Nathan Blake picked his team of the decade last week and I think it’s fair to say that it was a controversial selection with one or two choices which came as a real surprise to me, but, overall, I wasn’t as critical of it as many others were.
I think Blakey talks a lot of sense on the weekly City podcast on Wales Online and I respect his judgement on players, but, nevertheless, I just don’t get the Mendez-Laing and Chopra’s selections!
Of course, most supporters talk on social media as if they would make better managers than the likes of Messrs Mackay, Warnock, Jones etc. etc. and know more than pundits like Blakey, Gabbidon, Perry etc. etc. so here is me proving that I don’t fall into either of those categories as I name my Cardiff City team 2010/2019!
Just a few words about category for selection and formations first though. I’ve made my selections based entirely what a player did while playing for Cardiff City during the decade that is just coming to an end – hence my earlier comment about Michael Chopra. The Chops of 2006/07 (his first season with us) would definitely have been in this side, but I feel he was some way from being that player when the 2010’s began. Similarly, I think Kevin McNaughton played his best football for us in the noughties and I’d say the same applied to the likes of Steve McPhail, Chris Burke and Joe Ledley, while someone like Aaron Ramsey was only with us for a few weeks and did not do enough in a City shirt during the decade, despite him being, perhaps, the best player to have represented the club in the ten years.
As far as formations go, although I don’t believe we had as many good centrebacks in the 10’s as we did in the noughties, we still had plenty of strength in depth there. When I also consider how much reliance we have placed on wingers at different times during the decade, I’m struck by how often that faith has not been repaid with consistently influential performances – I considered Junior Hoilett for selection, but decided that, this season especially, none of our wingers have been good enough and, although they were sometimes match winners on their day, I’d say the same applies to players like Burke and Craig Noone.
If I was going to go for a winger, I think it would have been Kimbo Kyung who was brilliant in what was City’s best win of the decade (the 3-2 win over Manchester City in our home Premier League debut in 2013), but I’ve decided to do without them in a 3-5-2/5-3-2 formation – here is the team I’ve come up with;-
Goalkeeper
Neil Etheridge is one of four (possibly five with Curtis Nelson) very good free transfer signings made by Neil Warnock and he let no one down in the Premier League last year, while Tom Heaton is a quality keeper who I particularly remember for a great save he made to keep out a Steve Gerrard penalty in the shoot out in the 2012 League Cup Final. However, this is the easiest selection of the lot. It’s got to be the man whose brilliance persuaded the club they could let Heaton leave – David Marshall was many people’s pick as the best keeper in the Premier League in 13/14 and I can remember goalkeeping masterclasses that were almost solely responsible for getting us 0-0 draws against Villa and Bristol City – it has to be him.
Centrebacks
I can understand why Blakey was willing to pick Steven Caulker because, in terms of sheer quality, I think he is probably better than two of my selections. I also think Ben Turner was an under rated performer who gave supporters possibly the City moment of the decade with his late equaliser in that League Cup Final, and I always enjoyed watching Matt Connolly play, while Sean Morrison was a truly inspirational captain of the 17/18 promotion team.
“Inspiration” has been a big factor in my selection of Sol Bamba and Mark Hudson, who were superb representatives of the club during our two promotion season, with Bamba becoming a talisman from the moment he marked his debut with a winning goal against Bristol City, while Hudson was a model of consistency in 12/13 and also scored, perhaps, the goal of the decade with his outrageous sixty five yarder against Derby.
If Bamba and Hudson were “attitude” selections, the third centreback is picked on ability and class – I always said that Bruno Manga was prone to the odd mistake in the Championship because he found it too easy at times, but if we’d have had five more as good as him in the Premier League last season we would have stayed up easily.
WIng backs
Full back/wing back has not been a particularly strong area of the pitch for us in the last ten years and I did find this selection hard. On the right, although he seldom excites, I’d rate Lee Peltier as the best defensive right back we’ve had, but the fact I’d want him as a wing back counts against him. I did consider Kevin McNaughton and I thought Adam Matthews turned in a few superb performances in a wing back type role for us as a teenager, but I’ve gone for Kévin Théophile-Catherine who didn’t pull up many trees during his season with us, but did a steady job at Premier League level.
Candidates on the left were Mark Kennedy who I remember for his classy reaction to Martyn Waghorn’s penalty miss which sealed our place in the 2010 promotion Play Off game and a series of displays in which he looked unflustered at full back despite having played most of his career as a winger. I also thought Andrew Taylor was an underrated player and Fabio was a good quality Championship full back, but, despite slipping from his usual standards this season, I think it’s got to be Joe Bennett who played with consistency and no little ability for the best part of three seasons starting with 16/17.
Midfield
I think Joe Ralls is a very good Championship midfielder who did a decent job in the Premier League last season, but he doesn’t make it into my team. I was going to go with Blakey and pick Jordon Mutch who was one of our most effective Premier League performers in 13/14 , but changed my mind at the last minute, while I also seriously considered Gary Medel, but was put off him by a feeling that he stopped giving his best for the club about halfway through that season.
Essentially, Ralls and Medel were in contention with Aron Gunnarsson for a place and I opted for Gunnar in the end. One of my main reasons for that was a slightly odd in that it was more about how he is/was missed when he wasn’t there – I appreciate Gunnar more when I see how we have done without him this season. Also, although he was never that easy on the eye, you only have to see how highly he is valued by his country to see that he is one of those players who is “inspirational” and I reckon he is always very highly valued by his team mates.
The second midfield spot boiled down to a choice between Mutch and Victor Camarasa – it was very close, but I went for the Spaniard who was very much the class performer in our side last season. Mutch had an eye for goal, but, with both of my wing backs being more full backs than wingers, I think my team might need the extra creativity and flair that Camarasa would provide.
The final midfield spot did not come down to any kind of competition. It’s Peter Whittingham, certainly my favourite player of the 10s and, probably, City’s best player of the decade – I’ll leave it at that!
Forwards
A real contrast here between what we had to pick from in the noughties and what we had in the 10s makes these, perhaps, the hardest selections. If Kenneth Zohore could have maintained his 2017 level of performance over a few seasons rather than a few months, he would have been in with a chance as my target man selection, while Heidar Helguson may not have supplied many goals in our first promotion season but his experience and canniness made him a very shrewd signing indeed.
In the end though, I had to go with Jay Bothroyd. He was a frustrating player at times and he certainly didn’t cover himself in glory in the Reading Play Off Second Leg game which turned out to be his final match for City. Bothroyd had everything though, decent in the air, a turn of pace, superb ability for such a big man and he could finish – there’s no way the only man to be selected for England while being a Cardiff player in the fifty six years I’ve supported the club could be left out.
It rather tells a story that the two men it came down to choosing from to play up front alongside the target man were probably better known for playing in other positions. Anthony Pilkington was a personal favourite of mine who did a very good job as our main striker during our unlikely Play off challenge in 15/16 and was simply a good all round player with no obvious weaknesses to his game. I’ve picked Craig Bellamy however, who may have left City under something of a cloud, but I’d never seen the like for fan reaction when he signed for us for the first time. Bellamy was a Premier League player turning out in the Championship in 10/11 and he was instrumental in helping make our promotion in 12/13 such a comfortable one.
Subs
Etheridge
Connolly for his ability to play across the back four
Mutch
Ralls
Hoilett
Pilkington
Kimbo
Although I think that side would be pretty solid at the back, I do wonder about its goal power – I think that, like so many other City sides of this decade, they would be heavily reliant on Whitts’ set piece delivery.
