Another of those occasional matches today that I was unable to watch or even listen to, so, rather than a lot of detailed “analysis” (which would actually be guesswork!) of Cardiff City’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham at St. Andrews today, I thought I’d be better served saying a bit about what I think of this season’s Championship and where City stand within it.
Long term readers may know that I do sometimes question what it is that leads to a league being regarded as “strong” or “weak”. It’s a subject that I’ve seen consistently discussed on messageboards for twenty years or more and I’ve read plenty of people’s take on the subject on all sorts of media, but, speaking for myself, I’m genuinely none the wiser!
For example, if Liverpool maintain their form of the first sixty per cent of the Premier League season through the last 40 per cent of it, they are going to break all sorts of records and the 19/20 campaign will go down as one of the more memorable ones. However, does a team dominating a League as completely as Liverpool are currently doing automatically make it a strong one? My instinct is to say no and argue that it could just as equally be offered up as proof of a weak division.
Staying with the Premier League a little longer, I thought the general standard was, possibly, as weak as I could remember it in 17/18. For me, it was certainly stronger last season and I’d say this season standards are down again a little, but definitely better than they were two years ago – I don’t say this because of any great statistical, tactical or footballing analysis, it’s just the “feel” I have about those three seasons.
Moving on to the Championship, I was certain I wouldn’t be as interested in it as normal last season for the simple reason we were no longer in it, but, in the early weeks of the campaign, I was struck by how often I would watch a match and end up really enjoying it. There seemed to be a more attacking outlook with an increased emphasis on speed and mobility going forward – it doesn’t automatically follow that standards were higher, but the entertainment value was and the fact the team at the top of the division kept on changing so frequently throughout the first half of the season only added to the enjoyment.
Now, to me, all of that made the 18/19 Championship a strong league, but, as I mentioned earlier, what do I know about it! It became a bit of a running joke with me in the decade or so after our promotion in 2003 that just as the first cuckoo of spring would be heard sometime in late March or early April every year, so you’d get the first read about the second tier being a weak league this season around about the 1st of October.
I daresay the advent of October 2018 saw the same sentiments being expressed about the Championship somewhere, so I suppose all that shows is that these things are very much in the eye of the beholder – probably the only way a judgement can be made is by counting the votes.
All of which brings me on to the 19/20 Championship and the first thing I want to say is that, off the top of my head, I cannot remember reading or hearing anyone expressing the opinion that it is a strong League this season.
In fact, I’m struggling to recall anything other than the viewpoint that standards are not high this year. Is this fair? Yes, based on what I have seen in the flesh at City matches and on Sky live games, I would say it is.
You only have to read what I’ve been saying about City on here this season to realise that there haven’t been many occasions when they have impressed me. I’m sure some will think I’ve been negative and harsh in my views, but I can only say that, generally speaking, they are largely echoed on the messageboard I use.
Yet, we have only lost a single home match all season and, thinking about it, how many teams can you say have definitely outplayed us at Cardiff City Stadium? I thought Preston were unlucky not to have beaten us, Sheffield Wednesday were better than us for long periods and all QPR had to show for the passing and counter attacking lesson they gave us was a 3-0 defeat.
It’s easy to go over the top about how poor we are, but the fact is that we have only lost seven times. Only four teams have lost less matches than us, so we must be doing something right, but our twelve draws are more than any other Championship team and we have won fewer than any top half team, while two of the sides below us have also won more.
A record like that for a side that has spent the last few months hovering between, say, eighth and fourteenth in what is generally accepted as a mediocre league, cries out mid table mediocrity.
I’m afraid that’s the context that today’s result should be judged by – this was yet another draw against a team that we’d be expecting to beat if we had anything about us and we were realistic candidates for promotion.
In a fortnights time, we will have played thirty league games, so the season will be, as near as damnit, two thirds over. Is it realistic that we will see a transformation in the side which will lead to us taking our place in the top six come May?
Optimists will say that there is also the best part of a fortnight to go before the transfer window closes and so there is still plenty of time to bring in players who can fashion such a transformation, but what is there in our transfer dealings in the past two years and the way this window has gone so far to make anyone believe that is likely to happen?
