A freakish game perhaps, but it’s clear Cardiff’s awful form of late 23/24 is continuing.

3 Responses to A freakish game perhaps, but it’s clear Cardiff’s awful form of late 23/24 is continuing.

1. ANTHONY MOR O'BrRIEN says:

   August 18, 2024 at 11:33 am

   To my mind Goudas was partly responsible for Burnley’s first two goals. I can remember the revered Wilf Grant emphasising that a back pass should always be away from the goal, not to the keeper’s feet. (I should add that our current keeper seems somewhat hesitant in thumping the moving ball up the pitch, and I frequently told my grandson that this particular goalkeeper would have problems). All such features were made obvious by the Goumas backpass.
   Mr Grant also emphasised that when a very quick winger came past you and raced out wide, you had to run back at an angle away (not close from the) winger in order to be the best place to prevent the cross. Goudas showed a lack of spede and the wrong angle.
   The Goudas problem, I believe, goes back to last season. He played on the right hand side centre back and was excellent. The left hand side centre back was McGunness, and the two men linked with each other. And now, what ‘s happening! It seems likely that McGunness is being sold. Being sold down the river, I feel. It reminds me of someone years ago saying the government was selling the nation’s silver. Playing footballers not in their best condition is sometimes necessary, but to continuing doing it can be suicidal.

   All this said, Cardiff in the first half were very good yesterday. There were signs that the new style Cardiff might be on the up and up. God, don’t I believe so!
2. GRAHAM says:

   August 18, 2024 at 4:39 pm

   Thank you Paul – I do so agree with almost all you say, but Managers are paid a lot because they are expected to organise teams so they win. No wonder Bulut is telling us we should forget what happened on Saturday. I hope we don’t. And since many of our younger players, so many of them local players, are doing comparatively well let’s see them on the pitch playing as first team members.
   You are kind about our goalkeeper’s own goal – no doubt it will be shown on screens for years .. I hope it might discourage our players for seeking to perfect their skill at passing the ball across and back again and again and again, usually without even looking to see if a pass forward might be an alternative possibility!
3. Dai Woosnam says:

   August 18, 2024 at 9:18 pm

   Oh my giddy aunt, Paul… what a superb couple of opening paragraphs from you. They are so thought-provoking. I take the point you make, but I would be less than truthful if I do not think the whole affair made me also ponder on the truth (or otherwise) of the famous dictum ‘there are lies, damned lies, and… STATISTICS’. I confess this adage has lodged itself firmly in my psyche the full sixty years it has been since I first read it.

   So much so, that when I see articles full of stats (and especially those that use the dreaded Ice Hockey term, ‘xG’), I say to myself… ‘this is all bolloxio’; time to watch a stirring documentary on YouTube, like Ken Russell’s famous Edward Elgar one, all those years ago for BBC’s Monitor… which I have watched about thirty times and never tire of… it being the total antithesis of dry stats.

   But as the great KK said “he’s a walking contradiction/Partly truth and partly fiction”… and whilst I hope there is nothing fictional about my mutterings, I certainly have the capacity to contradict myself… as I will now do in this next paragraph.

   I want to hit you with a statistic…!! And it is this… viz… when the woeful Millers – doomed for weeks to be relegated – demolished City in the final game of last season, it was the first time they had scored 5 goals in a game all season… indeed, in 44 of the previous 45 games they had not scored more than two goals in any of them, but did manage a three in game where they were on the losing side.

   Yet, in that 46th game, they destroyed us. And that told me everything about Mr. Bulut’s total inability to motivate his team.

   And I immediately suggested on WOL that Vincent should not give him a new contract, but given that Aaron Ramsey would basically be spending more time on the treatment table than the pitch this 24/25 season, then Vincent could avoid being taken to the cleaners by letting Aaron become player/manager in name, with the emphasis (in reality) being very much on the second half of that job title.

   Of course the (half?) wits on WOL comments section, thought this hilarious. ‘No experience’ they said.

   As if years playing under Arsène Wenger doesn’t rub off on his players: the process of osmosis means that if you have any kind of light on in your upstairs library, then much of his wisdom will rub off on you.

   And if that was not enough, I quoted chapter and verse on John Toshack’s astounding performance at the Vetch Field.

   This is what I said at the time…

   ‘…
   I have to smile at readers of WalesOnline who are seemingly experts on maturity.

