Well, it took over ten weeks, but Cardiff City have got their new manager and it turns out to be the man they named as interim manager within minutes of Erol Bulut being sacked the day after the Leeds home defeat on 21 September.
Omer Riza has been given a contract until the end of the season and, after strong rumours began yesterday that the announcement was imminent, the reaction that I’ve seen has been largely negative, but I think that is directed more at the club hierarchy than Riza – that’s not to say that Riza himself doesn’t have critics mind.
Worst of all, the comment that some are “beyond caring “ has been heard. This hints at something that appeared in an open letter to Vincent Tan from the Cardiff City Fan Advisory Board (FAB), the Supporters Trust, Supporters Club and the Disabled Supporter Association essentially imploring the club to get its act together and stop the feeling of drift ( I think the club has been drifting since the end of the 19/20 season) – there’s a link to the letter here
In the letter, the supporters’ bodies mentioned the difference in the atmosphere these days with the words “toxicity and apathy” used and I think it needs to be said that, apart from when the rebrand was in full swing ten years and more ago, we’ve now reached the point where faith in the Tan ownership is at its lowest (second thoughts, it may well be lower now than it was back in 2012/14) .
I’d also mention that I’m probably at the supportive end of the spectrum when it comes to this appointment. That’s not to say that I’ve been enthusiastically advocating that Omer Riza get the job (my guess is that there are no more than a handful of City fans who’ve been doing that), but I don’t see it as the disaster many do and I think it could work.
I’ll say here and now that I’m probably letting my liking for the type of football we played during October influence my thinking here – for the first time in years, we played entertaining football and, as someone who has seen plenty of us playing in the third tier already, relegation would not be the end of the world – although I suspect the club and the overwhelming majority of supporters think differently.
Perhaps my relative insouciance about us going down has something to do with me having been persuaded that, after the way the marvellous opportunity presented by a millionaire/billionaire ownership has been, to be frank, pissed away in the past fourteen years, we deserve to go down (or to be more precise, the hierarchy at the club deserves relegation).
Let’s just quickly recap the Riza interim managership. It started with a 4-1 defeat at Hull where we looked pretty shambolic at the back, but gave what was at the time our best attacking display of the season (that’s a very low bar mind!).
The blurb when he first came to the club said that Riza had been hired as an attack coach and I was quick to question his credentials as we promptly scored once in our first half a dozen league matches, but the attacking play at Hull at least made it seem possible that he could have made an impact under Bulut if he’d been given more opportunity.
After a typical Bulut type 1-0 win over Millwall in the next match, City had an inspired twenty minutes or so at Bristol City only for Riza to opt to tighten things up and concede the lead as we had to settle for a 1-1 draw. The next four, unbeaten, matches contained vibrant attacking play for varying amounts of time in each of them, but we’d also tightened up to the extent that only two goals were conceded in the six matches following the Hull loss.
Now, the thought occurs to me that this was the time to offer Riza the job for the season. Many fans who are against his appointment now were in favour of him then and he’d been one of the nominations for Championship Manager of the month for October. On top of that, three senior players at the club backed his claims, but Riza had to just soldier on and the unbeaten run ended in a scruffy defeat at Luton, followed by a home loss to a streaky Blackburn side that has been in great form since that day.
We were now into the second international break of the Riza interim management and he next flew over to Malaysia for a meeting with the club owner. There was virtual unanimous agreement at this stage that a message confirming Riza’s appointment would follow – this was the second best opportunity for the club to confirm things even if many were beginning to have doubts about Riza by now.
Instead, the interim manager flew home and told the media before our next game that he had nothing new to tell them and they’d have to talk to the club Board to find out about what the future held for him.
As I’ve pointed out before, it seems perfectly possible that a squad which had made their support for Riza clear in the early days would be thinking that the man they had favoured a month ago would not be staying on and this could partly explain why performances had fallen away.
Since Riza returned from Malaysia we have played poorly in getting a lucky draw at Sheffield Wednesday, lost miserably at home to then bottom club QPR and then played well in a 2-2 draw at Coventry in a game we could have won.
So, our last match offers some promise, but, having opted not to appoint Riza after we’d taken fourteen points out of eighteen, we’ve now given him the job after taking two from fifteen!
It makes no sense unless maybe the FAB letter prompted it or someone the club had in mind for the job was no longer available.
Just to add a couple more things. First, I see a lot of comparisons to the Steve Morison and Mark Hudson examples where an interim manager was appointed and then given the job permanently. That’s understandable, but a comparison of the three men’s records over their first dozen games shows that Riza has much better results than the other rwo and I would say his teams have played better quality football.
Morison P 12 W 3 D 3 L 6 Pts 12
Hudson P 12 W 4 D 1 L 7 Pts 13
Riza P 12 W 4 D 4 L 4 Pts 16
Secondly, a concern I have is that Riza has shown little interest in utilising members of the what appears to be the best crop of youngsters we’ve had coming through in years (I’d argue they’re the best since the Academy was opened for the 04/05 season). Yes, Michael Reindorf was given a league debut last Saturday, but many would say it was done reluctantly and was not before time, but Cian Ashford has drifted out of contention and with the bench looking ill balanced and weak for the QPR match in particular, that appears to have been a wasted opportunity to get more coverage for all positions by picking a yuoungster or two.
I’ll finish on the managerial situation by wishing Omer Riza good luck over the next six months or so, he’s going to need it!
Just to quickly mention that centre back Dylan Lawlor, back after a long injury absence, was outstanding in a high quality top of the table clash between City’s under 21s and Bournemouth at Leckwith on Tuesday afternoon which finished goalless. City shaded it for me and had the chances to win it, but a combination of poor finishing, good goalkeeping and desperate defending ensured the stalemate.
That game was the prelude for the most exciting game of women’s football I’ve ever seen. Having drawn the First Leg of their Euro qualifier Play Off Final on Friday at Cardiff 1-1, Wales travelled to Dublin to face the Republic of Ireland and managed to reach half time goalless despite being under pressure throughout.
The turning point of the tie came seconds after the restart when no one on the pitch or in the stands seemed to notice a handball in the penalty area by an Irish defender. VAR saw it though and a penalty was eventually given which Hannah Cain (who has had to recover from two ACL injuries in recent years) nervelessly rolled in as the keeper dived the wrong way.
Wales then began to look really dangerous on the break and they eventually doubled their lead as sub Carrie Jones received a good pass by Lily Woodman (who got the Welsh goal in the First Leg), beat the last defender, then ran twenty yards before shooting home from the edge of the penalty area.
For about twenty minutes it looked like Wales were going to comfortably qualify for their first major tournament, but, we don’t do such things like that do we – Ireland scored with four minutes left and then the game changed completely as Ireland utilised a truly terrifying long throw and it was panic stations in the Welsh penalty area.
Somehow, Wales survived some desperate scrambles and they’ll be in Switzerland in July for their Euro Finals debut with the draw to be made in around a fortnight.
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