Even if we accept that Neil Harris will bring in, say, two players who will improve the squad, I think they would have to be truly exceptional to overcome the fundamental problems we have.
To expand on that, Nathan Blake has often said it would be something like the end of January before he starts to judge Neil Harris as City manager, but, with that deadline too close for comfort now, it seems to me that his team selection today when compared to the team he picked last week against Swansea suggests that he is no nearer knowing what his best side is.
I was certainly critical on the messageboards of the decision to appoint Harris as our manager, but once he was here, my attitude has been that I’ll give him my support until the end of the season at least, but, at the same time, it’s impossible for me to look at the snippets I’ve seen and read about today’s match without uttering a bit of a groan.
Besides the team selection which looked pretty uninspiring, there was the manager’s admission that the team switched to a more direct approach at half time. Given that Millwall were probably the closest thing in the Championship to Neil Warnock’s Cardiff in terms of style of approach, I do often find myself wondering what has changed in the two and a half months since Harris took over.
However, I’ll give Neil Harris the benefit of the doubt for now and accept he is genuinely trying to bring in more of a footballing approach at Cardiff, but a couple of sets of statistics I’ve read about in the past few days tend to emphasise the size of the task facing him.
Firstly, there was the one about how four of the five defenders in the league with the worst passing accuracy figures were City players (Morrison, Flint, Nelson and Peltier) and the other one was that City’s figure of forty six passing sequences of ten or more in open play for the season is thirteen fewer than any other Championship side.
Yes, I know that City are not a side for passing the ball around at the back and I know they like to get it forward quick, but the evidence of twenty eight games this season also tells you the plain fact that too many of our players cannot pass the ball with the accuracy you would expect from Championship footballers.
The very brief highlights I saw of today’s match show that our goal came from a corner and the closest we came to a second one was from a Callum Paterson long throw. Given this and the fact that our more direct second half approach worked to the extent that we equalised and came more into the game, does this mean that to get the best out of this squad you have to play Warnockball or something very close to it?
As for the couple of minutes highlights I’ve seen, the goal we conceded was another shocker as what looked to me to be a mishit corner was flicked on at the near post to sixteen year old Jude Bellingham who held off Joe Bennett to score. Bellingham could easily have had a second when he was, criminally, left completely unmarked some six yards from goal, only to be denied by what may well have been the save of City’s season so far by Alex Smithies.
City’s goal came from a Lee Tomlin header from a corner of all things – it was a good one as well as he glanced in a Marlon Pack’s delivery to the near post under pressure from the keeper and a couple of defenders.Tomlin hit the bar after that, but this was offset by Birmingham doing the same in a first half the home side totally dominated – in terms of today being a case of one point won or two lost, I’d say it was the former, but we have had more than enough draws for now!
A quick word about Blaenrhondda FC who won 3-0 at Cwm Welfare in the John Owen Cup, while Ton Pentre did not get the chance to continue their recent climb up the Welsh League Division One because their match at Aberbargoed Buds was postponed.
Paul,
The statistics you quote for Cardiff City players are frightening and highlight the shortcomings of the team. Neil Harris is “hoist by his own petard” when he admits that he had to rely on Warnockball to get a performance from his players. He also says that it took the response of the Cardiff faithful to fire up the players as they left the pitch at half-time: This raises several questions:
(1) As professionals why weren’t they fired up at the outset?
(2) Does the team not have the leaders to demand effort from their colleagues?
(3) Isn’t the role of the manager to perform this task anyway?
(4) Do the manager’s own words amount to an admission that the attempt to play more attractive and effective football may have been an error?
(5) Are the current players lacking either the skills or the mindset (or both) to play a more attractive style of football which would be effective?
(6) Would the addition of (the inevitably few) new players make any difference?
(7) Would players with the ability to improve the Cardiff team be willing to join us? (8) Are we doomed to see more and more Warnockball as the season continues?
(9) Will the patience of the fans dissolve, given that there are already signs of unrest from some supporters?
(10) Is there a “quick fix” to the situation?
All I can say is, let us hope for the best.
As now a country fan living in Scotland and a Bluebirds fan for over 60 years the best way to sum them up in all of my years as a supporter is, with a few ups and downs, a mid second division side or championship if you prefer.
