Lamouchi and Bamba – Cardiff City’s dream ticket?

Posted on January 28, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

I’d always planned to do a piece on City this morning . It was going to be about giving it both barrels to Messrs Tan, Dalman and Choo and asking the question do they want Cardiff City to be relegated?

However, after close to a fortnight of nothing in terms of a new manager and players, we finally have something to show that, no, there does not seem to be some cunning, unfathomable, plan whereby it is to the Three Amigos’ benefit for us to drop into League One.

Sabri Lamouchi, who won sixteen caps for France in the nineties and early noughties and managed the Ivory Coast in the 2014 World Cup has been appointed as manager (no details were given as to the length of his contract, but he said he was looking beyond this season – my guess though is that, one way or another, he won’t be our manager next season if we’re in League One) and I think it’s fair to say that the large majority of fans are quite positive about the decision the club has made.

The presence of Sol Bamba at Lamouchi’s side in yesterday’s press conference is one reason why the appointment has been greeted well. The connection between the two men dates back to Lamouchi’s time in international management and it’s been reported that it was our new manager’s suggestion that Sol be his assistant. If that is true, then it shows that, whatever else he is, Lamouchi is a good politician with an eye on how to make life easier for himself!

My feeling is though that there would have been enthusiasm for this appointment even without Sol’s involvement, For myself, I’m pleasantly surprised by the appointment as my confidence in those making the decision was probably as low as it’s ever been, but, credit to them. This seems to be, appointing Dean Smith apart maybe, as good a candidate as City were going to get if you take into account things like our current situation regarding such things as league and financial situation, the Sala case and the perception of the club within the football community.

In saying that, I am, as always, influenced by what a previous clubs fans have to say about a new arrival at City and a look at a Nottingham Forest messageboard told me that, remarkably, it’s virtually one hundred per cent positive!

Lamouchi was Forest boss for all of the 19/20 season and the opening month or so of the following campaign and, on the face of it, the regard for him is surprising when you consider that the team collapsed in a manner reminiscent of City in 08/09 as what looked a certain Play Off, or even possible top two, place was transformed into a humiliating near miss in the last month of the season. The hangover from losing out on the final day to Swansea for the last Play Off place, understandably I suppose, lasted into 20/21 at Forest and, Lamouchi was dismissed after they’d lost their first five games in all competitions.

Despite this, Lamouchi is widely praised and liked at the City Ground as someone who brought club and fans together at a difficult time. It needs to be said as well that surviving a season as Forest manager was very much a rarity in the pre Steve Cooper era and must be a contributory factor as to why I read quite a few comments along the lines that, their current manager aside, Lamouchi was the best boss the club has had in recent memory.

It should be said that all of this praise does not mean that their aren’t criticisms of him to be found among fans of his former club. I can remember Lamouchi’s Forest being described as very much a sit back and counter attack type of outfit when they were featured on Sky and a low scoring record for a team chasing promotion suggests that the manager had a pragmatic approach.

Indeed, despite Lamouchi’s popularity, there are plenty among the Forest fans who say that the football was not entertaining under Lamouchi and one opinion I read had it that there were many matches spent almost wholly on the back foot that were somehow won by a moment of individual brilliance. I should say that there were dissenting views from that who held that Forest were capable of playing some good stuff when they went forward, but it is a fact that their total of fifty eight goals scored over a forty six game season was higher than only one team in the top half of the table that year, while their fifty goals conceded was the fourth best in the division.

Looking beyond Forest, Lamouchi managed Ligue 1 team Rennes for just over a year. When he was appointed in November 2017, Lamouchi brought about an improvement which saw Rennes climb the table to finish fifth, qualifying for the Europa League in the process. Maybe the extra fixtures brought on by European football had an effect on the squad because the 18/19 campaign was going poorly when Lamouchi was sacked in December 2018 with his team in fourteenth place in the table.

Although two is a small sample size, I suppose it may be possible to deduce from his record at Forest and Rennes that Sabri Lamouchi has a positive effect when he takes over as manager of a club, but he struggles to maintain it.

One other thing about our new manager’s time at Rennes. While a record of seventy one goals scored from fifty four matches in all competitions represents an improvement on what happened at Forest, only in one of those games did Rennes managed to score more than twice in a game – there were plenty of examples of them scoring once or twice, but it’s a bit odd that, for what was a relatively successful side, they never really put an opponent to the sword.

