New manager appointment imminent? Have the Cardiff hierarchy listened?

Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks, I had been waiting for the minutes of a FAB (Fan Advisory Board) meeting held on 12 May to be published. FAB members requested that the club should publish the minutes within forty eight hours, but, in the event, it took eleven days and they eventually saw the light of day late last week.

Anyone wishing to read the minutes can do so here by clicking on the relevant link. For myself, I won’t go into any great detail on my opinion – suffice it to say that it is very similar to that of Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust who released a response to the minutes yesterday.

For a club that promised changes following a relegation that almost everyone apart from themselves felt had been coming for at least three years, taking so long to produce minutes from a meeting that would have been of great interest to many fans seems to me to be far from the change talked about, eventually, after relegation had been confirmed, it was indicative of “more of the same”.

Similarly, at a time of a year when other clubs are making their retained lists public as they do year in year out, City (who always used to publish their retained lists soon after first team fixtures ended for the season), now do so weeks after most clubs.

Seemingly, there is a need for the EFL to be informed of clubs’ retained lists some time around mid May and City have done that, but this has not been accompanied by the contents of the list being made public like it is at so many other clubs.

This is the third consecutive occasion where the club have chosen not to let fans know the details of the retained list despite it having been filed with the relevant authority within their stipulated time scale. The subsequent two or three weeks delay before making the list public seems indicative of unnecessary secrecy, but there may be another reason for it.

It says something of the way Cardiff City is run that at the end of the last three seasons, we’ve gone through May not knowing who is going to be our manager for the coming campaign due to start in August. in 2023, Erol Bulut was appointed manager on 3 June and last year, although Bulut was still in place, he had not committed to signing a new two year contract the thad been offered to him and, so, to all intents and purposes, the club was in a state of limbo which lasted for weeks after the 23/24 season ended and it was, once again, not until 3 June that confirmation that Bulut had agreed to the new deal arrived.

So it may be that the retained list was for, some reason, not made public until the identity of the manager for the coming season had been confirmed and the precedent of the last two years would suggest that this time around, we’ll know who the new manager will be this time in about a week’s time.

The reality should be different though because it’s been reported that a short list of candidates, who were interviewed last week, has been passed to Vincent Tan to make a decision on – the people carrying out the recruitment process have made a recommendation to our owner and a decision is expected imminently.

Mehmet Dalman sets out the procedure for the appointment of the new manager at the top of page 3 of the FAB meeting minutes – it’s been reported as a new approach indicative of the hierarchy’s willingness to approach things differently, but, while I have no doubt that this is a departure from what we’ve seen before, it isn’t too different to what was reported to have happened during the search for a replacement for Erol Bulut following his sacking around nine minths ago.

It was reported last autumn that a couple of former managers had been approached to identify candidates to repalce Bulut, but the men identified had been deemed too boring by the club hierarchy who chose instead to persevere with Omer Riza. Therefore, it would appear that the club have tried something along similar lines at least once before, but then chose to ignore the recommendations made for reasons which seem both arrogant and inept to me.

Of course, another thing which appears in the aforementioned minutes is a repeat of the line from Messrs Dalman and Choo that, in essence, there is only one person making all of the big decisions at Cardiff. Therefore, when I say that it was decided that those candidates to replace Erol Bulut were too boring, it may well mean one man thought they were too boring and it cannot be beyond the bounds of possibility that the decision maker will bot be enamoured with the candidates and/or recommendation this time around thereby leaving us back at square one.

You’d like to think that such an outcome is very unlikely this time though. As for who the candidates are this time around, Paul Abbandonato, the former Wales Online journalist, is someone who seems to have close contact with “senior sources at the club” and so I’d take this Tweet he made on Saturday fairly seriously.

So, who are the candidates Mr Abbandonato mentions?