Thanks again, Paul.
I have not even seen the “highlights”. Looking at the stats on the BBC website we had more possession than we usually do but our goal attempts fell some way short of the target of 35. What were we doing just passing it about in our own half?
I fear that as a club we are doomed. The owner has lost interest, his lieutenants are football novices and I have read that Neil Harris has ‘lost the dressing room “. If the last of those is true, it has happened very quickly and you have to wonder if he ever had the dressing room. It did appear a very unambitious appointment and in line with my feeling about the club. Have we a scouting system, are we looking for players to buy, or loan? Our neighbours to the west seem much to be a much more attractive destination than Cardiff. Are we ever in the hunt for these promising youngsters.
If things don’t change radically and rapidly we are going to sink. We might survive this season but can we survive another season in the Championship playing the trash that has been served up this season.
Paul, I am one of those that has said that this season’s Championship is weak. More evidence this lunchtime with Nottingham Forest one of the play-off pretenders played complete garbage in the first-half against bottom of the table and if it wasn’t for poor officiating and a blooper by the Luton keeper they would be 1-0 down. (they are winning 3-1 as I write).
Again there was some consolation when Leeds unluckily (snigger0) lost yesterday
I am puzzled by the anti Harris sentiment.
Somehow he is expected to get better results than Warnock did with a team that Warnock assembled and he didn’t.
The defence has lost its steely impenetrability with the loss of Bamba and the much underestimated Manga. With the best will in the world it is difficult for the replacements to immediately reach the same standards. The leaky defence must take its responsibility for many of the draws.
The attack, Zahore’s exceptional and unrepeated start to the promotion season apart, has been weak. It was hardly strengthened by the expensive, wasted, and ineffectual purchases of Madine and, so far, Glatzel. These, and the Sala saga, have probably resulted in the kitty being empty for new players. The blunt attack is also responsible for inability to turn draws into wins. I find it hard to lay any of this at Harris’ door
Harris should also be given credit for an improving playing style and getting the best out of Tomlin, something that has not been seen since his Bournemouth days. Without Tomlin’s spark where would we be now?
None of the faults are Harris’ and he has not been given enough credit for what he has achieved. The problems with the City in terms of players, playing style, tactics and finances are difficult to fix and yet he is expected to quickly transform a team that was not excelling under Warnock – who built the team.
We are too quick to judge. He should be given time and space to move things forward.
Again, thank-you, Paul. You missed nothing by missing this one.
Having had the misfortune of witnessing the turgid opening 48 minutes at a bitterly cold, yet sunny, St Andrew’s afternoon Cardiff City rarely threatened anything of note to raise the temperature. So totally were we not at the task in this first period that had Brum a striker worthy of the name they could have been 4 or 5 up at the interval. At this point a certain Championship manager might probably have stated, “that the pitch was a bit bobbly and the grass a bit too long,” but the pitch was far better than the fare the away team served up on it. After having seen the pitches of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s perhaps some of these prima dona managers today should have taken up snooker instead.
Our manager’s summation of proceedings was strange at best. His comment, “There was nothing in the game chances-wise,” was stretching it. The stats tell me Brum had 14 attempts and we, 6, though admittedly it was only 3-2 in favour of the hosts for the on target variety. What was incontrovertible, though, was that Birmingham seemed to be camped in our defensive-third for far too long in that first period. Delusion is a deadly friend.
Secondly Mr Harris’ assertion that the walk past furious Bluebirds’ fans at half-time inspired the comeback leaves me perplexed. Can I ask, what is a manager for if not to inspire and to organise his troops? More of Orde Wingate later. In the first period Tomlin rarely had the ball, Hoilett was anonymous, Whyte wriggled with a bit of purpose but created nothing whilst Ward run around but rarely had the ball in anything approaching a dangerous position.
Reading between the lines it would seem that we set out, to try to play a bit of football but then, according to later comments from our Manager, “went more direct,” after the break. Is this an admission that the City squad is unable to play anything more than Warnock-ball? The first half was just not acceptable from a team of Championship standard. If I have done our Manager a disservice and he really wants us to play more football I’d like to be privy to the dressing room chit-chat of the exasperated manager. Surely, even a defender at this level, should have more than a 50 yd thump upfield in his locker and be able to find one of his team-mates 25 yds away?
