The 0-0 draw against Huddersfield at Cardiff City Stadium in January was definitely the worst we played this season without losing – in fact I would probably rate our performance that afternoon as one of our worst of the 18/19 campaign.
Therefore, I daresay Neil Warnock must have been grateful for the opportunity presented to him in his post game press conference to go off topic and opine on the subject that most of this country has become heartily sick of – Brexit.
If you are one of what must be a very small number of City fans who are not familiar with what he said, I’ll not repeat it on here, but I will give a one word, neutral I hope, verdict on it – “trenchant”!
Now, because I want anyone reading this piece to stay with it right to its end rather than click on that x in the top right hand corner of their screen muttering “bloody Brexit” (or words to that effect!), I should say straight away that I have not taken leave of my senses by imagining that discussing the decision taken in that Referendum nearly three years would increase the readership on my Cardff City blog!
No, Brexit should be considered as a backdrop to what I write about the news that Neil Warnock will be staying at Cardiff for one more season as he tries to make it a ninth promotion in a managerial career which started back in 1980.
When considering how I would structure this piece, I, for some reason, cottoned on to Brexit as what I believe is an effective way of getting across how I believe the club will be affected .
Before that however, I’ll just quickly state my own opinion which, while certainly not being a neutral one, is one that can acknowledge that there were powerful arguments on either side of the divide.
I would have thanked Neil Warnock very much for the great job he had done at Cardiff, but told him that the time was right for a change at the top. I say that knowing that we would be losing a very good motivator, someone who knows the Championship like the back of his hand and someone who would, on the face of it, have most, if not all of, the current first team squad onside when it comes to wanting to play for him and the club.
Especially in the league we are going to be in next season, those are assets which can take you a long way and while it is tempting to imagine how someone new coming in could improve us in areas where we may be considered weak now, it’s easy to take the good things Warnock brings to the club for granted and assume they would not be lost when he moved on.
So, that’s how I feel, but I’m trying to look at things here more from the club’s point of view and in terms of what can be done during the next season when Mr Warnock is still here to prepare for his departure.
This is where I think the Brexit analogy comes in because, Cardiff City have an awkward set of problems to come which have to be faced up to – they have a manager who is at an age where there are all sorts of reasons why things like five or ten year plans under his watch would be a waste of time -something has to be done to address this at a date in the not too distant future.
After our win at Old Trafford last weekend, Neil Warnock insisted that there was “not a cat in hells chance” of him staying on beyond next season. Therefore, the assumption has to be that, just as with Brexit, there is a date, probably some time next May, which can be seen as the equivalent to the 31 October deadline the UK is facing now with regard to leaving the EU.
Although it would be funny to see our manager’s reaction to this given what he said following that Huddersfield match, the decision Cardiff City and Neil Warnock had to make during the past week was whether to “remain” in their relationship which began in October 2016 or “leave” each other. Of course, this could entail either an interim period which ensured as smooth a transition as possible could be arranged or a “crashing out” (why do Remainers always refer to a no deal Brexit as crashing out, rather than just leaving?) that had Mr Warnock being relieved of his duties at the end of this season!
There is another alternative which needs to be considered. A year from now, with another promotion achieved, Neil Warnock could, his “not a cat in hells chance” comment notwithstanding, find himself fancying one last attempt at redefining a career description which read “very effective Football League manager who could not cut it in the Premier League”.
In that event, the Cardiff Board and owner would have a difficult decision to make. Insisting that a manager who had taken their team up to the top flight twice in the space of three seasons should leave would go down like a lead balloon among a body of fans which, generally speaking, would be even more supportive of Mr Warnock than they are now and the temptation would, surely, be to “kick the can down the road” for another season and see how things look in May 2021.
That remark, used so often in the past year to describe Theresa May’s Government’s attitude to the looming Brexit deadlines they were facing, captures exactly what the hierarchy at Cardiff City have, in effect, done in the last few days though doesn’t it?
It certainly does for me, or I’ll qualify that to say, it certainly does for me unless they start preparing the ground now for what will happen when Neil Warnock is not here.
There was a time about three or four years ago when local media and supporters were almost unanimous in their opinion that “a football man” was needed at Cardiff to act as go between in Board/owner and manager consultations – someone with the requisite financial and administrative abilities who also “knows the game”.
In the event, what we got instead was a manager who had a strong enough personality to, and got the results which, enable him to win his fair share of battles with the money men – Neil Warnock may not have ticked all of the boxes when it came to the longed for “football man”, but he was a pretty good substitute for one in many of the different facets as to what makes a modern day football club tick.
However, I only say many of the different facets, not all – there have been aspects on the football side which have not improved during Mr Warnock’s time at the club.
To give a couple of examples, Cardiff’s record, in terms of producing first team footballers at least, remains just as poor now as it was in the Russell Slade days – the club spend a seven figure sum every year on the Academy and it is clearly failing in its primary function.
Similarly, although Neil Warnock has had his successes in the transfer market, his record in that department is mixed with a worrying tendency for the chances of a good recruit arriving to decline in direct proportion to how big his transfer fee was.
