Lately, as our plight has become clearer and clearer from week to week supporters have been looking for someone to blame for the fact that it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll be relegated this season.
Vincent Tan’s stock is probably as low, if not lower, than it was at the height of the rebrand controversy and for all that Mehmet Dalman and Ken Choo are probably right when they say one man makes all of the big decisions at Cardiff City these days, that doesn’t excuse them for being poor at their jobs – that’s when they’re actually doing them, it doesn’t seem to happen too often these days.
Yes, the three men at the top have to accept their share of the blame for a reduction of standards throughout the club which, the 17/18 promotion apart, has been going on for a decade and, with the rate of decline getting steeper year by year, there’s no evidence that any of them are learning by their mistakes, quite the opposite in fact.
Just six months ago, the recruitment department, to the extent that we have one, was being praised for what was perceived as a good transfer window, but now it looks anything but that, so, with good reason I’d say, they’re getting their fair share of stick as well.
Then, of course, there’s Omer Riza whose position looks less secure now that he’s been told the manager’s job is his until the end of the season. I’ve been more supportive of Riza than others mainly because I have a degree of sympathy for any manager who has to work for Vincent Tan and, for a short while at least, his team played football that was entertaining. However, we’re getting progressively worse under Riza and the point is being reached where it’s beginning to look as if he is surviving only because sacking him will mean more embarrassment for Mr Tan and his two cohorts.
With players dropping like flies as the injuries mount up, the competence of the medical staff at the club has come into question (there have also been claims that a penny pinching attitude means that we do not have enough of them – the same has been said regarding coaching staff, although it has been added to this week with the appointment of Richard Shaw who worked with Riza at Watford).
Even the Cardiff City Stadium pitch is being blamed now for causing the plethora of injuries we’re seeing, but the only party at the club I’ve not mentioned yet, the players, have escaped pretty lightly. That’s surely going to change though after today’s 3-2 loss at Oxford United in which twenty third in the table entertained twenty second in the table in a game that was billed as being tremendously significant as to what the bottom of the league will look like come the end of the season.
It would be wrong to say the players had escaped Scot free in the blame game – there have been those who have consistently singled them out through the season, but I’d say they were a minority, with most quicker to point the finger at Messrs Tan, Dalman, Choo and/or Riza.
At the end of today’s match though I found myself feeling such annoyance at a nucleus of the more experienced members of the starting line up who, in truth, have been letting the club down for months and are doing little to justify their, no doubt, exorbitant wage packets.
I’m reminded of a line Malky Mackay used to come out with about how the club’s recruitment department, back in the says when we had a functioning one, would not just look into the playing ability of transfer targets, but also their character. How true that was I don’t know, but, from the outside looking in, there seems little evidence that the character of potential new signings has been a consideration in deciding whether to press ahead with their acquisition in the last two or three years.
Some of the players I’m thinking of such as Callum Chambers, Chris Willock, Wilfried Kanga and Anwar El Ghazi arrived this summer, but there’s also the forward who has still not scored a goal at home since he signed in the summer of 2023 who recently sent out a social media post railing against supporters who dared to be critical of him, Yakou Meite.
There are others, including Rubin Colwill (who is proving the malaise doesn’t just exist in players brought into the club) and our pair of Greek internationals lately and Callum Robinson and Perry Ng at times in the past, who help to create an impression that too many of the first team squad think they are better than they are. It feels like there is a combination of naivety and arrogance in their thinking, and maybe that of the current manager in the case of the former, which makes us temperamentally unsuited for the fight we’re facing in the coming months.
Today’s match illustrated what I’m trying to say. I think for two thirds of the game we showed that, technically, we had better players all over the pitch than our opponents, but that’s not enough in a division as competitive as the Championship and that becomes even more true when you’re fighting for your life at the bottom of it.
That said, football at virtually any level is the same – the superior team in terms of skill has to earn the right to display those attributes and this is where we have a major problem.
