So, now what do they do? Sack the manager in the hope that this will engender performances in the next four games that will be a big enough improvement on what was seen in the previous four?
Well, if those running the club (or to be more precise, Vincent Tan) have decided on a change following today’s 1-0 home loss to Stoke in a game billed as the hugest, most massive the club have played in decades (yeah I know), then they are going to have to act with uncharacteristic haste because we play again in six days time and this is not a situation where Tan can act at his leisure like he usually does when we’re looking for a manager.
If there is a desire to make a change, then it seems to me that someone will have been sounded out about the job already and will be in place days before we go to Sheffield United on Good Friday. However, let’s be honest here, if there is a change of manager in the coming days, it’s far, far more likely that Tan will turn to his old favourite, the appointment from within and we all know how well those have gone up until now!
My prediction is that if Tan opts for a desperate last throw of the dice and relieves Omer Riza of his job, then Aaron Ramsey or Joe Ralls (or perhaps a combination of both) will be in charge at Bramall Lane.
That said, my feeling is that Riza will see the season out and, after relegation has been confirmed, he’ll be put on gardening leave in early May until his contract runs out at the end of June
I’m saying when, not if, relegation is confirmed because it looks inevitable tonight. However we’re still only one point behind Derby in twenty first place, so it should still be all to play for and I suppose it must be acknowledged that, no matter how unrealistic it sounds tonight, Riza, or someone else, could still keep us up.
My feeling for most of the time Riza has been in charge was that he should be offered a longer deal if he kept us in the Championship, but in recent weeks, especially since the defeat to Luton, I’ve started to change my mind.
I thought that Riza showed signs that he could become a pretty good manager at this level when he first took over, but it seems to me the longer he’s done the job, the less sure he has become in his decision making and the constant changes of personnel, tactics and formation put me in mind of the last but one manager to get us relegated, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, in the closing months of the 13/14 season.
We finished twentieth and last in the Premier League under Ole and, watching us play since we did pretty well in defeat against Burnley about a month ago, I’d say a last placed finish is more likely than one in twenty first place or better.
I say that because in recent weeks every club that has been in relegation trouble have picked up notable victories or draws which would have kept the hope burning that they could wriggle clear – every club that is, except for Cardiff. We, on the other hand, have won once at a bang out of form Blackburn and had a run of increasingly unconvincing draws that only helped deepen the gloom as well as suffering two very, very damaging home defeats against teams around us in the table.
Luton are one of the sides to gain hope after winning at Cardiff City Stadium in recent weeks and, although today’s defeat at home to that bang out of form Blackburn, who played the closing stages of the game with ten men, looks a devastating one, they can still take some heart from the run of good results they’ve had since their win here. Plymouth, who are continuously being written off as already down by many, battle on after their dramatic come from. behind win against Sheffield United and what do Cardiff have to cling to? Nothing – results are bad and performances worse.
The four game unbeaten run after the shattering loss to Luton was able to keep us clinging to the hope that we could get those wins from the games we really had to come out on top in, but we could all see what was happening out on the pitch.
In the eight halves we played in the unbeaten run after Luton, we were convincing in just one of them (the first half against Sheffield Wednesday) and I’m sure I wasn’t the only City fan who became progressively more convinced we were going down with each passing game in our unbeaten run.
People who haven’t seen the last of those matches will, no doubt, look at the fact that we twice came back from a goal down at Preston with our second equaliser coming deep into added time and say I’m exaggerating, but we were so lethargic for much of that match and were very lucky to get anything out of it.
I’m not going to go into much detail about today’s game because so little of note happened in it and it was in many ways a reminder of many of the things which have marked us out as a bottom three side since August.
First, there were the usual wholesale changes from the previous game, then the club that has made a habit of not turning up for home games for virtually the whole of this decade so far did it yet again with another one of those performances where they make simple tasks look next to impossible – basic passing and ball control looks beyond their capabilities.
Apart from an early miss by Lewis Baker and great volley by Jordan Thompson which got a slight deflection off Alex Robertson onto the crossbar, Stoke did little else to suggest they’d score until their late, lucky and controversial goal, but they were the calmer, yet more combative, team throughout and were definitely the better side until the last half an hour or so when they seemed to have been dragged down to our level with the result that we were able to put them under pressure for the only time in the game.
Despite a feeling that things might just be swinging in our favour, there was only one time when City genuinely looked like they might score and that came when Rubin Colwill did well to fire over a cross to his fellow sub Isaak Davies who could not keep his effort down from no more than two yards out. It was a ball that was fired at him rather than passed to him and it was a bit of an angled finish, but you’d have thought it only needed to hit Davies to go in.
Three minutes later, another of those season long weaknesses, poor set piece defending, cost City dear. This time it was a long throw which caused the consternation, the ball definitely seemed to bounce off Stoke centreback Ashley Phillips’ hand and then it found its way to fellow defender Ben Wilmott whose shot got a couple of deflections, the last off Will Fish, to win a priceless three points for the visitors.
The truth was City looked no less desperate at 0-0 than they did after going behind, i definitely wouldn’t accuse them of not trying, it was more that the nerves got to them – the brutal truth is they bottled the Luton game and they bottled this one and, for me, another season long weakness, a lack of on field leaders, was clearly in evidence.
With that in mind, you have to wonder how and why City will discover the resolve and character to cope in their remaining four games. Will a new face, or faces, in the dug out inspire the team in a way Riza hasn’t? I can’t see it myself.
In complete contrast, City’s under 18s went to Peterborough this morning and won 4-0 with Riley Hilaire-Clarke scoring two and Jack Sykes and Mannie Barton one each.
Treherbert Boys and Girls Club won 2-1 at Seven Sisters Onllwyn FC in their latest Ardal Leagues South West game, but it was defeats in the Highadmit South Wales Alliance for Ton Pentre, beaten 3-0 at home by Port Talbot, and Treorchy Boys and Girls Club who went down 4-3 at home to Splott FC.
A couple of things to finish, it seems that the City fan who fell ill at today’s game, thus causing it to be delayed to the extent that it finished around a quarter of an hour after all of the others, is making good progress, my best wishes to him for a full recovery.
The other is to bemoan just how poorly Cardiff based sports teams are doing currently. City are on their way to League One, a mediocre Cardiff RFC have gone into administration and had to be bought out by the WRU who are hardly in the best of financial health themselves. Glamorgan, who barely play home games outside of Cardiff these days, have started their season very poorly with a conclusive defeat by Leicestershire and are struggling in their second game against Gloucestershire- the Ice Hockey team lost last weekend as well!