So, on the down side, there’s a hint within Lamouchi’s record that,, first, he finds it hard to sustain the positivity of a bright start and, second, there is some evidence to suggest he is a defensively minded manager/coach whose sides tend to be low scoring.

I think regular readers of Mauve and Yellow Army will be able to gauge that I’m someone who has been a regular critic of the team when it comes to the lack of entertainment on offer from Cardiff City over the last decade or so. Therefore, those two possible negatives on the Lamouchi CV do ring an alarm bell although, for now at least, I’d say not too loudly.

The fact of the matter is that we’re in a scrap to avoid a relegation which would have a huge effect on the club. As someone who is old enough to remember instant promotions in 1976 and 1983 after relegations from the second tier, I’m less inclined to believe there is no way back if we do go down, but things like the Sala case and the very large amount of money owed to Vincent Tan and, to a lesser extent, Mehmet Dalman makes a relegation now more fraught with danger I’d say than those two I mentioned from decades ago.

If Sabri Lamouchi can bring about the sort of improvement seen early on at Forest and Rennes, that may be enough to secure out safety, then, in the apparent absence of any sort of long term deal for him at the moment, the decision to hire him will have worked. As for a defensive outlook, well, teams seldom get themselves out of trouble by playing swashbuckling attacking and entertaining football – I accept we’re in a situation where beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to entertainment value.

Anyway, it seems to me that, although our attacking options are very thin this season, we are better suited to a counter attacking approach with the pace of the likes of Isaak Davies, Sheyi Ojo, Jaden Philogene, Mark Harris, Callum Robinson and Callum O’Dowda.

This does lead me on to my biggest doubt about the appointment in the short term though. Currently, with thirty one goals conceded from twenty eight Championship games, we’re on course to matching, or getting very near, to the goals against figure Forest achieved in 19/20, so, based on what I can gather of his managerial record so far, you’d like to think Sabri Lamouchi can at least maintain a goals against record which is, by rights, deserving of a place in the top half of the table.

Clearly, the reason we’re where we are is that woeful goals for record of twenty one from twenty eight games. While eighteen games left sounds, and is, quite a lot, maybe the fact that we would need to score more twice a game on average over the remainder of the season to match Forest’s modest fifty eight scored in 19/20 does rather put things in perspective.

You’d think that we’d need to score forty goals at least to give ourselves a chance of staying up and that would mean an average of just over a goal a game from now on. I’d like to believe that is eminently possible, but, certainly at Forest and Rennes, there is little in Sabri Lamouchi’s record to indicate that he will come into a club and dramatically improve its goalscoring rate.

With four days of the transfer window left, there is still the possibility that we’ll see new players arriving soon (the likely departure of Curtis Nelson to Blackpool should free up a place in the squad and there have been numerous loans out of the club in recent weeks).

Our new manager made it sound very much like he had no plans to bring in anyone himself in the time which remains, but there has been constant media reporting that as many as three new signings could be coming in – albeit, they’d have to be free transfers or non loan fee temporary deals because of the continuing impact of Emiliano Sala transfer embargoes despite us now having paid the first instalment of his transfer fee to Nantes.

So, there is the chance at least that players who could improve our goals tally may be arriving. Therefore, barring a total collapse defensively over the last third or so of the season, a not too big improvement in our scoring rate should see us safe. If we have to go with just what we have already, then that makes things harder, but not impossible if Lamouchi and Bamba can restore a bit of confidence within the squad.

There are two, very differing, interpretations of our squad I see and hear quite a lot – first that they’re crap and relegation is inevitable and, second, that we’re underperforming mainly because of our chronic lack of goals. Although my faith has taken a bashing in the last six weeks or so, I’ve always been more on the side of the second option and I feel more confident than I did that, with Lamouchi and Bamba in charge, this will be the one to win out over the coming months.

I have to finish on a reminder of how low morale had got at the club however, as last Tuesday the Under 21s produced a season’s worst performance to go down 3-0 to Watford at Leckwith. While I always remember the old line about it being about performance rather than result at this level, it has to be pointed out that Watford had won just the one game, were bottom of the table with three points and had only scored seven times all season.

Posted in Down in the dugout, Out on the pitch, The stiffs, Up in the Boardroom | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Lamouchi and Bamba – Cardiff City’s dream ticket?

Cardiff City and the definition of madness.

