City facing bleak future if Tan keeps on deluding himself.

Posted on May 12, 2014 by The other Bob Wilson

CoymayHaving opened their home Premier League programme with a win over the Manchester City team who were crowned Champions yesterday, City threatened to end it with a victory over the side who finished third during a fairly entertaining first half yesterday. Craig Bellamy’s deflected goal meant that they led 1-0 as the match went into it’s last quarter, but, in the end, the one way traffic towards their goal in the second half wore them down and, despite what may well be the last of David Marshall’s long series of extraordinary saves for the club to keep out Azpilicueta’s header, Schurrle’s follow up equaliser was quickly added to by Torres to clinch a deserved 2-1 win for the visitors.

So, City take their leave from the Premier League after the briefest of stays and, overall I don’t think there can be too much disputing that their finishing position at the foot of the table was not justified. At least the finale proved to be a more watchable affair than I expected it to be and, the performance of younger players like Declan John, Fabio, Mats Dælhi (all of whom I would expect to still be with the club next season) and, provided he stays, Jordon Mutch (more comfortable in his deep midfield role than he was at Newcastle, although I still think were not utilising his main strengths by playing him there) all offered the hope at least that life in the Championship may not be as tough as I fear it might.

There was a definite end of season feel to the game and it wasn’t really the time to get too worked up about things like substitutions, so I found myself smiling rather than scowling at the somehow typically Ole way we ended our season as we chased another losing cause. In fact, I give credit to our manager for blooding youngsters Rhys Healey and Tom James towards the end and I suppose the introduction of Don Cowie when we defending  a lead could be understood, but  did they all have to come on for Dæhli, Craig Bellamy and Fraizer Campbell, the trio of players who, on the day, represented the bulk of any attacking threat we posed? Chelsea must have been quaking in their boots facing a strike force of Healey and Steven Caulker in the closing minutes with Aron Gunnarsson deployed in the number ten role just behind them!

The game was just a backdrop to the issue which has dominated the last few days though – the decision of Malky Mackay and Iain Moody to drop their litigation against the club while offering pretty humiliating looking apologies to Vincent Tan at the same time.

Mats Dæhli, the one shining light in the second half of our season, takes on Eden Hazard - once again, the teenager compared very favourably with the big names in the opposition line up.

Mats Dæhli, the one shining light in the second half of our season, takes on Eden Hazard – once again, the teenager compared very favourably with the big names in the opposition line up.*

Yesterday saw owner Vincent Tan have his say on recent developments and a few other issues besides as he gave interviews to Rob Phillips of the BBC and Terry Phillips of Wales Online. The headlines for the first of these talked of our owner backing down over the kit issue and, without checking the interviews themselves, you might have thought that we could be back in blue next season. The reality is though that Mr Tan talked about discussions with fans about a “compromise” in season 2o15/16 if we all started pulling in the same direction and there was also the small matter that it seems we will have to have been promoted back to the Premier League as well!

Encouragingly, Mr Tan was enthusiastic about the idea of a supporter attending Board meetings and he reacted positively to the suggestion that there might be fan representation on the Board. On the subject of debt to equity conversion however, it was more moving of goalposts I’m afraid. To be fair, converting 50 million pounds worth of the money loaned to the club by Mr Tan into equity would be a significant move, but it simply isn’t what was being promised two years ago when a debt to equity conversion was one of the central planks of the club’s bid to win around those who were prepared to live with the change to red if it meant a secure financial future.

Back then, the promise was that we would have a debt free club within weeks, now we are, apparently, expected to react just as positively to a situation whereby we have a debt that is around 250% bigger than the one we had at the time of the re-brand after any debt to equity conversion takes place – it just won’t happen, significant numbers of supporters won’t react positively to this news and neither should they.

The news regarding Mackay/Moody was touched upon in the first interview, but Mr Tan really went to town regarding our former manager in the second one. Having said in my reaction piece on here to Friday’s happenings that “hopefully, yesterday’s news really does signal an end to a dispute that blighted the 2013/14 season.”, it has to be stated that having seen Mr Tan’s rant against our former manager, it’s not going to happen!

The world and his wife have been giving their take on what was said in those statements by Messrs Mackay and Moody on Friday and what unites  virtually all of those voicing their views on events is that all they can offer is opinions, not facts. I mentioned on here on Saturday, that my opinion has changed to the extent that, having been firmly in the Mackay/Moody camp for the duration of the dispute, I now feel that Mr Tan’s version of events (£15 million overspend on the agreed transfer budget for summer 2013) is more accurate than the Mackay/Moody one (£4 million underspend).

