Cardiff City rounded off what must be one of their most successful pre season programmes of recent years with a 2-0 win at Bristol Rovers to follow up on another victory over a League One side in midweek when Reading were overcome by 2-1 at Cardiff City Stadium on Wednesday.
Bath City, Kortrijk, Pen Y Bont and Hamburg were also beaten and their were creditable draws with South African Champions Mamelodi Sundowns and Hertha Berlin along with a 1-0 loss to Kidderminster in the first open to the public game nearly a month ago.
So, results were good, but, encouragingly, so were performances generally speaking- as someone who was very critical of City’s style of play through the last two thirds of last season, I must say i enjoyed quite a bit of the football we played.
Of course, it’s one thing being easy on the eye when there are no league points at stake and as soon as results start to suffer, a change to a more pragmatic style is often not too far away, but I think there is definite intention to play in a more attacking and entertaining manner from Erol Bulut and his staff.
For now at least, there is a full commitment to playing out from the back in a way that there never was completely last season – I datesay Jak Alnwick did kick the ball long on Wednesday at some time, but I can’t remember it, while I’m pretty sure Ethan Horvarth didn’t do it today.
With this virtual total reliance on playing out from the back, comes an increase in the risks such an approach carries and it cost us a goal on Wednesday. On an afternoon where we were generally pretty comfortable in defence, Rovers’ better chances came from pressing the likes of Manolis Siopis and Joe Ralls and, particularly towards the end of the game, there were occasions when the opposition mounted potentially dangerous attacks after possession was carelessly lost around the halfway line.
I’ll make a prediction and say we could concede a sloppy goal or two in the opening weeks through the opposition’s press and because, as mentioned earlier, we seem a lot more committed to playing out from the back, hence the degree of risk increases, but, so far at least, we’re getting more bodies into the box when we attack and the early signs are that we’re a lot less rigid positionally when in possession.
Last season there was a feeling that even if the opposition got their press wrong, we didn’t have the attacking resources to take advantage of this, the early signs are that this might not be true this season. Of course Aaron Ramsey staying fit would help things greatly in that respect and there were signs today of an understanding between Rambo and Chris Willock forming already, add in an “on it” Rubin Colwill (as he was today when he replaced Ramsey for the last quarter) and we look to have more creativity and flair in us.
There still has to be doubts as to whether we have the strikers to fully take advantage of what appears to be more attacking quality in our midfield mind. Yakou Meite was an effective attack leader against League One opposition today, but, too often, he wasn’t against higher level defenders last season. There is still the hope that Kion Etete’s* game can develop to a higher level, but he’s not even been on the bench in three of our last four games and, unless he’s injured, it seems like a move, either temporary or permanent, is on the cards for him.
In addition, there is Isaak Davies* fresh off a season on loan where things went well at Kortrijk, Callum Robinson has scored six times in pre season and looks like he has his mojo back and there is a newcomer who I’ll come to later, but is there anyone in those five who’ll represent “the complete package” at this level? I’m not sure there is.
City were good today though and would have won by more but for the heroics of Griffiths in the home goal. The keeper had no chance though with either of the spectacular goals we scored either side of half time. The first was arrowed into the top corner of the net from twenty five yards with great force by Ramsey after neat work by Willock and the second placed into the same corner to the keeper’s right by Ralls from twenty yards.
On Wednesday, City weren’t as impressive against a Reading team that I thought had the better of a first half which saw them fall behind very early on when Robinson cashed in after robbing the Reading keeper of possession. The visitors were level within ten minutes when Andy Rinomhota lost possession twenty yards out and was punished by a good finish by Azeez and they would have fancied going home with a win at various times in the next hour before Robinson had scoring made easy for him by a cross from sub Luey Giles that I genuinely believe bettered anything City came up with in that department all through last season. We could have had further goals after that as, just as we had done against Hertha a few days earlier, we finished the stronger team, but we had done enough to gain what I thought was a just about deserved win over a team that had beaten both Watford and QPR in warm up games already.
I mentioned we had a new striker, twice capped Ivory Coast forward Wilfried Kanga joins us on a season’s loan from Hertha Berlin (he wasn’t involved in our game with them a week ago). Kanga’s CV is mixed with unsuccessful spells at most of his clubs mixed with a good one with Swiss club Young Boys of Berne and a decent one with Standard Liege of Belgium on loan last season. Kanga played in the last twenty minutes or so today without making much of an impression, but, to be fair, with the game won by then, much of the earlier intensity had gone out of City’s play.
We’ve also signed twice capped Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi on a free transfer. El Ghazi has signed a one year contract, but it will take a bit of time for him to get fully fit because he has not played since late last year after being sacked by Mainz – see the Mainz 05 section here for a full explanation of his dispute with the German club. He has played, with varying success, for Villa and Everton in the Premier League and, again, his CV is mixed, but, he’s still only 29 and, rather like with Willock, we’ll have a very good player on our hands if we can get him fit and firing.
Another signing is imminent it would seem as we are strongly rumoured to be bringing in the number 8 type midfielder that has been a target all summer. It’s likely that the player is 21 year old Australia international Alex Robertson whose successful loan spell with Portsmouth last season was ended by an injury around Christmas time. It has been said by Pompey fans that Robertson was the best player in League One last season before his injury and they’ve certainly been keen to get him back, but it’s been reported that we’ve agreed a fee with his club Manchester City and he is keen to come here.