Posted on January 22, 2023 by The other Bob Wilson

I think I’ve used that line about the definition of madness being to keep on making the same mistake time after time and expecting a different outcome on here in recent weeks and applied it Cardiff City – if I haven’t, I’m sure there are very many supporters of the club who have done.

However, I’m going to go for a variation of it this time and say that the definition of madness for a Cardiff City blog writer is to watch the same old, same old week after week, have nothing new to say on the subject, but still write reams and reams of stuff that, in essence, is a repeat of what you said the previous Saturday night.

So, rather than bang on ad nauseum about things like the lack of football expertise in the Boardroom and on the recruitment front, the lack of any sort of coherent recruitment and footballing philosophy, the firing of managers on a whim by the owner and the ignoring of the bleeding obvious fact that we need a Director of Football or some such position, I’m going to leave my talking (writing) to others this time – well, kind of.

That’s the thing, it would be easy to fall into the trap of believing what you read on social media on a topic was a true representation of what the normal person in the street thinks. However, people who have their say on a given subject tend to be more committed and/or passionate about something that many others are apathetic about, so you become a victim of what tends to get called the echo chamber effect.

I would argue however that Cardiff City and their current problems (actually, their long running problems) are an exception to that rule. I say that because, if you talk to supporters of the club (and a few people who aren’t), you’ll hear some or all of the same things said that I set out above from the vast majority of them.

You can imagine the City hierarchy shrugging their shoulders on hearing something like that and snorting “they’re only the punters, what do they know!”.  Then, when it’s gently pointed out to them that journalists are saying the same, they’d respond with “The media! They’re even worse – none of them have played the game”.

That’s the time when it should be pointed out that the army of ex pros you get in punditry, even at a medium sized club like Cardiff City, these days are also saying the same things.

In fact, I’m being a bit unfair on the Cardiff City hierarchy there because one of them has let it be known that he thinks we need a Director of Football and that he has no say in the firing of managers.

 Chairman Mehmet Dalman (who gave a nothing to do with me guv type interview this morning) is at odds with club owner Vincent Tan on some subjects and, to digress for a short while, did a pretty good job of defending the club in that interview when it comes to fall out from the death of  Emiliano Sala. I still think the club are open to criticism over the way they’ve handled the whole episode, but reading what he has to say on it does serve as a reminder that, notwithstanding the tragedy, grief and suffering involved, it was also incredibly unfortunate for Cardiff City football club who are now faced with paying a £15 million fee for, to put it bluntly, nothing.

That said, the criticisms I’m talking about here apply irrespective of what happened to Emiliano Sala and they represent the almost unanimous verdict of supporters, media and ex professionals who give their opinions on the club.

Why is it then that the owner of the club appears to think he knows better than all of these people as he watches the team play from tens of thousands of miles away? Mr Tan is clearly an intelligent man as evidenced by the way his working life has mapped out- but, when he stubbornly continues,  in recent years especially, to follow a course that clearly isn’t working with so many telling him why it isn’t working then, all you can conclude is that his intelligence doesn’t stretch to football.

That’s certainly not an earth-shattering conclusion to arrive at – two promotions and a League Cup Final appearance or not, what other verdict can you draw at the moment than that the Tan project at Cardiff City has failed conclusively?

I said somewhere this week that, in a crowded field of candidates, the biggest failure of the Tan era has been the almost complete inability to bring in players of an age and ability which would enable them to be sold at a profit – think what a difference it would have made if City had become a “selling club” instead of a “give them away” one!

For me, this, and a few of the other elements which have reduced the club to the sorry state it finds itself in now, has its roots in the sense of betrayal Vincent Tan felt in his feud with Malky Mackay more than a decade ago – I’ve always believed that since then Mr Tan has had a distrust of “football men” and it would hardly come as a surprise if it was this that was behind his reluctance to operate with a Director of Football or its equivalent.

I mentioned earlier that Vincent Tan was an intelligent man – I wonder what he would think of someone of a non-retail background who acquired a pretty successful shopping chain and then proceeded to run it into the ground while ignoring the well-meaning advice of those with its best interests at heart? What would he think as the owner of this shopping chain kept on hiring managers with little or no proven record of success and then firing them after only a few months? Am I that far wide of the mark if I said that Vincent Tan would think the way that person was behaving was the definition of madness?

Anyway, there was a match played today and Cardiff City lost it by 1-0 at home to Millwall to make it eleven games now without a win and, if I read the mood right, there are very few supporters feeling optimistic about a relegation escape this season tonight.

