Weekly Review 14/5/17.

Posted on May 14, 2017 by The other Bob Wilson

So, we’re back at the time of year where, in the absence of any football games to talk about, I post these weekly comments on what has been happening at Cardiff City over the past seven days.

Come August and the new season, Mauve and Yellow Army will be celebrating it’s eighth birthday and so, with seven previous summers of summarising weekly news and gossip about the club through the close season, certain things become clearer as to the form these pieces will take as the weeks go by.

For example, it’s a given that, if what I write during the months of May, June and July is the summary of weekly news and gossip I mentioned earlier, then it’s nearly always the case that the nature of the pieces in the first of these months will be heavily weighted on the gossip, rather than news, side.

So it is, in this first review – in fact, it’s probably true to say that you will not read anything which constitutes authentic Cardiff City news in the rest of this piece!

Neil Warnock has been talking about the new players he believes he needs to recruit in the coming weeks for months now and so, it’s hardly surprising that City fans have had plenty of speculative media pieces regarding the identity of these summer arrivals since the 16/17 campaign ended seven days ago – truth be told, there were many such stories during the dying embers of the season as well.

Indeed, such has been the number of players the media have linked us with lately, it’s hard to keep track of them all, so I apologise now if this breakdown misses out on some of the men City have been said to have been considering signing.

Goalkeepers

It’s probably true to say that the position where we are most likely to see new recruits this summer is goalkeeper. Including Allan McGregor, City have four keepers with first team experience currently and it’s my guess that only one of them will be with the club next season.

I don’t see the two Ben’s, Amos and Wilson, being with us come the closing of the transfer window in September which would leave the solid and reliable Brian Murphy as the only senior goalkeeping survivor from those who were on our books on a permanent basis last season.

As for McGregor, his parent club Hull may well be relegated this lunchtime when they take on a Palace side still not sure of their Premier League place next season themselves yet. Wins in their last two matches have made it very likely that Swansea will be staying up, so Hull need to take at least four points from their last two games to preserve their place in the top flight, but in truth, their inferior goal difference means that probably nothing less than a win today and then another one when they entertain Spurs on the final day will do for the Humbersiders.

If Hull do go down, I’d be amazed if they would look to keep their three senior keepers (Jakupovic, McGregor and Marshall) at the club for a Championship campaign and, at the very least, I would expect one of them to go out on loan for 17/18.

So, the opportunity for City to still have the keeper we’ve had for most of the second half of the season is almost certainly there for them. However, Neil Warnock has said that McGregor’s wage demands would probably rule out any move for him (it wasn’t clear whether our manager was talking only in terms of a permanent move there mind) and the same reasons would also appear to make the move I’d prefer (a return for David Marshall) a non starter as well.

A lack of funding, or possibly a feeling that any transfer kitty Warnock is given would be better spent on targets in other positions (e.g. striker), would seem to rule out someone like Wayne Hennessey who is very likely to be released by Palace soon. Indeed, it’s unclear whether Wales Online, who make a habit of including the Palace trio of Hennessey, Joe Ledley and Fraizer Campbell in any list of City transfer targets they produce, mention that trio as players as ones they know we are interested in or ones they’d like us to be after.

So, while another McGregor type loan move cannot be entirely ruled out, I’d say that it’s more likely that one or both of a couple of players available on frees this summer will be with us for 17/18.

Our manager has confirmed that he made enquiries about Walsall’s Philippines international Neil Etheridge in January and there have been reports that we’re back in for him now. Also, Rotherham announced during last week that Lee Camp would be leaving them and, given his previous experience of working with Warnock, and our goalkeeping coach Andy Dibble, at that club last year, it seems to be taken for granted that the Northern Ireland international is on his way to Cardiff.

Our goalkeeper for 2017/18? On the face of it, the vastly experienced Lee Camp looks a virtual cert to be a Cardiff City player next season to me.

If I were asked what was the current transfer rumour most likely to become fact at City, I’d go for Lee Camp being with us for the new season and my second most likely one would be that Etheridge would be here – I’m not sure if it would be a case of one or the other of them either.

Full back

Most pundits appear to be identifying full back as an area where we don’t need strengthening, but I’ll mention that there are still stories out there linking us with Hearts’ Callum Paterson, who we were, apparently, after in January before he sustained the knee injury which ended his season. Paterson is another who is very likely to be making a Bosman type move this summer and I’d rate it unlikely that his destination will be Cardiff, but I’d also put him into the might be worth pushing the boat out a bit for category if we received any encouragement that he would be prepared to come here.