Others look at those statements and take things further as they see them as tacit confirmation of dodgy behaviour by the two former employees. They may be right and my, more cautious, interpretation wrong, but, although he was pretty scathing about our former manager, Mr Tan limited his comments to the overspend and, yet again, we got to hear about the Andreus Cornelius transfer (but only in terms of how much the transfer fee and wages involved were) and so I have to doubt whether we will ever get the chance to know for sure who is right.

Mr Tan is one of the few who probably does know the facts behind it all, but he was back in opinion territory when he answered a question from Terry Phillips about how Malky Mackay was to blame for our relegation and I believe he is deluding himself if he really believes that one man is responsible for our dreadful campaign – here are some facts that say otherwise.

Our thirty eight game season can be conveniently broken down into sections which enable direct comparisons to be made between the two men who filled the manager’s post for the large majority of the campaign. If you take out the two matches played under David Kerslake’s temporary management, then Malky Mackay and Ole Gunnar Solskjær were both in charge for eighteen games. In the first part of the season (under Mackay) the simple facts are that we did better in terms of points gained and league position occupied than we did in the second part (under Solskjær) – 17 points gained under Mackay easily better the 12 under Solskjær and we were sixteenth when the former left and seventeenth when the latter took over.

Malky Mackay’s team played two home games against teams that finished in the bottom half of the table and won them both. Ole’s team played six home matches against sides from the bottom half and also won two while taking just seven points out of a possible eighteen. Furthermore, the heaviest defeat suffered to a bottom half side under Mackay was 2-0 (albeit the performances were pretty awful in all three games), while under Solskjær we were beaten by three goals or more on four occasions by bottom half teams (three of these being in home games where we never managed a goal).

The suggestion that yesterday might be Craig Bellamy's final game was given credence by this acknowledgment from Jose Mourinho as he was substituted. *

The suggestion that yesterday might be Craig Bellamy’s final game was given credence by this acknowledgment from Jose Mourinho as he was substituted. *

Are we seriously expected to believe that all that went wrong during that second group of eighteen matches was down to someone who was not employed by the club at the time – it could be argued that it doesn’t take much of a leap in Mr Tan’s logic to suggest that Solskjær was responsible for the good things that happened in those first eighteen matches as well!

In the interests of fairness, it has to be said that Mackay had a far bigger transfer budget to work with and he also had far longer to sort deals out than Solskjær, so allowances need to be made for that, but, even so, the facts say that if Ole had got the same number of points as Malky did, we would have stayed up if we had also hung on to that two goal lead against Sunderland in one of Kerslake’s pair of matches.

Interestingly, Ole says he is to blame for our relegation, but my point here is not to blame him and exonerate Malky Mackay. Whether it be either of our two managers this season, I firmly believe it is completely wrong to solely blame one individual for our relegation. It’s not all Vincent Tan’s fault either – nor Simon Lim’s or Mehmet Dalman’s. Also, no one member of the playing or coaching staff is solely responsible – if only it were that easy to point the finger at one person and say “it was all  down to you”.

Sadly, there has been so much wrong at so many levels at Cardiff City since August that it would have almost required a miracle for us to stay up. I would like to think that Vincent Tan realises this – at least I hope he does, because if he truly believes that everyone bar Malky Mackay (and Iain Moody) did a good job for the club during 2013/14 then I fear for our future.

* pictures courtesy of http://www.walesonline.co.uk/

 

 

 

Posted in Down in the dugout, Out on the pitch, Up in the Boardroom | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

What a day!

Posted on May 10, 2014 by The other Bob Wilson

CoymayFriday 9 May was the day the South Wales Echo nailed it’s colours to the anti red mast.  This editorial called for a return to blue, the paper had also set up an online petition where supporters could back the claim for a return to our traditional kit and there was even a free “We’ll always be blue” poster for people to take to Sunday’s final match of the season against Chelsea to display at the time of the 19.27 protest which has now become the norm at every first team game.

For a few hours, the Echo’s decision was the talk of the messageboards with some claiming the paper’s change of heart came two years too late and others prepared to welcome the latest convert to the anti rebrand cause, but all of that was to change around lunchtime as a new story emerged which pulled off the almost unheard of trick of making the morning’s hot story yesterday’s news by the afternoon – if you get what I mean!

I’d heard the view that Malky Mackay’s claim for compensation against the club after his sacking, which was due to be heard in July I believe, would never reach court because there would be a settlement between the parties before then. I agreed with this opinion, but, even so, it still came as a complete shock to learn, via a statement released by our former manager’s lawyers, that the case has been dropped – with this bit especially taken the eye.

“‘If I have caused any offence to anyone during this time, especially to Vincent Tan, then I apologise without reservation.”

This sense of surprise grew a few hours later when the Daily Mail (the paper that has usually got things right in the last year or so when it comes to Cardiff City matters) claimed that Mr Mackay would “receive nothing as part of an out-of-court settlement and will pay his own legal fees”. It did not end there either, Iain Moody (who was pursuing a similar claim to Mackay) was reported to have reached a settlement with the club as well and there was also a similarly worded apology to our owner included in his statement.

