Solskjær era starts with a great win…………

4 Responses to Solskjær era starts with a great win…………

1. Dai Woosnam says:

   January 5, 2014 at 6:56 pm

   Good thoughtful piece as usual, Paul. Much thanks for it.
   I am delighted with OGS.
   Just as Malky was a huge improvement on DJ, so OGS will be on Malky, at least on the PITCH.
   (It is fair to say that Cardiff will always owe Malky a huge debt for the fantastic work he did at grass roots level and visiting the fan base up and down the Valleys. And the fact that Malky honoured the office staff and the unsung. That side of Malky will never be beaten. But his lack of football tactical nous was his undoing.)
   In OGS one can see a dramatic contrast in football philosophy. MM was a defender who judged a game by whether his defence kept a clean sheet: OGS a virtuoso attacker who demanded goals.
   Now of course, it is a given that BOTH qualities need to be deep in the psyche of the very best managers: alas Malky had had his attacking genes amputated at birth. Norwich fans who regard Hughton as “too negative” and want MM to replace him, have no idea what awaits them. He may have been a player who won their hearts: but he will be a manager who will send them to sleep.
   So HUGE congrats to Vincent and Mehmet for recruiting the manager of my dreams. That opening press conference could not have gone better, could it? Perhaps in an ideal world, OGS would have proudly worn a red shirt, and put this tired shirt debate to bed once and for all. It is about time some Cardiff fans grew up! Behave like Leeds fans did when losing their beloved yellow/blue shirts and socks: they accepted it, and in all white became a vastly more successful team!

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/scousemojo/4111327083/
   Few Leeds fans would vote for a return to yellow/blue now.
   Next season I would like City’s away strip not to be commonplace blue, but a very classy and distinctive chocolate and amber quarters.
   Here the two of us are pictured in Fairwater just last July:

   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By4Td4Xt3_09aG1vV0R4YjlFc2M/edit?usp=sharing
   A final word on Odemwingie. I recently called him “damaged goods”. That sounds very pejorative and thus DEMANDS that I should explain myself. Let me try.
   Six months ago Paul, you wrote me an email with a link to a West Brom fan’s blog. You specifically flagged-up this beautifully written piece:

   http://coachdaveblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/farewell-peter-odemwingie.html
   Anyone reading that can see that Peter is a top man. A real good egg. So I was casting ZERO aspersions on his CHARACTER per se.
   But what I WAS saying is that EVENTS change people. Look on YouTube at early B&W interviews with the young DJ when he was at Stockport. Clearly a nice guy. Nowhere near the surly and paranoid character that he became. I contend that the totally unjustified criminal case against him circa 2000, screwed him up, psychologically-speaking. And made him “damaged goods”.
   Likewise, the way Peter brought the opprobrium – nay, UNPRECEDENTED scorn – of the whole football establishment on him, with that ill-judged drive to Loftus Road, is something that he cannot just brush-off, like fluff on one’s jacket. I contend that it looks like it has damaged him in some way.
   Let me fervently add that I hope to be proved 100% wrong, by Peter and the greatest managerial appointment of my lifetime. (Yes, better even that Bill Jones from Worcester City who destroyed his great work by refusing to pay the truly great Danny Malloy*, £10 more a week. By refusing him that, he doomed City to relegation. Amazing to think, is it not, that had he paid him an extra tenner a week, City could have been a top tier team still, for the last HALF CENTURY !! (And that really is NOT such a stretch! If Everton could stay there for the last half century, why not Cardiff City?)
   I will leave you Paul, with that mind-boggling thought!
   Hope your health is still on the mend.
   Kindest,
   Dai.
   daigress@hotmail.com
   * One of 4 Cardiff players touched with greatness in my lifetime. The others are John Charles, Ivor Allchurch and Graham Moore.
2. The other Bob Wilson says:

   January 6, 2014 at 9:50 am

   Morning Dai. I don’t see the desire for a return to blue disappearing any time soon. Agree with you about a chocolate and amber change strip for next season and the home kit could be the one we wore for the one hundred and four years after the nine we wore the quartered kit for!

   I’m not knocking Solskjær here (on the contrary, I think he’s a good appointment and it’s certainly a better one than I feared we’d see), but I need a bit more evidence of our transformation into a side where the gameplan is all out attack than a single cup match where no one wanted a replay. Most of the sides we face in the league are better than us, so, even if the desire is there to go hell for leather into attack, there are often going to be times when our opponents won’t allow us to do that – I’ve mentioned before as well that the huge sums of money at stake for sides in a relegation battle hardly encourage an attacking approach.

   I tend to agree with you on Odemwingie and I think you may well be right about Dave Jones who I’ve always tried to show a bit of sympathy towards because of what he had to go through – he does make it very hard to feel that way about him though!

