Well, it took over ten weeks, but Cardiff City have got their new manager and it turns out to be the man they named as interim manager within minutes of Erol Bulut being sacked the day after the Leeds home defeat on 21 September.
Omer Riza has been given a contract until the end of the season and, after strong rumours began yesterday that the announcement was imminent, the reaction that I’ve seen has been largely negative, but I think that is directed more at the club hierarchy than Riza – that’s not to say that Riza himself doesn’t have critics mind.
Worst of all, the comment that some are “beyond caring “ has been heard. This hints at something that appeared in an open letter to Vincent Tan from the Cardiff City Fan Advisory Board (FAB), the Supporters Trust, Supporters Club and the Disabled Supporter Association essentially imploring the club to get its act together and stop the feeling of drift ( I think the club has been drifting since the end of the 19/20 season) – there’s a link to the letter here
In the letter, the supporters’ bodies mentioned the difference in the atmosphere these days with the words “toxicity and apathy” used and I think it needs to be said that, apart from when the rebrand was in full swing ten years and more ago, we’ve now reached the point where faith in the Tan ownership is at its lowest (second thoughts, it may well be lower now than it was back in 2012/14) .
I’d also mention that I’m probably at the supportive end of the spectrum when it comes to this appointment. That’s not to say that I’ve been enthusiastically advocating that Omer Riza get the job (my guess is that there are no more than a handful of City fans who’ve been doing that), but I don’t see it as the disaster many do and I think it could work.
I’ll say here and now that I’m probably letting my liking for the type of football we played during October influence my thinking here – for the first time in years, we played entertaining football and, as someone who has seen plenty of us playing in the third tier already, relegation would not be the end of the world – although I suspect the club and the overwhelming majority of supporters think differently.
Perhaps my relative insouciance about us going down has something to do with me having been persuaded that, after the way the marvellous opportunity presented by a millionaire/billionaire ownership has been, to be frank, pissed away in the past fourteen years, we deserve to go down (or to be more precise, the hierarchy at the club deserves relegation).
Let’s just quickly recap the Riza interim managership. It started with a 4-1 defeat at Hull where we looked pretty shambolic at the back, but gave what was at the time our best attacking display of the season (that’s a very low bar mind!).
The blurb when he first came to the club said that Riza had been hired as an attack coach and I was quick to question his credentials as we promptly scored once in our first half a dozen league matches, but the attacking play at Hull at least made it seem possible that he could have made an impact under Bulut if he’d been given more opportunity.
After a typical Bulut type 1-0 win over Millwall in the next match, City had an inspired twenty minutes or so at Bristol City only for Riza to opt to tighten things up and concede the lead as we had to settle for a 1-1 draw. The next four, unbeaten, matches contained vibrant attacking play for varying amounts of time in each of them, but we’d also tightened up to the extent that only two goals were conceded in the six matches following the Hull loss.
Now, the thought occurs to me that this was the time to offer Riza the job for the season. Many fans who are against his appointment now were in favour of him then and he’d been one of the nominations for Championship Manager of the month for October. On top of that, three senior players at the club backed his claims, but Riza had to just soldier on and the unbeaten run ended in a scruffy defeat at Luton, followed by a home loss to a streaky Blackburn side that has been in great form since that day.
We were now into the second international break of the Riza interim management and he next flew over to Malaysia for a meeting with the club owner. There was virtual unanimous agreement at this stage that a message confirming Riza’s appointment would follow – this was the second best opportunity for the club to confirm things even if many were beginning to have doubts about Riza by now.
Instead, the interim manager flew home and told the media before our next game that he had nothing new to tell them and they’d have to talk to the club Board to find out about what the future held for him.
As I’ve pointed out before, it seems perfectly possible that a squad which had made their support for Riza clear in the early days would be thinking that the man they had favoured a month ago would not be staying on and this could partly explain why performances had fallen away.
Since Riza returned from Malaysia we have played poorly in getting a lucky draw at Sheffield Wednesday, lost miserably at home to then bottom club QPR and then played well in a 2-2 draw at Coventry in a game we could have won.
So, our last match offers some promise, but, having opted not to appoint Riza after we’d taken fourteen points out of eighteen, we’ve now given him the job after taking two from fifteen!
It makes no sense unless maybe the FAB letter prompted it or someone the club had in mind for the job was no longer available.
Just to add a couple more things. First, I see a lot of comparisons to the Steve Morison and Mark Hudson examples where an interim manager was appointed and then given the job permanently. That’s understandable, but a comparison of the three men’s records over their first dozen games shows that Riza has much better results than the other rwo and I would say his teams have played better quality football.
Morison P 12 W 3 D 3 L 6 Pts 12
Hudson P 12 W 4 D 1 L 7 Pts 13
Riza P 12 W 4 D 4 L 4 Pts 16
Secondly, a concern I have is that Riza has shown little interest in utilising members of the what appears to be the best crop of youngsters we’ve had coming through in years (I’d argue they’re the best since the Academy was opened for the 04/05 season). Yes, Michael Reindorf was given a league debut last Saturday, but many would say it was done reluctantly and was not before time, but Cian Ashford has drifted out of contention and with the bench looking ill balanced and weak for the QPR match in particular, that appears to have been a wasted opportunity to get more coverage for all positions by picking a yuoungster or two.