   What do I mean? I mean those folk who say that Aaron Ramsey is far too young to be made City boss. Do they not realise that at 33, he is only a year younger than Russell Martin was when he became a manager? And that he is only a year younger than Danny Rohl who has pulled off a miracle at Hillsborough?
   And even these guys are ‘late flowering’ when compared to current Germany national boss the 36 year old Julian Nagelsmann, who was just 28 when he took over as boss of Hoffenheim. And of course, much closer to home, our very own John Toshack was also just 28 when he took over the reins at Swansea, and in the next 4 years took them from the 4th tier, to very near the peak of the mountain… so much so that Bill Shankly called him the ‘manager of the century’.
   It is a sobering thought that Ramsey is exactly the same age now as Tosh was when he finished in 6th position in our top tier… after topping the forerunner of the Premier League several times that season.
   Do I think Ramsey has the qualities of Tosh? No, I don’t. But as I understand it, he is not on a contract based on his number of appearances, and therefore with him being so injury prone, it makes sense for Vincent not to waste his money on the ultra negative Bulut, but to get possible value out of Aaron instead.
   I would still far prefer Liam Rosenior.
   …’

   [I did not add at the time something that I now see as obvious: viz our Mehmet with his proud Turkish blood, was hardly going to suggest we hire a manager who the Turkish millionaire owner at Hull had just sacked…!!]. I finished by saying that I thought Ramsey was a pragmatic middle course to adopt.

   But Mehmet blew it and persuaded Vincent to let the bounder have two more years. If we are on the end of a trouncing at SA5 8NY, I honestly feel the urbane Mehmet should fall on his sword.

   After all, he has not astounded us with his oath of loyalty to us Bluebirds: not very long ago he was a leading member of a consortium which unsuccessfully attempted to take over Charlton Athletic.

   Now, before signing off, some words about the debacle yesterday at Turf Moor.

   Our treatment of Jak Alnwick has been a disgrace. I always thought him a better keeper than Alsopp, yet he had to play second fiddle to him for a full season. Then last season we saw the shameful episode of him being dropped for a period when a grossly inferior Icelandic boy was given the gloves.

   And now, the ultimate insult: the clueless Bulut has dropped Jak for a vastly inferior goalkeeper who – when it came to offering him a new contract – neither Luton nor Forest thought good enough to make the 3rd choice keeper in their squad.

   And judging by the farcical 9th minute incident yesterday, he seems to be the secret lovechild of Peter Enckelman. (And yes for the record I blame him for the second goal too: a chocolate right wrist.)

   I so hope Jak wins the Lottery so he can put the proverbial two fingers up to this dreadful manager who has treated him with contempt, and made him captain of our Caribou Cup team as a clear expression of his feelings of guilt.

   Incidentally, re the first goal, why was Goutas passing it back anyway? He got the ball passed him by O’Dowda… and a return one-two was on with him.

   But I get it ‘Pepitis’ has swept Britain… Guardiola is no doubt a genius, but gee he has a lot to answer for… just look at the havoc he has caused in the 72 clubs below the EPL… ‘EFL Highlights’ on ITV is pure farce.

   Forget the Fred Karno’s Army stuff of Divisions 1 &2… did you see the insane attempted back pass to his keeper from Middlesbrough’s Isaiah Jones? He was 35 yards max from the Derby goal…!!

   Will Vaulks was another player to cost his side a vital point, by his negative misdirected pass back, well into injury time, stopping his Oxford United getting a merited draw at Norwich. (Mind you, we always knew Will had a rick in him… who can forget that bizarre injury time headed own goal at CCS last season to give us three points over the Owls?)

   And of course the EPL are not immune to this playing out madness. Alex McCarthy must be circa 40 years old (too rushed to google*) and has a howitzer of a boot on him. That kamikaze passing out from the back cost his team the match.

   Oh Russell Martin… there is something hugely impressive about you… but I just wish that you and Liam Rosenior could both continue to dazzle us with your attacking flair, but cure yourself of ‘goalkeeping Pepitis’.

   Ah well… time to count some zeds. I guess that worse things happen at sea.

   Commiserations to our Welsh Fire ladies… a thrilling finish… they can be proud of their performance.

   Too tired to proofread. Apols for any typos.

   *when I use it as a verb I always adopt lower case… like hoovering the carpet.
   DW.