Weekly review 10/6/18.

Posted on June 10, 2018 by The other Bob Wilson

Well, it’s now five weeks to the day since we were promoted and the lack of any truly significant news emerging from Cardiff City Stadium continues.

As mentioned in a message in the Feedback section  this week, Vincent Tan thanked the Sultan of Johor for his financial support over the past three seasons when he has paid a total of £3 million for the Visit Malaysia shirt sponsorship that City have had in recent years.

There was also confirmation of two more pre season matches with City visiting two of Neil Warnock’s former clubs next month. On Wednesday 25th, City visit Rotherham to play a side that were able to complete the unusual achievement of all three sides to be relegated from a league returning to it a year later after a promotion – Blackburn and Wigan will be joining the Millers in the Championship following their relegation in 16/17 as well.

Unfortunately, but probably inevitably, Burton Albion made the reverse journey in May as their  stay in the second tier came to an end. Burton in the Championship was something of a fairy tale, but it is one that can be repeated and Nigel Clough’s team will have a match with City as part of their preparations to repeat next season what Rotherham did in 17/18 on July 28th.

Next Thursday will see three things happen which are worth noting. At nine in the morning, the Premier League fixtures for the upcoming campaign will be announced – the EFL fixture list follows a week later. The new season always seems that much closer once you know who you will be playing and when, but it may be that the opening day games are known already – this story has been doing the rounds on social media in the past week and has it that we will be playing the first match of our second season in the Premier League at Bournemouth. Now, it seems to me that, if this was the case and the fixtures set out on that list were correct, the authorities will probably prefer to come up with an alternative rather than being forced to admit to an embarrassing leak of their opening weekend programme.

Then at 4 o clock I believe it is, the World Cup will begin with host nation Russia facing Saudi Arabia. This will be followed by the Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust AGM at the Three Arches in Heath which will include the normal Q and A session with the BBC’s Rob Phillips and ex City centreback Jason Perry – members can confirm their attendance by contacting members@ccfctrust.org (you are allowed to bring one guest if you want to), while non members can turn up and join on the night if they so wish.

As for any transfer comings and goings, maybe this is the weekend to concentrate more on potential outgoings in the absence of any significant news as far as inward moves are concerned.

The most persistent rumour regarding an existing City player leaving is probably the one which links Lee Tomlin with Nottingham Forest – whether by another loan deal or something more permanent, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this one come off.

According to a Wales Online piece from getting on for a fortnight ago which I believe I said on here had a look of authenticity to it, we were going to get some big City news during the week starting 4 June. Well, that period is virtually over now and the wait goes on!

It was thought that, given the way the piece was written, that the “big” news would concern the contract position of Junior Hoilett and Aron Gunnarsson. There has been nothing at all as far as Gunnar is concerned and I must admit that my earlier confidence that our promotion would be enough to persuade him to stay with us is beginning to waver somewhat.

Gunnar could leave us for nothing in the next month, but what about Junior? No official word yet, but did the Instagram message referred to here offer more than a hint that the winger will be committing himself to a third season at Cardiff – my guess is that it does.

Unlike the two players mentioned above, Joe Bennett leaving us on a Bosman is a non starter this summer – the left back is under contract for the upcoming season, but the problem is that his current deal still has that release clause of £2 million which prompted Fulham to try and grab him at the start of last season.

Bennett opted to stay with us then, but reports from London suggest that Fulham will be coming in with another offer which will trigger the release clause and the similarities with nine months ago continue to the extent that the old story about us going in for Preston’s Greg Cunningham, probably as a replacement for Bennett, resurfaced in recent days.

Talking of the side who accompanied us up following their Play Off win over troubled Villa, I first heard word of them being possible competitors with us for the signature of Marko Grujic if Liverpool decide to make him available on loan again about a fortnight ago.

Regular correspondent Dai Woosnam made a compelling case as to why Fulham could foil any plan we may have to get the Serb back in the Feedback section early last week I think it was and I agree that the lure of working with his fellow countryman  Slaviša Jokanovi? may prove decisive in any battle to get the midfielder back for another season.

That’s the thing, I suppose it’s easy to assume that, as a promoted team, we won’t be losing many members of last season’s squad, but, with the ground seemingly being laid for a summer of recruitment which sees us operating under pretty strict controls when it comes to transfer spending and wages, there will be a temptation that may persuade richer clubs than us to make offers for members of our promotion squad.

After all, they will think that we could be persuaded to let one of our mainstays go as a way to increase the size of our budget. Similarly, they will know that they can, almost certainly, offer higher wages than us – don’t forget that, this time last season, Brighton’s David Stockdale offered to turn down a contract offer from a club that had just been promoted to the Premier League in favour of one from Championship club Birmingham.