Centreback

Ideally, this is a position where we could go with what we already have, but, with it looking increasingly like any attempt to persuade Bruno Manga to accept a new contract on reduced wages is doomed to failure, it strikes me that this is a position where we would still have good options, but maybe there is a need for someone to come in. If that was the thinking, then it seems to me that someone like Motherwell’s Ben Heneghan might be the sort of player we’d look at because he’d be pretty cheap and could be seen as “one for the future”.

Central midfield

Again, much depends on whether an established player stays at the club. If I had to guess, I’d opt for Peter Whittingham turning down our contract offer, but, Ledley speculation notwithstanding, I’m not convinced that this should be a high priority area when it comes to new players. I say that because, if the speculation is to be believed, Tom Adeyemi has done enough in his year at Rotherham to make his old club Norwich think of resigning him (Ipswich are supposed to be after him as well).

There’s also Emyr Huws of course – on the face of it, with Ipswich eager to make his loan move into a permanent one, his stay at Cardiff is coming to an end, but the Portman Road club have been run on a even tighter budget than us in recent seasons and my feeling is that if Huws is playing for them next season, it will be as a loan player again.

Barnsley’s Josh Scowen, another player likely to be available on a free this summer, is someone we’ve been vaguely linked with in the past and, rather like Callum Patterson, I’d say he’s someone definitely worth pursuing if we received any encouragement that he would consider us, but, in the absence of that happening, I’d be telling Huws that he has a fresh start at City if he wants one and a first team place can be his with a good pre season behind him.

Winger

With no confirmation yet that Kadeem Harris or Junior Hoilett have agreed new deals with the club and repeated rumours that Anthony Pilkington and Craig Noone are among the players we would listen to offers for, this could be a position where we’ll see wholesale changes in the summer.

However, our manager seems confident that the first two named will opt for staying at City and so, even if the other two leave, I think it may be a case of us just bringing in one newcomer.

Barnsley’s Marley Watkins has already said his goodbyes to the club’s supporters in a move which seems to confirm that all of the stories over the past six months or so about him rejecting a new contract with that club were true. City’s name always tends to be in any list of clubs rumoured to be interested in the Wales qualified former Swansea man, but with Premier League Burnley also regulars in such lists, Watkins seems one for the “unlikely” category to me.

A seemingly more realistic transfer would be this one speculated upon from last week and I’d rate it among the more believable of the rumours heard so far.

Strikers

With Rickie Lambert another of those who it seems likely that the club would like to offload this summer and no sign whatsoever that Adam LeFondre will be offered a new deal, you could say that there is a danger that Kenneth Zohore will be the only specialist striker at City when the players report back for pre season training. Even if someone like Pilkington stays, he’s not a specialist in that position as he is more at home on the wing or in a number ten role just behind someone like Zohore – much the same could probably be said about youngsters like Mark Harris and Ibrahim Meite as well.

There is Rhys Healey of course, but is he going to be ready for the start of the campaign as he recovers from his cruciate knee ligament injury in January? So, on the face of it, there needs to be a striker or two signed soon.

So far, the players I’ve referred to have been ones who would cost us a modest transfer fee at most. The majority of players we’ve been linked to on a fairly regular basis have been ones that have been given free transfers or are available on Bosmans and yet I’ve got the distinct feeling that Neil Warnock has wanted to have a sum available to him to spend on transfer fees – albeit a significantly smaller amount than that certain other managers in the Championship would be expecting.

For me, striker has to be the most likely position in which we might find ourselves spending a significant sum in transfer fees compared to what we’ve become used to in the last two years or so and so, reports of a £3 million bid for Southampton’s Sam Gallagher strike me as having enough in them to qualify for a strong possibility ranking.

I think there is every chance that Southampton would be willing to sell Sam Gallagher, who scored twelve times during his season long loan at Blackburn, this summer and, with only one year left on his contract, the asking price for him would probably not be prohibitive. Still, it would be a signal that City were now more serious about a proper promotion bid than they have been since the days when Ole Solskjaer was in charge – I wouldn’t be surprised if we have targeted him, but I’d say it would be long odds on us getting him.

At just 21 and with some Premier League experience as a teenager, Gallagher looks to be an attractive proposition for a team in City’s current position, not just because of what he could offer on the pitch, but also in terms of the resale value he would have if he were to succeed at Cardiff.