Brian Barry Murphy

The first thing to say about him is that on Saturday, he suddenly went from nowhere to favourite in the betting for next City manager. Barry Murphy is currently evens to become our next manager with the second favourite at 5/1, so there’s good reason to believe there is something to the speculation linking him with the job. One con I can see with him is that, for all of the good reputation he’s built for himself since he quit playing, his record as a manager at EFL level is modest. He has managed at League One level before and being able to keep a club like Rochdale in the third tier would be an achievement, but,his predecessor Keith Hill managed to do that for a number of seasons at Spotland and they were relegated at the end of Barry Murphy’s second season in charge there. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Barry Murphy is highly regarded within the game with this article (since the article was written, Barry-Murphy has moved on and is currently First team coach at Leicester) setting out why I think he would be an exciting and good appointment.

Des Buckingham

Currently the 5/1 second favourite mentioned above. He has hardly had your typical career as he never played league football and he worked in New Zealand (including as caretaker manager for the national team) and India before being appointed Oxford United manager in November 2023. Buckingham led Oxford to the Championship for the first time in a quarter of a century at the end of his first season as, with a team containing four ex City players, they beat Bolton at Wembley in the league One Play Off Final. Widely predicted to finish bottom of the league last season, Oxford were struggling after making a strong start, but it was still a shock to see Buckingham sacked after just over a year in the job and I’d say that this piece was a fair reflection of supporter opinion at the time. Subsequently, views on Buckingham may have changed somewhat among Oxford fans as his replacement, the more pragmatic Gary Rowett, had an immediate positive impact and eventually led the team to safety, but, although his candidature is not causing much excitement among City supporters, I reckon he’s someone who’s done well enough to get a second chance and I wouldn’t mind it being here. One other thing, although I don’t think it was ever officially confirmed, it is widely rumoured that Buckingham was interviewed for the Wales job following the sacking of Robert Page.

Aaron Ramsey

Nothing much to add about the 6/1 third favourite, except to say that it has been confirmed that he has had an interview for the job – if we have to go for another internal appointment, then I’d say this one would have more going for it than all of the others.

Ian Evatt

Was favourite last week, but has now drifted to 8/1. It seems to me that he has the best managerial record out of the four candidates named in the Tweet I mentioned earlier. Evatt managed Barrow back into the Football League when he led them to the National League title in 2020. Appointed by Bolton in the summer of 2020, Evatt lost his first four competitive games, but turned things around to such an extent that Bolton finished third in League Two to earn promotion. Bolton had no trouble in settling at the new level and in their second season back they qualified for the Play Offs and won the 2023 EFL Trophy by beating Plymouth 4-0 at Wembley in the Final. It was the Play Off’s again in 23/24 as they were beaten by Oxford in that Final I mentioned earlier. With a win regard at Bolton of a very impressive 50 per cent and an advocate of attractive, attacking football, Evatt had a lot going for him, but it all started to fall apart for him after the Oxford defeat as fans turned against him and results were patchy. Evatt was sacked in January after over five years in charge with Bolton ninth in the table (they finished eighth). This well written article about his time at Bolton hints at a stubbornness (both tactical and personal) which may have contributed to his downfall, but I must say that, looking in from the outside, it seems odd that fans would turn against a manager for being too attacking in his outlook.

Abbandonato talks as well of a mystery “outsider” fifth candidate, but, unusually for a City managerial hunt, I wouldn’t be too unhappy with any of the four I’ve mentioned as our next boss – they all have facets to them which could count against them if you want to be negative and I think I’d like to see a mentor type figure appointed for a while anyway if Ramsey were to get the job.

I’d also have liked to have seen Ruben Seles in contention and I like the look of Leyton Orient’s Richie Wellens. Gary O’Neil has been mentioned, but I can’t see him dropping down to League One and Nathan Jones seems unlikely given Charlton’s promotion yesterday.

However, it strikes me that, just as there was last autumn at the time of Bulut’s sacking, there are a nucleus of pretty strong candidates we can go for who would be willing to come here (notwithstanding the Tan effect)- a first step towards the hierarchy trying to improve their dismal record would be if they were to choose correctly this time.