 

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Weekly review 3/6/18.

Posted on June 3, 2018 by The other Bob Wilson

The local media’s desperation to try and keep the feelgood factor going following our promotion knows no bounds as the stories they carry tend be outlandish rumours or finding a different way to say precisely what they reported last week.

However, tucked away among the inane speculation and non stories, there was one last week which I feel was fairly close to the truth about what will be happening at Cardiff City in the next couple of months or so.

Rightly or wrongly, this piece has an air of authenticity to me. However, what is not clear is the degree to which “The Cardiff boss wants five or six players to supplement his current squad and is set to once again utilise the loan and free transfer market.” applies. “Utilise” means use to me, so if it’s meant to say there will be a mixture of loans, free transfers and players that will cost a fee, then that’s fair enough to me.

However, I tend to agree with this comment in reply to the article;-

“The championship play off final to get to the Premiership was billed as the £170 million pound game.  We were already there, so why is WOL continually suggesting that Cardiff will be shopping at ‘Pound Savers’ looking for freebies, past sell by dates and loan signings?”.

Burnley were often quoted as the template that City would wish to follow if they were promoted and since their survival was clinched by drawing at Man City and Chelsea in the last week of the Premier League season, Huddersfield have also been mentioned as an example by which Premier League survival can be achieved for City in 18/19.

The thing is though, that neither of these teams owe their continued presence in the Premier League to their ability to “utilise the loan and free transfer market.”. Burnley have tended to buy from British clubs, but, rather than shopping in the players with Premier League experience market which it’s reported is Neil Warnock’s preference, they have tended to look to the Football League for the players who have kept them in the top flight for the last couple of seasons – this is an expensive market compared to many, but, if the plan is to pay transfer fees for these players with Premier League experience, we will be shopping in the most expensive market there is.

Like Burnley, Huddersfield’s domestic signings have tended to come from the Championship, but their results have been mixed as far as that goes I reckon – for me, it was Huddersfield’s transfer business on players based in mainland Europe that played the bigger part in keeping them up.

As a rule, I don’t think you can place great credence on online sources that quote what a player’s salary is, but I would say that the £3.12 million per annum (around 60 grand a week) I’ve seen quoted for West Brom’s Salomon Ronda (a player to whom we were linked a lot in the fortnight following our promotion) sounds about right.

I’m pleased to see that article saying that Rondon “could be out of reach because of budget restraints.” if that applies to wages. Once again, with the proviso that we cannot be certain about online figures, Burnley having their seven best paid players at the club all on 35k a week, as I saw in a messageboard which, obviously, involved a lot of research, seems the sort of model we should follow when it comes to wages.

However, if the thinking is that the supposed £18 million asking price for the Venezuelan international is beyond us, then I would say that is a reasonable price to pay for someone of his talent in the current market. Certainly, a club looking to sign experienced Premier League players still good enough to perform week in, week out in the top flight should expect to be quoted asking prices like that one,

Turning to the loan market, we were strongly linked yesterday with another move for Marko Grujic (who was selected in the Serbian World Cup squad this week). This seems to be a possible move that would not cause the club financial problems – more likely, I’d say that, with only two loan players allowed at the same time and a maximum of four in a season in the Premier League, the question might be, would we like to see one of them taken up by a player who ended the Championship season out of our team and had to be subbed after coming off the bench in his last appearance, seemingly because his manager feared he was going to be sent off? Grujic also doesn’t fill the Premier League experience criteria, but I’d grade this rumour as one that could well happen when compared to most we have seen so far.

Similarly, having talked Robert Snodgrass up in a radio interview recently, I think there is every chance that he is someone who Neil Warnock would like to sign. The Scotland winger cum playmaker was a success in the Championship this season as he contributed eight goals and thirteen assists to Aston Villa’s failed promotion bid during his loan spell with them and I’d say a contribution like that could, largely, be carried into the top flight by someone who has that Premier League experience which we, seemingly, want.

A fee of £12 million (a bit rich this from West Ham when you consider that they signed him for £10 million and he’s not really pulled up any trees at the East London club) has been mentioned in terms of a permanent signing, but Snodgrass is another who is reported to be on £60k a week (again a figure which seems about right to me) and so, I’d like to think that it would have to be a loan move, with West Ham paying around half of his wages, for this one to come off – if that could be arranged then I’d say this one, like Grujic, could be a deal that we’d do.

Just to say on the International front that Aron Gunnarsson was an unused sub in Iceland’s 3-2 home defeat by Norway last night and that Kenneth Zohore did not even make the bench for Denmark in their goalless draw in Sweden, so it would seem that his hopes of making it to the World Cup are negligible now.

 

 

 

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