Yes, a season long loan at relegated Blackburn gives ammunition to anyone who would want to argue against such a signing, but I’ve seen and read little to suggest that Gallagher was a failure at Ewood Park – on the contrary, the main reason why I feel we are unlikely to get him if our interest in him is really serious enough to run to a £3 million bid, is that so called bigger Championship clubs than us will be in for him if Southampton decide to sell.

Before finishing, I should say that in the final Wales Online Blakey’s Boot Room podcast of the season last week, it was said that the club have told members of the local media that the summer arrivals will be players whose names supporters will immediately recognise – I don’t think a few of those I’ve mentioned here would fall into that category, so maybe we are going to see a more ambitious approach by those in charge of the club’s purse strings, but, if pressed, I’d still say that we will be lower mid table when it comes to player budgets in the Championship for 2017/18.

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Top half City sign off in style.

Posted on May 8, 2017 by The other Bob Wilson

I had how I was going to start this piece all worked out beforehand – we had begun our season unable to score anything else but own goals and “worldies” (the only goals we scored in our first half a dozen matches were Shane Duffy’s pair of “ogs” against Blackburn and Joe Ralls’ and Anthony Pilkington’s screamers at Fulham) and we ended it by only managing to find the net with the latter.

Aron Gunnarson’s long range winner against Forest was the only goal we had managed in our previous four games and there had only been four of them in the seven matches played during April – there was absolutely nothing to indicate that we would complete the Championship marathon putting on something of a sprint as we reached the finishing line by scoring three unanswered goals at Play Offs bound Huddersfield Town.

After a spell where the goals had flowed freely, twenty one in the ten matches starting with the 2-0 win over Preston in late January, City had hit the “wall” with their goalscoring and, for me it was no coincidence whatsoever that this period had come during a time when Kenneth Zohore was going through a quiet spell.

If the Dane had not exactly gone back to the days of late 15/16 when those of us who thought there was definitely something there to work on had to rely on brief, and very occasional, cameos off the bench where he caused good quality Championship defenders all sorts of problems to base our arguments on, there was a sense that Zohore, like the team he was playing for, was winding down with the task for the season (staying up) having effectively been completed around about the time Ipswich were beaten 3-1 here in late March.

Zohore’s last goal before yesterday had come in the defeat at Wolves on 1 April and there had been three away matches played since then without us managing to score. However,  although these highlights are very brief ones, there’s enough to suggest that Huddersfield’s should be added to the list, which consists of Preston, Rotherham, Fulham, Ipswich and a fair few others, of defences that just couldn’t handle our top scorer during the second half of this season.

Another calm finish to offer further proof that my doubts as to whether Zohore was ruthless enough in front of goal to become a consistent scorer at this level may well have been misguided, was a good way to end a period which has transformed his career. However, more impressive still for me were the two assists provided for Joe Bennett – even a few weeks ago, I think Zohore would have been looking to shoot in the sort of positions he found himself in, but, instead, there was a look up and a pass played to a colleague in a better position to score.

While it was encouraging to see a return to goalscoring form for the team, it did also tend to emphasise how reliant we’ve become on Zohore when it comes to effective attacking play, but, by scoring his second and third goals in his last eight games, Bennett at least showed that, for the first time in ages, City have a full back capable of finding the net for us in open play.

Given the licence to play to his strengths in a way he never had at Cardiff, Scott Malone has prospered this season at Fulham in a manner which suggests that those claims that he had been on Borussia Dortmund’s radar at the time we signed him, were not as outlandish as they seemed at the time. However, while it has been tempting to look at Malone’s part in Fulham’s success and think about what we’ve missed out on, lately Bennett has been giving us things that we’re not used to seeing from Cardiff full backs.

Maybe there was nothing the club could have done to prevent it, but in a season where there have been few off pitch embarrassments of the type that seemed to come along once a month a few years ago, the fact that sixteen year old Sion Spence was prevented from taking the last of the seven substitute places yesterday looks to be something of a throwback to when we tended to get more things wrong than right off the pitch.
Spence, who is about three months older than Aaron Ramsey was when he made his debut as what may have been our youngest ever player (there are some references to a fifteen year old goalkeeper in the thirties) was, apparently, absent for “insurance reasons”, but you can’t help thinking that he won’t be kept waiting too long for his first team chance. It wouldn’t surprise me if the midfielder, was has made the jump from Under 16 team to regular for the Development side this season, was to feature in a pre season match or, maybe, in our First Round League Cup game next season.