I’d say we’ve only done that at home against Plymouth and Portsmouth and in some of our drawn away games (eg Coventry and Stoke) where we put in a shift which merited three points.
At the half hour mark of today’s game, I’d say someone who had not seen either team play before would have been tipping us to win with one reservation – for all of the way we were looking sharper on the ball and more coherent than our opponents, apart from a Willock shot deflected on to the crossbar, we were doing absolutely nothing to harm Oxford.
In terms of being in control of the ball, as opposed to struggling to retain possession, this squad is better than those of the past three seasons, but that’s not enough because there’s been little ot no corresponding improvement in creativity – we’re a side that cannot earn that right to play and today, for all of our technical superiority on a one v one basis, it was useless because we had zilch to show for it.
For all of our meaningless popping the ball about, it was Oxford who were showing they had a better understanding of what was needed in the position the two teams found themselves in. It wasn’t so much that they were staying in the game because it never became a case of them having to do that, but they bided their time and four minutes before the interval showed a ruthlessness that we’ve seldom matched all season.
Willock lost the ball carelessly in the middle of the park and then, just as bad, showed little inclination to repair his error as his tracking back was half hearted at best. Przemyslaw Placheta was then sent into a yawning gap down our left and his low cross was turned in from about four yards out by, of course, Mark Harris for his first goal since August.
From the first real opportunity they had, Oxford had made us pay for a mistake in a way we just don’t do and the effect it had on our team was alarming as we crumbled completely in the next twenty minutes.
Willock paid for his sloppiness by being replaced by Callum Robinson at half time and I thought he was one of our better players in a second half showing which bordered on the shameful until some face was saved in the last ten minutes.
So many City heads dropped after that first goal went in. This was the time when some of the experienced performers in the side needed to stand up and be counted, but they were nowhere to be seen and it didn’t take long for Oxford to make it 2-0 as an unmarked Ciaran Brown, of course, headed in a corner with Colwill and Goutas looking culpable.
Four minutes later it was 3-0 as Placheta rocketed in a shot from over twenty five yards. It was a fine goal, but, from a City perspective, the failure to close the scorer down was criminal – about fifteen minutes later, Cameron Brannagan was given all of the time he wanted to get a shot away that was blocked, but he still had enough time to get another effort in from the rebound with still no City player within a couple of yards of him.
This was indicative of just how ragged we’d become as Oxford began to show, or were allowed to show, they could play a bit as well and the opportunities were there for them to have doubled their lead against rattled opponents who were really showing what an uncompetitive lot they were.
Yet, despite this, the events of the last ten minutes saw us being able to say, in all seriousness, that we should have ended up drawing 3-3!
Ronan Kpakio and Cian Ashford had been brought on as subs soon after we’d gone 3-0 down and, despite the former being slated continuously by “expert” summariser Robert Earnshaw, the seventeen year old was an improvement on Andy Rinomhota, who, for the first time, looked like a fish out of water defensively at right wing back. Kpakio, who is already our best attacking right sided full back I’d say, now has an assist to his name as his low, pulled back cross (labelled “poor” by Earnie) was instantly controlled and dispatched by Ashford in an impressive manner that marks him out as that rarest of animals, an in form and confident Cardiff City player.
Robinson’s very late goal from eight yards, where he showed a natural striker’s instinct (another very rare animal at Cardiff these days) by realising he had to move away from goal and not go towards the ball, was meaningless, but shouldn’t have been after an incident a few minutes earlier which rather sums this team up.
There were about three minutes left when Robinson slipped another sub, El Ghazi, through for a clear run in on goal, but it seemed to me watching the game alone at home that the Dutch international was beaten to a ball he should have been favourite for by home keeper Jamie Cumming.
I’d say El Ghazi should have been something like a 60/40 favourite at least to get to the ball first, but the Oxford player was more committed and the commentary team on the stream I was watching were saying the same after they’d seen a replay of the incident. An hour or two after the game as I type this, it seems most who saw the incident felt the same as me after reading reactions to it.
