I’m a member of Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust and have been helping them out on the Admin side of things for nearly fifteen years. However, with all due respect to those who give up their time to represent their members, what the Trust has to say on a City related subject shouldn’t really be the most newsworthy thing to happen to Cardiff City in the past week as we approach the opening of the transfer window and the return of the players to training after their holidays in the next few weeks, with no clue yet as to who will be the manager when preparations for the new season begin in earnest.
That’s the position we find ourselves in though as the lack of news from the club and manager as to his contract situation reaches farcical proportions. This week the Trust issued the following statement;-
“Dear Member,
You will recall that I emailed you on 6th April regarding the situation in respect of the position of Manager. In that email I informed you that, at that time, the decision regarding the future of Erol Bulut had been in the hands of Vincent Tan for some time. The Trust made no observations as to who should be appointed to the post only that a decision should be made speedily to remove uncertainties and disquiet amongst fans.
Well, here we are, more than 7 weeks later with no sign of any progress on this issue. There has been little or no meaningful information from the club on this matter leading to rumour, speculation and frustration amongst the fanbase.
The absence of footballing expertise at board level and the intransigence of Vincent Tan in his views on the appointment of a Director of Football or similar continues to be a concern, especially in the current circumstances.
I think it is fair to say that an extended contract for the current manager does not necessarily have 100% support amongst the fans. There are concerns over style of football and tactics but there seems to be a degree of unanimity amongst the fanbase that the current situation is unacceptable and should be resolved one way or another as soon as possible.
Keith Morgan
Chair”
There’s plenty I could say about a club. that expects their fans to buy/renew their season tickets, while being incapable/unwilling to give them any idea as to who the manager will be for 24/25, but I’ll limit myself for now to an “amen to that” regarding the statement above.
A couple of very small snippets of City news from the past seven days, first, they have added Ben Pickford to their recruitment staff. Pickford worked as a scout for Colchester and Wolves before becoming involved more in the analytical side of things while working for the Welsh FA and Southampton and last season he worked as a recruitment analyst for Cheltenham Town. Some have seized upon this news as proof that Erol Bulut, who said he wanted to add to the coaching and recruitment staff at the club, is working as normal and his new contract has been signed, but that seems like wishful thinking to me which only tends to emphasise how desperate some City fans are for news from the club during the close season.
Also, Rubin Colwill finds himself back in the Welsh senior squad for the upcoming friendlies with Gibraltar and Slovakia. It’s a deserved recall for Colwill, who was one of City’s better performers in the season just ended, but Aaron Ramsey has been leftt out with the reason given being that he is being allowed the best opportunity to get himself fully fit for the new season.
Finally, the Welsh Under 17 and 16 sides played their final game in their respective qualifying groups while knowing that further progress in their age group Euro competitions was impossible. At least the under 17s managed a first point and a first goal in their group when they drew 1-1 with Croatia. Wales, who again had City youngsters Ronan Kpakio and Jan Thomas starting as wing backs and Jake Davies introduced as a second half sub for the third time, fell behind after another goalkeeping blunder saw the Croats take the lead midway through the first half with a goal scored direct from a corner, but Derby’s Cruz Allen equalised from a free kick ten minutes later – a goal which effectively eliminated Croatia who needed a win to edge out Denmark after they went down 4-0 to group winners Austria on their last match.
The under 16s campaign ended ignominiously when heavy defeats against Poland and the Czech Republic were followed by a 5-0 loss to Turkey with all of the goals being scored before half time – Hayden Allmark was the only City player involved as he started the game in midfield.
WOL is tonight reporting he has been given a new contract. Oh dear, this might be my cue to take my leave as a fan after 70 years supporting the club.
Thoroughly disheartened.
DW.
Just read a puff job in WalesOnLine. It compelled me to pen this response…
‘…
Paul Abbandonato is away with the fairies. Obsequious, tick. Ill-informed, tick. Whistling in the dark, tick.
The fact is that Vincent has succumbed to Mehmet’s pressure, and allowed one Turk to scratch the back of another Turk with his Malaysian money.
This is a bad day for us Cardiff City fans. We have signed up for two more years of a negative ‘pass the ball backwards’ manager, and a manager furthermore who cannot motivate players.
Bottom six finish? Hope not, but would not be surprised. And as for a new striker: he can sign Harry Kane and he still would not score many goals as he’d never see the ball in an attacking position.
…’
On a happier note, I have just watched Ukraine – Wales live on the iPlayer. What a goal from Fishlock…!! It would have been worthy to win any game… and should have won this one but for our three blonde Amazonian defenders, who were all responsible for the failure to hold out… Ingle has had a stellar career, but now ‘tis time perhaps to hang up her boots.
Great to hear a live TV commentary on a Welsh international game in my mother tongue incidentally, as it is one of the two official languages of Wales… which the Movers & Shakers behind the Rob Page era would perhaps prefer us to forget.
I’ll have ny say on Bulut’s new contract when I write about it on Friday Dai and the use of the local media as Bulut cheerleaders throughout his time here so far will feature somewhere in it.
As for last night’s game, this is going to sound sexist, but I think one of the notable features of women’s football when compared to the men’s game is that they don’t seem to be able to hit shots and passes as cleanly as the men do – this becomes more noticeable when the shot or pass is attempted over a longer distance. Now, it would be easy to say that this was down purely to the difference in body strength between the two sexes, but that is to ignore the amazing Jess Fishlock who is almost always the smallest player on the pitch in any match she plays, yet she has the ability to hit shots especially as if she is always finding the ball’s “sweet spot” – it was another tremendous strike by one of Welsh football’s greatest ever players.
As you say, it should have been the winning goal, but the closing minutes saw a Welsh side that had generally been in control of the game, becoming more and more edgy as they dropped ever deeper and the equaliser had been coming when Ukraine found it. I think Ladd, a footballing centre back, and Evans, a good “stopper”, have been a fine pairing with the added benefit that they are club mates and you would have thought that adding the multi talented Ingle to make it a back three would have given us a formidable defence, but it didn’t work out like that. They looked nervy and unsure of themselves all night and I think we could be grateful that Ukraine were not more positive in their approach – they didn’t get forward much, but, invariably, caused us problems when they did.
Now we are apparently taking back James Rowberry. Clearly someone on the City board likes him.
As to why, I am a little puzzled. He left us to take over ‘The Port’, and we all know how that worked out.
But in fairness, perhaps it was an appointment too soon. However, one big blot on his copybook was his statement on leaving that he had ‘never met a finer human being than Mick McCarthy’.
Ye gods…
DW.