I’ll finish on the managerial situation by wishing Omer Riza good luck over the next six months or so, he’s going to need it!
Just to quickly mention that centre back Dylan Lawlor, back after a long injury absence, was outstanding in a high quality top of the table clash between City’s under 21s and Bournemouth at Leckwith on Tuesday afternoon which finished goalless. City shaded it for me and had the chances to win it, but a combination of poor finishing, good goalkeeping and desperate defending ensured the stalemate.
That game was the prelude for the most exciting game of women’s football I’ve ever seen. Having drawn the First Leg of their Euro qualifier Play Off Final on Friday at Cardiff 1-1, Wales travelled to Dublin to face the Republic of Ireland and managed to reach half time goalless despite being under pressure throughout.
The turning point of the tie came seconds after the restart when no one on the pitch or in the stands seemed to notice a handball in the penalty area by an Irish defender. VAR saw it though and a penalty was eventually given which Hannah Cain (who has had to recover from two ACL injuries in recent years) nervelessly rolled in as the keeper dived the wrong way.
Wales then began to look really dangerous on the break and they eventually doubled their lead as sub Carrie Jones received a good pass by Lily Woodman (who got the Welsh goal in the First Leg), beat the last defender, then ran twenty yards before shooting home from the edge of the penalty area.
For about twenty minutes it looked like Wales were going to comfortably qualify for their first major tournament, but, we don’t do such things like that do we – Ireland scored with four minutes left and then the game changed completely as Ireland utilised a truly terrifying long throw and it was panic stations in the Welsh penalty area.
Somehow, Wales survived some desperate scrambles and they’ll be in Switzerland in July for their Euro Finals debut with the draw to be made in around a fortnight.
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An interim appointment like this is probably right. Riza comes over well on TV and has a reasonably pragmatic approach that seems right for the time. He is not carried away with ‘playing out from the back’ which has ruined British football this past decade, and does occasionally allow our best goalkeeping exponent of the long accurate pass in over SIXTY years to show us his talent with his feet.
It is fascinating to see people now jumping on the bandwagon of ‘let us ditch playing out from the back’. I have been in a ‘minority of one’ amongst MAYA readers for ten years, and have been scoffed at by WOL readers in the comments section. Some of them – like a chap called Mog something or other – seem complete Moonies in their brainwashed delirium for this anti-football nonsense.
But how delighted I was to hear Jamie O’Hara and Jason Cundy after the Bournemouth-Spurs game, call for a ‘cease and desist’ with the practice.
Like I have said here before, a short time back two men died within days of each other. One man was hailed as a footballing giant, and the other was not lamented at all, and got two column inches… if he was lucky.
Yet it was precisely the other way round. Charles Hughes the man who coined POMO is vilified as the cheerleader for hoofball… when that was never his philosophy… and anyway he was so, SO much more. I have read his coaching manual… I urge you all to get it from your library… yes it is out of print, but your library can get you a copy from Boston Spa.
I used to think that it would be well after I am dead and gone before some Young Turk stands up at some UEFA conference in Nyon and says “gentlemen, I have had an inspired idea. I think that the clue is in the term ‘goal KICK’… so let us abandon kamikaze football.”
And the chap will be hailed as a free-thinking genius.
But hey… things may be more promising than that. I sense that the realisation has set in that ‘Poftb’ (as I call it for shorthand) is an ‘emperor’s suit of clothes’ job. Good riddance when it goes… it has turned ‘defending’ into a joke.
Right. Let me now direct my next comment at those who think me a Luddite. Hopefully this comment will help make me seem less rooted in the past.
And here is what I think…
Although Cole Palmer is the hot bet for the next British footballing superstar, I believe even he will quickly be overshadowed by a player who was ‘stolen’ from his beloved boyhood club Celtic at just 16… even though he had already made his first team debut.
Just £600K was paid for him… much to Celtic’s chagrin… but gosh, is it not great to see the ‘biter bit’? We Cardiff fans long remember how they took advantage of the rules with young players, and ‘stole’ Joe Ledley and Adam Matthews from us.
Who do I refer to? It is obvious is it not?
I contend that in Ben Doak we have the most fantastic attacking midfield prospect since I first set eyes on an 18 year old Argentinian representing his country at `Hampden Park in 1979… and I include Paul Gascoigne in that.
TTFN,
DW
Thanks Dai, I think the backlash against “playing out from the back” is beginning. I don’t think i mentioned it here, but I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where I expressed the view that a team playing fully fledged Wimbledon in the eighties type football with two big, aggressive target men would have a, hopefully brief, field day as defenders would have to get used to defending again and that may take them a while.