A draw would have been a travesty given how the game panned out after we conceded and part of me did not welcome the two late goals because they may be used to try to paper over the gaping cracks appearing in this car crash of a season.
It’s now nine games without a win for a squad that was telling us how much they were behind Omer Riza before the first of them at Luton. The Hatters were the first in I’d say six out of form teams we’ve played in this awful run and only at Stoke did we not allow our opponents to get a much needed three points with a comfortable win – that’s the sort of stat which means I can no longer believe we’re in a false position.
A couple of random thoughts to finish. What is it about the date 26 December that makes City teams’ legs turn to jelly? It’s now just two Boxing Day wins (Coventry in 2010 and Palace in 2012) in twenty four attempts!
Second, I often think there’s nothing worth supporting at the club these days, but that’s to ignore the under 18s who are having a good league season and the under 21s and women’s teams who both top their respective divisions. Therefore, it seems so modern day Cardiff City that a redesign of the club’s website means that you can no longer check these three teams’ upcoming ‘fixtures on there as it now only features the first team games which so many fans of the club are currently trying to find a reason to avoid.
Word is now filtering through from those who were at the game about how toxic the atmosphere became as the team capitulated with minimal resistance – maybe a corner has been turned regarding attitudes towards many of the team? For myself, although I accept there are dangers with bringing in a lot of youngsters to a clearly struggling team, after watching that today, I’m wondering whether regular places for the likes of Kpakio and Ashford and two or three other members of the under 21 team would leave us any weaker than we are currently – certainly, in terms of desire to play and fight for the club, we’d be stronger.
A very fine report Paul. I look forward to see if Blue Bayou will still be confident that we will escape the drop.
I noted with interest some chap on WOL saying that we are doomed and that the only club we will finish higher than will be Plymouth Argyle…!! Eh? What world does that dear gent live in?
Remember how Argyle stuffed us at Home Park last season? I predict they will do it again this.
Here are a few of my thoughts this morning… in no order of preference/priority…
1. What is it about us, that when we transfer ‘failure players’ for just pennies, those players almost always become relative world-beaters in their new clubs? We can go back to the 1950s for evidence: the late Brayley Reynolds for starters. And it has continued through the decades… right up to Eoin Doyle… and to the trio playing in yellow yesterday. And don’t get me started on the even greater number of ex-Bluebirds at Derby…!! (I have never got over our stupid ‘virtue signalling’ as a club in our immediate cancelling of Mendez-Lang’s contract because of his recreational drug use.)
2. The only assessment in your match report I disagreed with was your positivity re Chambers. Were I to win Euromillions, I would personally pay up his contract and call an immediate taxi. To me, he might be a half decent City right back in a very lean year, but he is a million miles from a centre half. He is too physically weak and easily brushed off. We gave always had strong centre halves from Danny Malloy, John Charles, Don Murray through to Sean Morrison. Look at the Swans a season or two back with Nathan Wood and the bullying Harry Darling quite imperious. Us? We are having a laugh with Chambers in that role. I get the concept of a false centre FORWARD… but false centre HALF…??!! Never. The otherwise excellent Archie Gray is showing just that at Tottenham right now… he is just too slight for a centre half.
3. The biggest lesson to draw from this season is this: do not bow to fans’ desire to make managers permanent. As Churchill said (the gist of… not verbatim)… ‘the crowd that are currently cheering my name could equally be happily attending my public hanging’. In other words, understand that fans are intrinsically FICKLE people. Vincent should never listen to them. Their urging was instrumental in Vincent giving daft contracts to McCarthy and Bulut… and the only way I came round to my reluctant view to give Riza a contract till the end of the season was that I was genuinely terrified that we would give a contract to that absolute bounder Slaven Bili?. (You know Paul how I have never forgiven him for what he did to Laurent Blanc… and that he never had the grace – even a decade later – to own up to his deplorable mendacity and deliberate ruining of that Frenchman’s dream… even though in a simultaneous interview, Blanc forgave Bili? for his utterly shameful behaviour.