   What you say about Danny Malloy and Bill Jones is before my time, so I cannot comment too much except to say that the club’s unceasing capacity to cock things up makes me very dubious of your claim that they could have spent 50 years in the top flight – a combination of Boardroom ineptitude and a fickle fan base would have resulted in at least one relegation somewhere along the line.

   Again, I’m too young to comment on the four players you mentioned as far as their performances for Cardiff City are concerned, but “touched with greatness” is an interesting term. I’d say John Charles and Ivor Allchurch definitely qualify under the way I would use that term, not so sure about Graham Moore though. The young Robbie Fowler was someone who was “touched with greatness”, but he was a waste of space, and money, by the time he came to Cardiff, while I’d say that having watched Aaron Ramsey’s performances for Wales Under 21’s against England, the football he was playing just before his injury and some of the stuff he was producing in the first four months of this season, that the description applies more to him than Graham Moore and, probably, Danny Malloy.

   Thanks for asking after my health – I’m fine now as far as my heart condition is concerned, but the diet I’ve started today is very much required!

   Regards.

   Paul
3. Dai Woosnam says:

   January 6, 2014 at 3:29 pm

   Thanks for your comments Paul.
   Loved your clever joke after agreeing on the away kit, socking it me with your choice of home kit!
   I too hope that the matter can be resolved. How good we looked GREAT in white shorts at Newcastle. I think I prefer red and white to red/black …but then, they will have to buy a whole new set of club ties if the club made THAT change!
   Apologies for my otiose parentheses (sorry, parenthesis) in my final para in my previous posting. I enter hospital tomorrow to have my parentheses, exclamation marks and block caps painlessly removed!
   Re the City players “touched with greatness”: my criterion was that it be in a City shirt. And that they showed this greatness several times over a full season of home games…and not just over 90 minutes.
   Thus Greg Farrell could not be called great, even though he produced the best 90 minutes I EVER witnessed from a man wearing a No 7 shirt in any game ANYWHERE, in that vital and amazing game against Middlesbrough in May 1966.
   This was followed of course by the worst capitulation in modern CCFC history at Deepdale: that 9-0 non-performance made the current England Ashes team seem like battle-hardened veterans!
   I could not include Alf Sherwood, who people older than me were convinced was the best left back in these islands for a full eight years from 45-53, because I never saw him play a full season.
   However I saw EVERY home game (including friendlies, Welsh Cup ties etc) Danny Malloy ever played, and I have no hesitation in saying that he was magnificent.
   I can only recall three centre forwards troubling him. Brian Clough of course was a tremendous player, and I would say that their clashes ended up in honours shared. However Danny shaded it against the dangerous Ray Pointer and also against the hugely underrated Orient striker, the late Tommy Johnston, who was such a favourite at Brisbane Road that they have named a stand after him.
   At the end of his career I saw Johnston playing for Folkstone against Barry at Jenner Park. Some player. He was twice the age of some of the players, but was still comfortably the best player on the field.
   I did think hard about Aaron Ramsey, but of course his greatness has not been in a City shirt. Likewise Fowler, who was a SENSATION as a young player in Liverpool red. The young John Toshack and the late Gerry Hitchens got very close: their performances owing so much to their striking partners Brian Clark and Trevor Ford.
   Ivor Allchurch of course, was the most stylish of players. Exquisite passing ability and ball control. Surprisingly fast over 20 yards. Great shot with either foot, and also not bad in the air.
   Any faults? Well, Mourinho would not have liked him: he did not tackle back enough.
   As for John Charles: forget the “touched with” bit. Simply the GREATEST (and not just because he once gave me two gratis grandstand tickets at Huddersfield). John was 32 when he came to City. (I still cringe at DJ saying the Fowler was the greatest signing in the club’s history! Oh how little he knew! Robbie was finished by the time he came to Cardiff: at the exact same age, John Charles was still a colossus)
   The one forgotten man in the CCFC history books is Graham Moore. Trust me, in season 1959-60 he was man of the match virtually every home game. He was a deep lying centre forward blessed with great power, fabulous aerial strength, dynamite shooting and a wonderful vision that could see a pass to a fellow striker that others could not see.
   Not for nothing did Tommy Docherty buy him for Chelsea to replace the great Jimmy Greaves.
   And then recall who bought him off the Doc !! Only a certain Matt Busby who wanted him in a forward line with Law and Charlton!
   Ah, happy days!
4. The other Bob Wilson says:

   January 7, 2014 at 7:31 am

   Some great memories there Dai.

   I was at the Farrell match, but I was only ten and my memories of it are not that strong – my main recollection is of my amazement when Middlesbrough’s centre half (Dickie Rooks) completed his hat trick.

   On the other hand, I can remember my father’s reaction when he first heard news of the 9-0 defeat at Preston three days later – it was the first of what were very, very few occasions when I heard him use the word “f**k”!

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