You know my thoughts on playing out from the back, a few months back I said on here that at the end of this season, an analysis taken from a neutral standpoint should be carried out at every fully professional club in this country that tries to build from the back and, if it shows that it has cost them more goals than it has created (as I think it would in most cases), it should be ditched – the means to be able to carry out such an analysis accurately should be within the reach of most full time teams.
As for Ben Doak, I’ve not seen a great deal of him, but I bote he has consistently been picked as Scotland’s best player by the media when he has started for them and he was able to go two or three long and successful dribbles in the one half i saw him play for Middlesbrough. He seems to be an outstannding talent, but, besides the infatuation with playing out from the back, I’d say we’re also in an age where individualism is being sacrificed to an extent on the altar of the team. Also, as I grow older andf more cynical, my opinion that latent talent can be gradually removed from.some players’ games by poor quality coaching only grows – that said, Doak should have quality coaches at Liverpool.
Going back to managers, supporter of the blog Mike Ellesmere sent me this analysis of what makes good management, I found it interesting and informative and so I thought I’d put it on here;-
“My conversation with Copilot
Football Management – Who would you prefer if a team is underperforming?
?A. The manager who says he doesn’t care what the fans think. ?B. The manager who says he is responsible for results and must make the changes required for the team to improve
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Choosing a football manager who says they don’t care what the fans think might not be the best approach for an underperforming team. Fans are an integral part of the club, and their support and morale can significantly influence the team’s performance. A manager who dismisses the importance of fan sentiment might struggle to inspire and unite the club’s community.
The manager who takes responsibility for the results and is proactive about making necessary changes is likely the better choice for an underperforming team. This type of manager demonstrates accountability and a commitment to improving the team’s performance, which can inspire both the players and the fans. Here are some key qualities of such a manager:
Leadership:
Taking responsibility shows strong leadership, which is crucial for motivating the team.
Accountability:
Acknowledging their role in the team’s performance fosters a culture of accountability.
Strategic Thinking:
A commitment to making necessary changes indicates a strategic mindset focused on improvement.
Fan Engagement:
While they may not always please everyone, showing that they care about results can earn the respect of fans.
In times of underperformance, a manager who is willing to analyse the issues, take responsibility, and implement changes is often more effective in turning things around. This approach not only improves the team’s performance but also builds trust and credibility.
So, who would you prefer, A or B?
I would prefer Manager B. A manager who takes responsibility for results and commits to making the necessary changes demonstrates leadership and accountability. This approach not only boosts the team’s morale but also instils confidence in the fans and the organization.
A manager who acknowledges their role in the team’s performance and actively works to improve it is likely to be more effective in turning things around and achieving better results. It’s all about fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
What do you think?
I am B, and the Spurs manager is A.
It sounds like you’re taking a responsible and proactive approach, which is commendable. Taking accountability and striving to implement necessary changes are key traits of effective leadership. It’s great to see you’re committed to making positive improvements.
As for the Spurs manager, it can be challenging when the leadership style clashes with the expectations of the fans and players. Managers who don’t acknowledge fan sentiment might find it harder to build a strong and supportive team environment. However, every manager has their own philosophy and sometimes their approach can yield results in unexpected ways.
I am not a football manager, but I think like B. History shows that managers who adopt the approach as in A will soon be sacked. I am not a Spurs fan so it doesn’t matter to me but he demonstrates a complete lack of management skills like so many others and yet they are paid millions. Remarkable really.
Your perspective is spot on. It’s fascinating—and often frustrating—to see highly paid managers in any field who seem to lack essential management skills. Football is no exception. Managers who disconnect from fans and fail to take responsibility for results often face the consequences sooner or later.
The disparity between performance and pay can indeed be remarkable, especially when we see teams underperforming and managers who appear disconnected from the realities and emotions of both fans and players. It’s a stark reminder that effective leadership isn’t just about technical skills or knowledge; it’s also about communication, accountability, and empathy.
It’s refreshing to hear you resonate with approach B, valuing responsibility and proactive change. These qualities are not just crucial in football management but in any leadership role. They help build trust and inspire teams to perform better.”
Although it is Spurs who are named, I’d say Omer Riza could be identified as a type B when you consider that he was apologising to fans before the Watford postponement for not being the sort of candidate they wanted. I heard Riza being criticised for his apology as it was not showing the sort of strength he needed in what must be a very tough job, but I disagree – Riza is being sensible in understanding that many supporters will be underwhelmed by his appointment and thre’ll be plenty believing that it will only be a matter of weeks or months before the next “interim” manager is there facing the media. However, what Riza has in his fav our is that I don’t see him being viewed as the reason why are failing and generally, although not ecstatic, supporter opinion is broadly on his side because we’ve reached the stage where most know what the main problem at the club is.
As for my answer to the A or B question, I’m for B, but I will qualify that to an extent by sayiong that I do have sympathy with Ange as he’s managing the club with the most entitled fans in the country – Spurs supporters, by and large, expect their team to not only win the trophies of a type they last won more than thirty years ago (I wasn’t a football supporter the last time Spurs won the league!), they also have to win them while playing in a style which makes it harder for any team to win them!
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