Always do due diligence… and if
City fans think a total snake like Bili? a potentially good fit, well we have lost our moral core as a club.
Please read the last three paragraphs here… https://taleoftwohalves.uk/featured/slaven-bilic-dive-robbed-laurent-blanc-world-cup-dream/
4. Like I said to you Paul re the summer signings… we should always go to the respective FANS FORUMS of the players we are buying and see how many of their fans lament their departure… for instance when we sold Graham Moore, Peter Rodrigues, John Toshack, Gareth Williams, I fired off letters of protest to the Football Echo (our pre Internet fans forum).
But when it came to recent(ish) transfer-ins, when I could check… eg. Horvath, Turnbull, Willock, (not possible with foreign clubs as I am no polyglot)… well NOBODY protested their departure, and there were occasional postings along the lines of a mild ‘good riddance’.
5. Fine Willock a week’s wages over that dereliction of duty yesterday.
Right… lunch beckons.
TTFN,
Dai.
PS Your blog software is a real mystery. When I transferred my text from my iPad Notes to your ‘leave a reply box’ it did not like my acute accent on the last letter of BILIC… and turned it into a question mark.
Apols.
But trust me, there is no question mark over that scoundrel’s character.
DW
Compliments of the season to all. It looks to me as if many of the sensible followers on here are becoming so dumbed down and apathetic about the state of the Club we have followed for best part of a lifetime that they can’t even be bothered to comment on the shambles unfolding in front of us. The fact that none of the Club’s hierarchy seem to be bothered either is mind numbingly unbelievable.
Like a lot of us, I’ve seen some terrible sides down the City but they were frequently caused by a lack of available resources and the players on the pitch, despite not being good enough, usually gave of their best which placated supporters to some extent. Unfortunately, we now appear to be in a situation where the owner doesn’t really care anymore – an attitude which is pervading the Club from the two Muppets at the top to the first team squad. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have affected our other squads who hopefully still have the enthusiasm of youth – something which makes me concerned about too many of them being involved higher up and becoming infected! I have now reached a stage where, for the first time in my life, I would accept relegation if it meant a change of ownership and a reset in the way the Club is being run.
Yesterday was another depressing watch being played out by a team mostly going through the motions watched by a bloke in the technical area who looks as if he’s popped in on the way to the pub. The experience wasn’t helped by the constant drivel being churned out by Earnie who veered from stating the bleedin’ obvious to spouting complete nonsense – please don’t use him again Sky.
Happy new year everybody!
Hello Paul – Thanks for another splendid piece of writing – I agree with everything.
I no longer have a season ticket, but the new arrangements made by the EFL selling out to Sky allow me to watch our lot probably just as much as if I still had my seat at the CCS. So my frustrations and anger at our woeful performances are vented from the comfort of my home causing some concern to my dog believing that he is responsible for my outbursts. There were many yesterday.
How is it possible that a team that finished so comfortably in mid-table last season, can perform so miserably this? There is clearly something radically wrong but I cast my mind back to the last two games of last season when we were comprehensively out played and conceded goals for fun. And that malaise has continued.
Currently there does not appear to be any part of the Club’s first team set up that is functioning well, on or off the field (e.g. recruitment, training, selection, medical) and I include managerial appointments in that summary. It gives me no satisfaction in stating that the current incumbent is out of his depth and engaging his mate from Watford hardly convinces this writer otherwise. “Silk purse, sow’s ear” springs to mind.
Paul, you mentioned many in your article who, I believe, would be given their P45s in many other walks of life and justly so. I have no confidence that we will attract those that are needed in the January “window”, but for starters I would recall Colwill minor and Wintle and install them immediately, probably with Robertson or/and Siopis, and I would forever regret letting Derby have Adams. You see much of our youngsters and surely we could give one or two a decent run of games instead of those who purport to be forwards.