Whatever the truth of it, we were certainly far more in the game after the break and we could have pinched it had Tomlin’s excellent 20 yd strike been an inch and a half further to the right of the outside of the left hand post. At the time I did not think the Tomlin incident was a penalty but that said I’m sure the Match of the Day / Sky Sports’ pundits would have made a case for a penalty if it were Kane and not Tomlin involved.
A word about the ref. That Birmingham’s Gardener (#20) was only booked for his awful lunge at Whyte was scandalous. He was not in control of the challenge, in fact both feet were off the ground as he scythed through our orange-shirted winger who needed lengthy treatment a few yards beyond the touchline before continuing. How could Morrison’s tackle at Leeds be deemed worthy of a red and Gardener’s a yellow, the same punishment as Tomlin got for sarcastically clapping the ref?
So it was 1-1 at the end of 96 minutes; a game instantly forgettable save for the novelty of a Tomlin headed goal and a breathtaking save by Smithies. To Harris’ credit he has ditched the half-zonal marking at corners and picked Tomlin, now holder of 5 goals and 6 assists. Where would City and Harris have been without Tomlin? What of the future? Something radical has to take place between now and next August or Cardiff City 2020-21 will be doing well to get 15,000 season ticket holders. Hemorrhaging so many thousands of season ticket holders in 15 months would be both catastrophic and inexcusable.
Against the backdrop of a suffocating jungle, humidity and monsoon it was the idiosyncratic British Army officer Orde Wingate who met the complexities of the war in India and Burma with radical thinking and the formation of the Chindits … a force that operated behind enemy lines. Wingate said on one occasion, “I believe that without integrity a man had much better not approach a problem at all.” How we need similar, radical thinking and integrity in the corridors of CCS to solve the present confusion and coherent future planning.
Thanks once again for the replies and it’s great to see a couple of newcomers posting on here – welcome to you both.
Graham, having been a fan for a little less time than you, I’d agree with you that second tier mid table is about our norm over the past fifty to sixty years. What I would say though is that I have seen quite a few City teams in that position down the years who were over achieving by being there. When I look at the advantages we came into this season with over many many of the other sides in this division (e.g. we were the fourteenth best supported club in England and Wales last season, parachute payments, bigger football budget than most of the division), it has to be the case that we are under achieving by some distance – that’s the frustration that I have had all through this season.
Anthony, some very quick answers to your questions;-
1. For me, this is the most baffling aspect of our season. Apart from at Sheffield Wednesday, Neil Harris has had no effect on this weakness that was apparent when Neil Warnock was in charge, which leads me on to……
2. All of our players have to accept their share of the responsibility here – Warnock used to talk of the leaders we had, but it seems no individual can get this group in the right frame of mind to start a match, so you have to question them as a collective.
3. See answers to one and two – when two mangers (one of whom is generally regarded as a very good motivator) are unable to get a response, I feel you may have to look elsewhere for the cause of the problem.
4. I need to be convinced of a genuine desire on Neil Harris’ part to want to completely change our playing style, but, assuming he is genuine about it, I’d say he is learning that the players he inherited are more limited than he thought, so it’s more a case of having to accept that to get the most out of this squad, he has to play a version of “Warnockball”.
5. My guess is that it’s more the skills than the mindset, but they’ll know their strengths and weakness better than anyone, so I’d say there will be players who know they’ll, almost certainly, be out of the team if our style changes because they’d become worse players for us than they are now.
6.Any change of style has to be a gradual one I feel because the Warnock style is ingrained in the squad, so, say, two signings this month would have a limited effect, but then add three or four more in the summer and I would say that would be enough for us to start 20/21 with a new playing method if the will really is there to change.
7. I really do believe that we’ll struggle to attract technical young players from the Premier League here on loan because of the reputation we have for the type of football we play. If it was me, I’d be looking at young players the top clubs will not be awarding new contracts to this summer to come here permanently with the promise that there is a real desire for a change of philosophy at Cardiff.