With there having been persistent rumours circulating since Moody left the club about dodgy dealings regarding the Andreas Cornelius transfer in particular, there were those who concluded that the lack of compensation paid to the ex employees of the club and the wording used by Messrs Mackay and Moody offered confirmation that there was some substance to the gossip. Others were not convinced as the Daily Mail’s claims were rubbished and the possibility of Mackay being appointed manager at Norwich (or even West Ham where Sam Allardyce’s future is in some doubt) was raised as a reason why our former manager might be in a hurry to get a settlement.

In happier times. Malky Mackay and Vincent Tan celebrate after the 2012 League Cup Semi Final win over Crystal Palace - hopefully, yesterday's news really does signal an end to a dispute that blighted the 2013/14 season.

In happier times. Malky Mackay and Vincent Tan celebrate after the 2012 League Cup Semi Final win over Crystal Palace – hopefully, yesterday’s news really does signal an end to a dispute that blighted the 2013/14 season.

What I’ll say on the matter is that, to my non expert eyes at least, it seems to me that Messrs Mackay and Moody do not come out of this looking that good.  Now, it needs to be said that, as far as I’m aware, the club have only ever said there was an overspend (in the region of £15 million) on last summer’s transfer dealings – no other public allegations have been made. Mackay and Moody responded to the overspend claims by denying that this was the case – indeed, Mr Moody maintained their summer spending had been £4 million under the agreed budget in this article.

Is Mackay’s apology to Vincent Tan in particular for possibly causing offence and Moody’s reference to his part in any mistakes made at the club during his time at Cardiff an admission of guilt on their part with regards to those rumours I mentioned earlier? Well, I’d say it might be reasonable to conclude that Vincent Tan’s claims regarding the transfer overspend might have some truth to them based on yesterday’s statements, but I certainly wouldn’t take it any further than that on the evidence we have at the moment.

Let’s not forget either that just because the Daily Mail has been right about Cardiff City in the past, it doesn’t automatically follow that they are this time and I see the Daily Telegraph  has a different take on things today with it’s mention of the parties “having reached a financial settlement that is not believed to include any compensation.”. 

While the apologies of the two men were the most eye catching parts of the statements, I believe another very important part of them both are the references to settlement agreements. On the face of it a “settlement agreement” is a self explanatory term and  I’ll admit that, in these circumstances, I assumed that it would include some sort of financial arrangement. As it turns out though, “settlement arrangement” isn’t some sort of arbitrary term that has been plucked out of the air, it is a recognised part of arbitration procedure. Indeed, ACAS has produced guidelines on settlement agreements which may have some relevance to this case – parts that took my eye include;

“They usually include some form of payment to the employee…”

“They are voluntary.”

and

“Where the employer and employee are unable to reach an agreement, the settlement discussions cannot usually be referred to as evidence in any subsequent unfair dismissal claim. Where the settlement discussions are held to resolve an existing dispute between the parties they cannot be used as evidence in any type of claim.”

Perhaps someone better qualified than me can confirm or deny whether that last bit means that once the parties decided to go down the settlement agreement route, the issues at the heart of their dispute were never going to form part of any subsequent hearing?

Trying to read between the lines, it seems to me that one party received legal advice that they stood very little chance of winning their claim on the evidence to hand and the other insisted on certain conditions being included before they would put their name to the legal document which would signal an end to the dispute. Under these terms, the employee(s) would, almost certainly, have to settle for less compensation (or possibly none at all).

Does this all mean that Mackay and Moody did overspend on the agreed transfer budget? No, I don’t think it’s conclusive proof that they did, but, as I mentioned before, it now seems to me to be reasonable to believe that the Tan version of events (£15 million overspend) is more likely to be correct than the Mackay/Moody one (£4 million underspend).

However, something else that was mentioned at the height of the dispute last autumn was that the club had signed off on all of the transfers which had resulted in the alleged overspend. I have said before on here that I struggle to understand how the club’s administrative staff could have agreed to the Theophile-Catherine and Odemwingie transfers at the end of August/early September having already given the okay to the controversial Cornelius transfer and the huge, by Cardiff standards, Caulker and Medel deals that followed it – a good proportion of the overspend could have been avoided if someone had realised that transfer spending was already over the budget set by the club.

If, as yesterday’s news would suggest, Mackay and Moody messed up, then this doesn’t alter the fact that others did in the episode as well – the more you learn about Cardiff City during 2013/14, the more you struggle to find anyone who carried out their duties to a satisfactory level.

 

 

 

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Posted in Up in the Boardroom | Tagged , , | 6 Comments