Neil Warnock has his own way of playing the game and it has been effective at Cardiff to a large degree. Therefore, I’m surprised (albeit pleasantly) to see so many supporters expressing a wish for a change to a more “footballing” approach.
Again, there has to be an element of “be careful what you wish for” here mind, because we don’t have a squad built to play that way and, anyway, even with the time and investment put in to get us to the required method of play, a complete change of approach where we aim to become Man City Mark 2 would, surely, be destined for failure on the grounds that too many sides would be better at it than us.
It would be like going from one extreme to another, better by far for me would be a method which retains elements of our current approach which we could turn to when we were being out Man City’d so to speak.
These are the sort of things that the current hierarchy have shown little or no interest in tackling during their time at the club. Going back to style of play, I don’t for a minute think that Neil Warnock is perfectly happy with our possession percentage or, more particularly, our ball retention. I refuse to believe that he isn’t bothered by how awful we can be at keeping the ball .
In recent years, I’ve been won over by the argument which says that possession isn’t everything – although our percentage possession figures were appalling last season, the fact that we were able to finish in second place in such a competitive league tells you that much.
However, a basic ability to give and receive passes should be a prerequisite of anyone playing the game in the top two divisions of the domestic pyramid and, too often, Neil Warnock’s Cardiff team contains too many in it who are uncomfortable with or substandard at these basics.
I think it would be entirely reasonable for, say, a Board member to ask the manager why this is so, I’d also say they should be asking serious questions about the Academy and looking to implement a recruitment policy more in line with a Premier League/top ten Championship standard of operation.
Now is the time to be looking for that football man who could help with these things while Neil Warnock works on trying to get us promoted. There would bound to be clashes between any newcomer and someone as opinionated as our manager, but the club would have to find a way around them for the greater good.
Given the arrangement that seems to have been arrived at in the last few days whereby the Warnock era at Cardiff is coming to an end, you would think that any casting vote from the money men would probably go against him. It would be sad to see this result in an early departure for someone who has done so much for City, but, like Theresa May, the kicking the can down the road has to end some time for Vincent Tan and his minions.
I totally agree with you about the academy. My mate has a grandson who is a very young but talented goalkeeper. Both my mate and his son are life-long Cardiff City fans. His grandson was offered a place in both the Cardiff and Swansea academies and, which one did they choose? You guessed it, the Swnasea one simply because they offered a better deal. This happened while we were in the Premier League and Swansea were in the Championship. How can that possibly good enough for a team from the capital city of Wales, with aspirations to be a big club beyond Wales, when we can’t even compete with the offer from our local rivals? Things have got to change as a priority. Nothing is more important in my view.
Totally agree with the NW remarks. Long before everyone agreed we go again next season with him I just wondered what the outcome of a decision to run one more season with the maestro.
There is no doubt that NW has done a quite remarkable job with bringing everyone together and I think he is undoubtably one of the greats at Cardiff. BUT what I would not like to see is him leaving under a negative.
My worry is that just one more win would have seen us stay in the premier and there were a number of games that had we gone for broke we would still be playing premiership football next season.
Those lost games were down to tactics and the losses were accepted because of the great job NW had done. Should it not go as planned next season then the positives of the last two and a half season will begin to dissipate and the negatives will come in .
The decision to continue with NW is a very strange one and what you say is correct, we have a manager who has said it’s his last season and compounded it by saying he will not do the premiership again.
Somehow the strategic plan will stop in May next year because even if we get promotion we will need another manager who will choose his type of player and begin another where are we up era. That is very short sighted and the wheels may come off very quickly.
I hope I am wrong
Hi! Paul and fellow MAYAs.
Will he stay or will he go? has been answered but as those above have said, “should he stay or should he go” is a lot more difficult question. I would like to see a change in our style and young player policy, under Neil it is difficult to see this happening.
I read a tweet this week from the Cambrian B&G Club that three of their Under-12 team had joined Swansea. This took me back to the fifties and my father saying to me that parents were reluctant to let their sons sign for Cardiff because they wouldn’t be treated properly. Don’t really know if the comment was justified but perhaps those ideas are still around.
Back to our ‘gaffer’, there is no doubt that he arrived at Cardiff at the right time, things weren’t looking good, and the memory of that first game against Brizzle will stay with me forever. He is obviously very experienced but is still able to make mistakes; buying the wrong players, poor team selection and substitutions and dodgy tactics. It would be nice to think that we will be in the promotion race but what happens if we get promoted. Neil will presumably walk away and what then?
So we have a summer of fancy transfer rumours, none of them coming to fruition and we end up buying in the fire sale of the last days of the window.
My glass is half-empty again.
Here’s to next season…….my round isn’t it?
It would be interesting to know what was said in discussions between Neil Warnock and Vincent Tan in the closing weeks of the season.
At first we heard that Warnock would not want compensation if Tan decided to sack him.
Then Warnock was saying he would stay only if he was given the right financial backing.
So if Tan has decided that Warnock is the right manager how much money is being entrusted to him?
The Championship play off final is called the richest prize in football for good reason.Not least for the parachute payments if you are relegated from the PL.