8. Yes, as mentioned earlier, i have doubts as to whether this squad can change too much and as I don’t see is signing half a team in the next ten days or so, I don’t see there being too big a change from what we’ve become used to this season.
9. I see distinct similarities between this season and 14/15 after our previous relegation. It seemed to me during that season that large section of the support became apathetic so there wasn’t that much anger directed at the side – for me, Steve gets to the heart of the problem we’ll have when he says that we’ll do well to get 15,000 season ticket holders next season.
10. Given the quiet transfer window so far, I don’t see one.
Colin, the sort of season we are having is not that unusual in that relegated sides often find their first season in the Championship tough – for example, last year’s Champions Norwich were very inconsistent in 17/18. However, it would be easy to think that because we, eventually, got it right first time around that we’ll definitely do it again. I’ve become very anti Warnock in the last eight or nine months, but even I have to accept that he was the main reason why the 17/18 promotion happened – in terms of getting back into the Premier League, we were going nowhere under Slade and Trollope. Therefore, we could easily become one of those teams that quickly grow to see the Championship as their “natural” level and, although the ambition to go up again remains, it remains a hope more than an expectation – Middlesbrough and Stoke are becoming that sort of club and the likes of Swansea, QPR and Reading already are.
David, I can’t really speak for others, but I can understand why some supporters are not persuaded by Neil Harris so far. I’ve said plenty of times before on here that, as a long time critic of what has become known as Warnockball, my attitude was fickle in that I’d put up with it while it was working and start whinging about it as soon as it stopped doing so. I was never sure how many City fans felt like that before this season, but, over the past few months, I’ve been surprised by how many supporters appear to now share my view that I’m sick and tired of seeing my team play in such a dull, regimented and, I would say, cowardly way – we’ve played versions of Warnockball under an assortment of managers in the near decade since Dave Jones left. Neil Harris was never going to be a wholly popular appointment because he’s view as an unambitious and cheap choice and the fact Millwall play in a similar way to us doesn’t help his cause. I wanted someone other than him, but, as I said, in my piece, I’m not going to be too critical of him at the moment because I think he’s taken on a very tough job and, with Joe Bennett saying he’s got much more licence to get forward now and increasing possession figures, I think there are signs of a desire on his part to play more attractively – I’m also not going to have a go at him for switching to a more direct approach on Saturday because it worked to the extent we got something out of a match we were on our way to losing and also because it had a degree of realism to it.
Steve, rightly or wrongly, one of the strong impressions I get from this season is that of managers being left alone to get on with things as they choose. In lots of ways this would be a good thing, but when the club is Cardiff City under Vincent Tan it is akin to sticking your head in the sand. When Neil Warnock was appointed, he was the strong character we needed because of the much discussed lack of a “football man” to liaise with the Board, but, predictably, we then got into a position where the manager needed to be kept in some kind of check and it didn’t happen. Now, we’ve seen Warnock leave amid talk of a Director of Football being appointed and an increased emphasis on youth development – ten weeks later, the talk of a Director of Football has disappeared and, apart from the new manager going along to watch the occasional Development and Youth team game, the youth development “revolution” seems to be going the same way as the one we heard about when Paul Trollope was appointed.
With all of this in mind, I say I agree with you – we need to be hearing more from the trip of Tan, Dalman and Choo or, at the very least, getting some sort of indication that there the same degree of commitment to the club from the owner as there once was.
Just back from a couple of weeks’ “radio silence”…but, I have to say that I feel exactly as Colin (above) does – in love with a club that appears to be unambitious, unimaginative, and incompetently run; and I’ve done an even longer ‘stretch’ than he has, sixty-plus years.
I agree with others that that’s how we’ve been for most of that time (though I remember writing, in the 70s, to David Lacey of The Guardian, complaining at his describing us a ‘mediocre, mid-table, club’, just as the great Clark and Tosh duo was frequently pushing us towards promotion from the old Second Div), but recent years have promised so much, and we’ve always blown it in the most banal fashion…and appear to show neither will nor capacity to change.
Final words – from W.B.Yeats, to ‘Sir’ Vince :
“Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.”
If he wants to be Mr Big, BE big…if he wants to be seen as The Great Benefactor, BE munificent.