City have made a habit of losing 1-0 at home in these last two seasons and this was like so many of these matches in that the goal came in the first half and then all our opponents had to do was defend pretty resolutely on the rare occasions when we put some decent attacking play together and they’d be fine.

Like virtually every team that wins here 1-0, Millwall were nothing special, but they didn’t need to be. What is different now compared to other 0-1s mind is that we now have a team which is completely shot when it comes to confidence – everything has become an effort as the fear of making a mistake has taken over and in a team with the goalscoring issues that we’ve had all season, it manifests itself in the side looking even more inept and ineffective in front of goal.

This was confirmed when Millwall centreback Jake Cooper gifted us possession some twenty five yards from goal and we were presented with what was virtually a two on to none situation with only goalkeeper George Long to beat, but Callum Robinson, the City player you’d most want to be in this position, made a mess of his pass to Jaden Philogene whose first touch wasn’t great and a Millwall defender got back to clear for a corner.

Honestly, if City couldn’t score from a position like that, they were never going to. They had a total of twenty two goal attempts, with the high, for them, figure of four on target, but the only time I can remember Long being forced into a good save was from a Callum O’Dowda effort from an offside position.

That apart, it was the usual combination of scuffs, slices and row zeders with the odd air shot thrown in. That’s not fair actually, Robinson, Kion Etete and Philogene were not too far away with well struck efforts from around twenty yards out.

The goal came from a catalogue of errors from City. First, Philogene, who was careless all afternoon, presented the ball straight to Cooper who advanced to play a through pass for Welsh international Tom Bradshaw. Cooper’s pass was over hit and should have been easily dealt with by Cedric Kipre, but the defender who has been one of City’s most consistent players, was having a poor afternoon and now he hesitated as if believing the ball was going out of play. Kipre’s indecision allowed Bradshaw to put in what amounted to a sliding tackle that enabled him to jab the ball fairly slowly towards goal, but it was enough to beat Ryan Allsop who I think will be disappointed to have been beaten by such a shot.

Straight after the ball hit the net, I thought City would never have scored that. Not many other teams would have made the three individual mistakes that led to the goal, but some would and a Cardiff forward could have found themselves in the position Bradshaw was, but would any of the current bunch have shown the presence of mind and desire to score that the Millwall man did?

There’s not much else to say really – for all of City’s huff and puff in the second half, it was the visitors who came closest to scoring, first when a good block by Mark McGuiness (the back from Sheffield Wednesday defender was probably City’s best player, but can he maintain that standard when so many around him are struggling and out of form?) turned a George Honeyman shot over the bar and then when a fine run and pass by Zian Flemming set up sub Jamie Shackleton who should have scored, but his shot was too close to Allsop who saved well.

As for our latest manager, I often think we could do with Dean Whitehead at his peak in our midfield, but I’m not so sure about him stood in the dug out making the decisions (to be fair mind, I don’t envy him his task in the slightest). I was mystified by his use of substitutes – actually that should really read non use because he waited nearly seventy minutes to make a change and then we only saw two of them. I’m always banging on about Rubin Colwill, but I’ll limit myself this time to just saying that I’m baffled as to why Dean Whitehead only introduced Joe Ralls and Isaak Davies out of the six outfield players he had available to him.

Away from the first team, the under 23s were beaten 1-0 at Wolves in the Premier League Cup yesterday afternoon in a game where they needed to avoid defeat to qualify for the knock out stage. City were unlucky in that the goal which beat them came via a pretty big deflection off captain Xavier Benjamin, but I’m afraid that it was all a little like watching the first team play in that there was nice play at times, plenty of effort and almost no sign of a goal.

Given the big freeze of the last four or five days, it was no surprise that there were only three matches played in the whole of the Highadmit South Wales Alliance League, but in Division One Treherbert Boys and Girls Club were able to play on the G4 pitch at Clydach Vale – they extended their lead at the top of Division One despite dropping a couple of points in a 1-1 draw with third placed Clwb Cymric.

Anyway, on to happier times, a further reminder that my book on our 1975/76 promotion is on sale now in paperback form or as an e book – it’s called Tony Evans Walks on Water and can be bought from Amazon at

Posted in Football in the Rhondda valleys., Out on the pitch, The stiffs, Up in the Boardroom | Tagged , , | 3 Comments