I believe that our parachute payments for the coming season will be £42 million with a further £34 million in the following season if we are still in the Championship.
The significance of these payments can best be appreciated when compared with our likely gate receipts.
A crowd of 32000 with each paying £25 would produce annual receipts over 23 games of just over £18 million.
In other words our parachute payments will be more than double our gate receipts even if the ground is full every week.
This is an attractive prospect for a new manager given two years to get us back in the PL.
As Warnock is here for only one year anything less than promotion will mean that Tan has made the wrong choice.It will certainly be more difficult for a new manager to build a promotion team in the second year of parachute payments.
As Tan to his credit seems happy to turn his debt into equity will he perhaps think it a smart business decision to invest all the parachute money into getting back into the PL at the first attempt?
How much would say 5 top quality Championship players cost?
Wages at £30K per week would cost a little under £8 million leaving over £34 million for 2 or 3 transfers with the other 2or 3 being talented out of contract or loan players.
I do not expect this to happen but I mention these figures to justify how underwhelmed I will be if our new signings are of a similar ilk to Cunningham Madine and Bacuna etc.
I know that I will enjoy a further season of Warnockball if it proves to be winning football but anything less than promotion is not a happy prospect.
My thanks to those who replied to Saturday’s piece and to BJA for his take on things that he set out in his response to the Manchester United win piece.
Good to hear from you again Mike, I think the most telling observation I can make on what you had to say is that over the past week it seems like there have been stories coming out on a daily basis illustrating just how bad the financial situation is at Swansea. I would have thought that in such circumstances one of the first items where cost cutting exercises would be considered would be the sort of thing you talk about and yet they still “outbid” when it came to your mate’s grandson!
Colin, your comment about what happened back in the 50s is not only a virtual repeat of what Mike says, but also echoes one or two things I’ve heard over the past year or so – City fan or not, if you were the parent of a very talented youngster from this area who was offered a choice between us and the jacks for your kid, who would you choose after studying the record of both club’s Academys over the course of this decade?
You and Barry are right to question the logic behind the decision to let Neil Warnock stay for another season if for different reasons – Barry makes a good point though in that, for the first time in a good few years, we will be going into a new season with an expectation of a top six finish (at least). The last time I can remember a situation similar to this one is in 14/15 following our previous relegation where a story appeared on the Wales Online website just as the season kicked off seriously asking the question had there been a more talented squad than City’s in the history of the Championship/Second Division! We all know what happened that season – relegation always seemed more likely than promotion and we spent the closing weeks of the season with absolutely nothing to play for under a manager who played a similar type of game to Neil Warnock. I can remember people lying on their seats and going to sleep during a loss to Bolton on Easter Monday 2015 and it summed up completely a season which I rate as perhaps the dullest I’ve ever seen at the club. If something similar happened in 19/20, Neil Warnock’s current reputation among supporters would count for nothing, they’d want him out and his legacy would suffer accordingly.
Mike, I think you have captured exactly why we should “go for it” (by our standards at least) this summer. I’ve had a few messageboard debates over the past few weeks on this subject and have been accused of wanting a major spending spree. Nothing could be further from the truth, all I would like to see is the sort of spending you would expect from any other Championship club that has just been relegated having not spent very heavily in their one season in the Premier League, presumably having a modest wage bill (which would contain relegation clauses in the contracts of all players we were keeping on) and with a reduced club debt via substantial debt to equity conversions from their owner. Like you, I think we have a right to expect better than the three players you mention this summer (although, to be fair to Cunningham, I wouldn’t be too bothered about having him as our left back next season if Joe Bennett was sold) and while I agree that I’ll be happy enough with another season of Warnockball if the ends justify the means, I can’t help thinking the Championship has moved on a fair bit while we’ve been away and our ageing team may find it hard to cope with the increase in pace which seems apparent whenever I see a match from the top end of the division.
Paul…I’ll never be able to match the meticulousness and detail of your so-considered pieces (I’m Jackson Pollock to your Vermeer), and those of so many other MAYAns, but I’ll keep trying to ‘contribute’.
I’m not a big fan of Warnock, and there were far too many dud moments in the season just gone for him to be blameless…but, he DID get us there – and I’m happy for him to, at least, COMMENCE guiding us over the imminent hurdles, next summer handing over a healthy, blossoming, ship to the next navigator.
Meanwhile, as this summer approaches, lest we forget :
Emiliano Sala – RIP. An Innocent, brought down (almost literally) by a bunch of third-rate grifters on both sides of the Channel.
Didn’t get to see the programme about Emiliano Sala Lindsay, but “third rate grifters” sounds about right to me.
The not-to-be-missed article (for those interested) is “Emiliano Sala : Season’s Saddest Saga…” by Barney Ronay, The Guardian, 11th May.
(I have to apologise – i haven’t learnt how to ‘transport’ a link.)
Your right Lindsay – here’s a link to the article, it’s well worth a read if you’ve not done so yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/may/11/emiliano-sala-seasons-saddest-saga-cardiff-nantes-barney-ronay
I can barely write the words ‘Willie McKay’, and I certainly can’t say them.
In other words, for me, he has become literally unspeakable.