I wish you and fellow MAYANS are HYN and thank you on their behalf for you insights over 2024. An absolute Trojan
Hi Paul and seasons greetings to all regulars on here!
As ever, Paul has totally nailed it with his excellent analysis.
Another Boxing Day woeful performance to add to the collection.Regardless of our current predicament, those Boxing Day stats over the years are truly appalling.
Keep thinking we have reached rock bottom and then we seem to find another low with error-strewn performances each week.
As Paul has pointed out many times recently, we are watching the same game each week – with virtually the same outcome every time.
I think most of us accepted that Sheffield United would be tough and almost wrote that one off. However, that was on the basis of winning some of the proverbial 6 pointers that surrounded that fixture.
Sadly, we now seem so bereft of confidence that I am struggling now to see where the next win comes from. Already looking at those around us and hoping they lose each week as a means of saving us. Don’t think I have ever felt the need to do that in December before!
Whatever feel good factor there was to Riza’s appointment – if there ever was one – has now completely disappeared. Looks like he is running out of ideas, but the players are just not helping with their performances – all excellently analysed by Paul.
Agree with Clive above, that it is almost becoming too painful to comment on performances like this each week, but us die-hards do need to find a sensible chamber for our thoughts, so thanks again to Paul for providing this for us.
Cannot second guess what the hierarchy are currently thinking ,
but surely they cannot let things carry on like this with such anger and apathy across our club?
Fingers crossed for a 2025 miracle!
Morning all and thanks for your contributions. Interesting to see Dai and Brian honing in on ex players of ours at other clubs because it tells us a lot about attitudes at Cardiff City Football Club and, I would suggest, a section of the fanbase. First though, I agree with Dai about Nathaniel Mendez-Laing – my recollection is that the reason we sacked him wasn’t made oublic at first and when the truth emerged my reacton was “is that all?”. Mendez was inconsistent, but I remember him taking Trent Alexander Arnold to the cleaners at Cardiff City Stadium and we’ve never satisfactorily replaced him. As for others, give me Curtis Nelson, and even Ciaran Brown, over Callum Chambers and Mark Harris would definitely be the best fit central striker at the clun now if he were still with us.
Brian mentions the really interesting one for me though – Ebou Adams was never given a chance here. Of course, his injury didn’t help his cause at all, but when he was fit again, I felt there was a bit of a tendency for him to be disregarded as a lower division scuffler. His dreadful miss against ius earlier in the season shows he has limitations to his game, but the truth is that he’s a very important player now for a team that looks like it’s going to finish well above us and the drop zone – would Adams really be worse than Siopis, Rinomhota or the current day Joe Ralls? I doubt it.
With the possible exception of Mendez-Laing, all of those ex players of our were deemed to be not good enough by us, but I know for a fact that if our team had, say, Nelson, Adams and Brown in it, the attitude would have been a lot better.
Dai’s notion of a false centre half made me smile. What I will say about Chambers is that he has a poise which may have served him well eight to ten years ago, but he now looks like someone who believes that merely being a “footballing” centre back is enough to guarantee him a place every week (Riza has said that neither he nor Fish want to play right back) – good defending and showing the occasional sign that you care are pointless extras it seems.
Clive, I’m much more in line with your opinion on our owner than Dai’s – I don’t think Vincent Tan has ever been a good owner of Cardiff City, but, in his early days with us, at least he cared.
I keep reading that relegation would be an absolute disaster for Vincent Tan, yet, for about three years now, his lack of involvement has been suggestive of someone who almost wants League One football.
Since the Oxford game, I’ve seen it frequently said that certain players just don’t care what happens to the club, well, maybe they’re taking their lead from our owner?
As for your fear that members of the under 21 team would be harmed by exposure to senior football, I can understand it, but, after boxing Day, I’ve reached the stage where I believe that the gap between first team and under 21 team is very small ot maybe doesn’t even exist at all. – .