The last thing I want for this blog is for it to gather dust, so to speak, during the summer and so my intention is that I do a weekly summary of news, gossip, rumours etc. regarding the club as well, of course, as reaction pieces to major news stories about Cardiff City and the occasional “my ten greatest” entry.
In saying that, June is traditionally the quietest month of the year for most football clubs as the real business regarding transfers and club announcements tends to begin after 30 June when contracts run out. It’s hardly surprising therefore that this message will be heavy on speculation and very light on facts!
Most of that speculation so far has centred on Joe Ledley and Craig Bellamy and little has changed in either case since I wrote on these two stories last Tuesday – Ledley is currently on holiday in Portugal thinking over a move which, if the papers are to be believed, would see him pick up almost double what he would be earning by staying at Cardiff at Celtic, while I get the feeling that, if anything does come out of the Bellamy rumours, it won’t be for some time yet as Man City will surely want to explore avenues which will be more profitable for them (always assuming they are minded to let him go of course) before letting him come to Cardiff.
The other potentially big transfer speculation concerns Michael Chopra as, after reportedly having a number of bids for the player turned down, Ipswich have virtually matched City’s £4 million asking price for the player according to Wales Online. Of course, supporters always prefer to read about speculation as to who is coming into their club rather than who is leaving and, on that score, names mentioned include Leicester veteran target man Steve Howard (who has certainly caused us enough problems down the years), the Stoke trio of keeper Steve Simonsen, full back Andy Griffin and midfield player Michael Tonge and QPR utility man Mikele Leigertwood.
All of the speculation regarding new players coming in mind may well be rendered pointless anyway because there is still no official confirmation as to whether the club have paid off the money owed to HMRC. With our next Court appearance now just ten days away the Football league’s transfer embargo would appear to still be in place – with it now being almost a fortnight since the Malaysian investment was ratified at the EGM held on 27 May, you would have hoped that the whole mess would have been sorted out by now.
