I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of something I’m missing, but, in a week dominated by the build up to the Wales v Belgium match, there’s been very little City info to report, so this review is going to be shorter than normal.
First, after all of the speculation about who we are about to sign and who is going to leave, there was an actual City related transfer this week as goalkeeper Charlie Horton signed for Leeds (pretty sure there wouldn’t have been a fee involved).
This piece covers the move from the Leeds angle, while also confirming that coach Richard Hartis has made the same move north as USA Under 23 international Horton. From City’s perspective, it appears that Ben Wilson, who was a regular for the Under 21s in the the second half of the season, was favoured as the young goalkeeper most likely to break into the first team squad and so, with Horton being too old to play youth football, there was nowhere where he was going to get games for us in the current set up.
Apart from that, it’s just more transfer speculation I’m afraid with reports concerning one player possibly coming in and another maybe leaving. Starting with the possible departure, reports from the Midlands were suggesting, that having had an initial bid for Joe Mason knocked back by City, Wolves were ready to come in with a second offer – South Wales based media caught up with the story while also adding that it was understood that the first Wolves bid was someway below the initially reported £1.5 million.
Derby’s Johnny Russelll, the latest in a long line of players to be linked with City in the last few weeks. Like many who play on the wing, he strikes me as being a bit hit and miss, but, overall, I’d say that he’s one of the more exciting potential, and realistic, targets we’ve been said to be interested in so far this summer.
A possible replacement in the event of Mason going (I hope he doesn’t) would be Derby’s Johnny Russell if the story which emerged a few days ago is to be believed. Scottish international Russell can play on either wing and, occasionally, he’s been used as a central striker. He scored eight times for the Rams last year in a campaign which ended with some City fans accusing them of “doing a Cardiff” as a widely predicted automatic promotion turned into an eighth placed finish on the back of a run of just two wins in their last thirteen games.
On the face of it, Russell, a regular selection in the Derby first team, seems an unlikely candidate to be sold by the Midland club, but with Paul Clement newly arrived as a Head Coach who might want to shake things up a bit at the club, a possible need to balance the books after the signing of ex England striker Darren Bent and Reading’s Alex Pearce last week and their desire to turn Tom Ince’s loan move from Hull into a permanent deal, it may be that Russell could be allowed to leave a club for whom he has made almost ninety appearances in all competitions since signing from Dundee United a couple of years ago.
Finally, a couple of other things to quickly mention. First, congratulations to Aron Gunnarsson for his very important goal in Iceland’s 2-1 win over the Czech Republic which takes them to the top of their Euro 2016 qualification group and, second, the fixtures for the 2015/16 Championship should be announced next week – after having away games on the opening day and closing day and no home Boxing Day or New Year fixtures, I can remember thinking that the 14/15 programme looked as dull on paper as it turned out to be in reality, let’s hope for an improvement on both fronts in 15/16.
It looks bleak at the moment fans are at fault protesting every match got people down tans teaching them a lesson that’s why won’t be renewing
It looks bleak at the moment fans are at fault protesting every match got people down tans teaching them a lesson that’s why won’t be renewing
Plus we need top players and manager not a lapdog
Hello John and thanks for getting in touch. My own view on fan protests is that, apart from the 19.27 waving of scarves (which had a lot fewer people doing it by the end of the season), there was little in the way of dissent as the season ended – if I were Vincent Tan and I was still serious about getting the club promoted, I would be more worried about the amount of apathy among Cardiff fans (even those who still turning up for matches).
I tend to agree with you about our manager. Perhaps I’ve got it wrong, but, right from day one, my suspicion has been that he was appointed as much for his acceptance of our owner’s vision as to how the club should be run as he was for what he was likely to achieve in terms of the team’s results.
Just an observation Paul, re your last sentence of your response to John S. Prosser.
I respectfully submit that ANY manager ANYWHERE who did not accept his owner’s vision, is …well…(how can I put it…)
…in the WRONG JOB!!!
You know all too well Paul that I am not a paid-up member of the Russell Slade Fan Club.
But it really is time we cut this guy some slack, and all stopped sniping at him.
Trust me…chaps like that most prolific of all the inane posters on WalesOnline – aj the Bluebird – with his advanced case of Tourettes and his never-ending cry of “Coco out!”…will eventually pollute the very fibre of the club with his ineffably boring negativity.
Look, far be it for me to become Russell’s PR man in my old age, but I have to say “Just look at Orient!”.
A fluke goal by Alex Revell deny them the promotion…that their football throughout the season had absolutely merited. Then Barry Hearn – a chap who despises lapdogs and recognises a good bloke – sells up, and the Italians sack RS …to a cacophony of fans’ protests.
And then without RS …the team go into freefall and are relegated.
I say this, in all sincerity, to our new contributor John: we should all be careful what we wish for.
Life has a curious way of granting things in reverse.
Kindest,
Dai.
I can’t give you a full reply Dai because I’m going out for the day in a minute, but I stick by what I said. I think having someone he can control as manager was as important, if not more so, than having someone who could get us promoted to Vincent Tan when he appointed Russell Slade. I’m not in the Slade out camp currently because he has achieved fair to middling results so far (although it has to be said that I think there are men who have been sacked by Championship clubs in recent weeks who were less deserving of dismissal than Slade is), but I’ve not been impressed so far.
What Russell Slade has done so far is show me that, having thought I was a results are everything type of supporter of my club, I want to be entertained as well – I only came to realise this because of the truly turgid fare Slade’s team was serving up through the middle third of the season. There are other reasons why I’m not enamored with our manager which I haven’t got time to go into now, suffice it to say that while I think he should have the chance to start the new season with a team which can truly be called his own, it won’t take long for me to join that Slade out camp if all we are getting is more of the same from him.