Although the feeling persists that, just like Malone, Bennett is not so impressive when he is forced to go backwards, we do now have what I would call a proper modern full back within our ranks. With someone like Neil Warnock in charge, our full backs are always going to have to be able to get the job done defensively, but there have been signs in recent weeks that Bennett has improved in that side of his game and, if he can keep that going into next season, then we will have someone who is at ease in forward positions, while also being very well suited to the three centrebacks and wing backs formation we used yesterday.

The irony of us ending the season using the same formation as the one Paul Trollope was so determined to see us play back in August has been remarked upon elsewhere. Of course, just because a system works well in one match, there’s no guarantee that it would do over a period of weeks and months, but I would say that there are a few reasons why the 3-5-2/5-3-2 used yesterday was so much more effective than the one seen nine months ago.

Firstly, it has to be accepted that our opponents had their minds firmly upon other things. Whereas City will not play any more football for a couple of months, Huddersfield still have at least two, hugely important, games left to play. Second, Huddersfield’s cause was hardly helped by the sending off of their Welsh international goalkeeper Darren Ward for handling the ball outside of his penalty area – it’s easier to look good when your opponents are a man short for seventy minutes, but we were already a goal up and playing well when Ward was dismissed.

Thirdly, Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City is a completely different animal from Paul Trollope’s Cardiff City when it comes to things like belief, spirit and confidence and, fourthly, even though Kadeem Harris was absent yesterday with the injury that forced him off early in the Newcastle match last week, we have so much more attacking pace now than we had then.

We began the season looking to play what was essentially a counter attacking game with no significant pace going forward in the starting line up – it’s easy to say now of course, but it was a plan that was doomed to failure.

There was a “Warnock effect” right from the first day the man walked into the club (you only had to watch that first game against a Bristol City team that was flying at the time to recognise that) and so much of the optimism that next season can see us being realistic contenders for a top six place stems from our manager.

Put simply, we have a manager who knows this league like the back of his hand and although a dose of realism is also required when assessing our chances next season, the fact of the matter is that a repeat of our results from mid October onwards would see us thinking in terms of having a chance of leaving the division in the right direction for most, if not all, of 2017/18.

With four wins, four draws and four defeats, our form was distinctly mid table during the period from Neil Warnock taking over to the end of 2016, but 2017 has seen us win eleven, draw five and lose seven. That’s twenty three matches, half a season, and a return of thirty eight points, if carried over into a full forty six match campaign would see us on seventy six – four points short of what was needed for sixth place this year, but often enough to get into the Play Offs.

So, the step up in results doesn’t need to be a huge one compared to what we’ve seen for more than three quarters of the season, but I also believe the stats show that the top half finish (we scraped into twelfth place thanks the number of goals we scored when compared to Villa, who had the same -1 goal difference as us) we managed is about as good as we could have, realistically, hoped for after those first eleven games under Trollope’s management.

Our finishing total of sixty two points was identical to our tally in the yawnathon that was 2014/15 and six below what we managed in the promotion challenge which never felt like one that was 15/16. It’s not much of a claim when you consider the competition I suppose, but 16/17 was the most enjoyable campaign since we got relegated in my book, because there was a feeling that, once we got going under Warnock, we were a club and team that was finally heading in the right direction again.

Most of the stats point to our finishing position being a reflection of our capabilities over the season – we were distinctly mid table in terms of goals scored and goals conceded (I still think sixty one is a lot to let in with the centrebacks we have mind), but, despite that run when the goals dried up before yesterday, our twenty nine goals scored on our travels was better than getting on for three quarters of the division managed and offers further proof that we do have the attacking pace now that we’ve lacked for so long.

We were also up near the top in one department which impresses me, but I daresay will disappoint some others – only Derby had less yellow cards than us and there were only six teams who had less dismissals than our three.

As has been the case for some time now, City were one of the best behaved teams in the division and it’s another sign that it’s easy to fall into the trap, which I certainly have done myself down the years, of automatically labeling Warnock teams in a certain way. Yes, we were direct most of the time and I believe our manager would like a bit more “devil” in his players, but watching Neil Warnock’s Cardiff play was a great deal more enjoyable and entertaining than I expected it to be – that’s not just because we were winning more than we lost, we only got one point from the two best games I saw us involved in live (Barnsley and Fulham at home).

Finally, I’d like to wish all City fans a a good summer and remind readers that I’ll writing weekly reviews of goings on at the club during the close season which, as always, I hope will prompt the sort of replies we’ve seen throughout the last nine months as City found themselves left on the starting line, only to recover in a manner which offers the hope that they can do a lot better next time.

 

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