves and disappointing though it is we have to take it on the chin and get on with it.

“There are a lot of good things within the game, I’ve got to say. Wouter Burger’s performance was outstanding, his contribution was brilliant, I thought Lewis Koumas was really, really good. There were some good cameos from people coming back in.

“The youngster Favour Fawunmi is a talent that was found only the other day, having a trial game on Tuesday. For him to come in and have a taste of first team football is exactly what we needed. We’ve obviously got players out through being cup tied and we’re hopeful we can start to get others back as quickly as possible, which will make a difference for us moving forwards.

“I’m hoping that nobody has picked up anything too severe. Trying to get Pearo some minutes and Bosun Lawal some minutes and those were extended by extra-time for Pearo.

“I’m disappointed but we take it on the chin.”