There’s also talk of a centreback coming in next week to be a regular starter in the senior team. Even if this is not true though, there is clearly now a need to cut the wage bill – all that has happened on that front this week is that Joel Colwill joined Cheltenham on a season’s loan. There is talk that Stoke have pipped Blackburn for the signature of Ryan Wintle and the absence of the aforementioned Etete and Mark McGuinness makes me wonder if there’ll be departures for two of our younger players.
Below first team level, an under 19 team beat Oxford United 3-1 with goals by Cody Twose and a couple by Tanatswa Nyakhuwa and it was the same score line for the Under 21s last night against Pontypridd United in the Nathaniel MG Cup at Leckwith – all of our goals coming from summer signing from Norwich, Michael Reindorf.
*Since I wrote this, it’s been confirmed by Erol Bulut that Isaak Davies is out for four months with a hamstring injury picked up in Austria. Isaak missed the start of the 22/23 season with a similar injury and has had rotten luck when it comes to trying to make progress at City lately. There’s more bad news in that Kion Etete, who had hamstring injuries that eventually led to his season finishing a couple of months early in 23/24, is out for three months with a similar injury. They say it comes in threes and there was also confirmation that Jamilu Collins will be absent for eight weeks with an injury as well.
The loss of Davies and Etete rather takes us back to square one when it comes to strikers – it seems to me that a second new striker this summer now becomes more of a priority than another centreback.
Thanks as ever Paul.
Gosh you love your playing out from the back stuff, don’t you? Me? On my polite days I call that Guardiola-esque footballing philosophy ‘anti-football’… and on less polite days I call it ‘total bolloxio’.
Surprised that you think that Jak was not playing out from the back on Wednesday… I will remind you that both first-half goals came from unnecessary risk taking at the back. It is all so maddening to me in that Jak is a long passer of a quality I have not seen at City since Maurice Swan. His long kicks are positively Edersonian in accuracy.
I guessed there was something up in midweek when making Jak captain against Reading… he was telling him ‘this is your reward for agreeing to be my bench warmer for this coming season’.
Well, Mr Bulut, you have identified yourself as a footballing dunce with that decision. Jak is superior to Hovarth in every area. And if you sell Mark McGuinness, the one real jewel in our crown, for a pittance of circa £6m… you will be committing a mortal sin. History will not forgive you. Chambers is a journeyman to Mark’s thoroughbred
The one good signing is the Dutch boy from Mainz. I very much like his geopolitical views, but those apart, at Villa he showed he was also a quality player… albeit one with a boiling point of zero.
But will Bulut’s negativity infect him like it has others? The jury is out…
DW
Paul, compadre…
WalesOnline are saying Luton are the club who had bid £5 for Mark McGuinness. I just made this comment on their pages:
‘…
As for Macca… when I think of what we paid for Andreas Cornelius, Josh Murphy, Bobby Decordova-Reid… are we seriously saying that this fine player is worth less?
Rob Edwards knows a quality defender when he sees one, and I reckon we should say Mark is not for sale. But knowing that every player has a price, then I would set it at £20m… and not a penny less.
…’
DW
Morning Dai, as far as playing out from the back is concerned, my position hasn’t changed. I think one of the reasons why City have been a much better watch in their pre season matches compared to a typical league game last season is because they are fully committed to an approach completely at odds with how they were playing a couple of seasons ago. However, in these days of analytics with even pretty modest clubs employing people who go into fine detail when it comes to the tactical side of things, the evidence should be there pretty quickly if a playing out from the back policy is working in terms of the balance between goals conceded and scored as a consequence of playing that way – a negative balance should mean a change back to a more traditional way of playing, but it seems to me that too many modern day managers view something like that as an admission of defeat.
I’m going to give all of our new signings some weeks yet before judging them – I think Willock and Chambers are potentially excellent signings, bnut they both have points to prove for different reasons, Kanga’s career suggests he might be an improvement on the strikers we’ve got at the club, but I see little to suggest he’s going to be a 15 to 20 goals a season man, while El Ghazi seems to me to much like Willock – it would be a pleasant surprise if both signings work to the extent we see them both performing to something like their best while with us.
When the stories broke about a £5 million bid for McGuinness, I thought £7 million would be a fair price for him, but, on second thoughts, I’d now say that around £9 million is more realistic.Whatever you think of our signings so far, I think it’s pretty fair to say that we’ve pushed the boat out for them in terms of wages and so far, there hasn’t been a great deal come in to try to balance the books when it comes to what I still call FFP. That’s why I’ve always thought there would be at least one relatively big money departure from City this summer, back in the spring it was pretty clear that City were looking to offload Perry Ng and there were pretty persistent rumours about Rubin Colwill, but, besides those twom McGUinness is one of a pretty small number of squad members for whom we could get a fee big enough to keep the FFP wolves from the door – with City, reportedly, trying to seal a deal with ex Forest centreback Scott McKenna, I can see McGuinness leaving shortly before the transfer window closes because we will have reached a stage by then when we’ll have to sell.