Well, after weeks of waiting for something worthwhile to say in these pieces, this was the one where things finally came to life with a couple of games played and a transfer story which it seems will end in disappointment for City, but with a background which suggests that they are going to be anything but the Championship bargain basement shoppers as I was expecting them to be.
Starting with the matches, the first one was against Danish side FC Midtjylland seven days ago at Cardiff City Stadium where a fair sized crowd turned up to watch a game with a kick off time of 12.30 which was played in searing temperatures. The conditions were such that you’d have been forgiven for thinking it would be a slow paced, fairly gentle , encounter which would probably have ended up as a low scoring draw or a 1-0 win to either side – instead, it was a massacre!
Argentina take on Spain tomorrow night in the Final of a generally enjoyable World Cup competition that has largely endorsed the age old thesis that the very best footballers tend to be of below average height. In saying that, increasingly, managers and coaches seem to be favouring height at a time when, more than any time in my life, the ball is played on the floor!
That’s not to say that the old thinking (certainly from me!) that footballers well over six feet tall tended to be sadly lacking in technique and movement still applies. FC Midtjylland were a very modern team full of giants who dominated City physically, but also were well ahead of them when it came to skill and style. Throw in the fact that the visitors were far further along their pre season path than we were (they had imminent qualifying games for the Europa League coming up) and the final score of City 0 Midtjylland 6 begins to make more sense.
City were missing Nathan Trott, Dylan Lawlor and Rubin Colwill, who you would expect to all feature in our strongest team, while Eli King has been absent as he comes back from the ACL injury he suffered just over a year ago. Nevertheless, it was a sobering and concerning start to the season with the worst thing for me being that Midtjylland didn’t have to work that hard to score half of their goals as they were the recipients of absolute gifts from the home side.
BBM claimed he was pleased to have faced such challenging opponents in our first game because it brought home how much work was needed from his team before the league season starts four weeks today. Our manager would have to say that though wouldn’t he and, to a degree, I can see where he’s coming from.
However, I come back to what I felt as I watched the game and found myself wondering “who benefits from a game like this?”. I may be wrong, but I can’t help thinking that Midtjylland would have been hoping for more testing opposition from a team that will be competing in the Championship in the coming season and, as for us, we just looked way, way off it. Probably, the best way to react to the heavy defeat is to say that I hope and expect to see a much more competitive and coordinated City in their final warm up game on 1 August against an AS Roma side which should present a stiffer test than Midtjylland.
The older Colwill was available for Tuesday’s game with Cork City which was the only match to be played during the training week which was based in the area around BBM’s birthplace and City were able to gain a 6-1 win which would have gone some way towards reassuring fans – although I would say that I’d be surprised if we were up against a full strength Cork side given they’re right in the middle of their domestic season.
Just as on Saturday, City gave two separate teams a half each and, in the first half it was all fairly tight as, despite being well in charge in terms of possession and field possession, we struggled to create chances against a home team which forced Harry Tyrer into a couple of urgent saves.
Callum Robinson, who had shot against a post a few minutes earlier, got the goal which gave us a narrow half time lead as he lost his marker to head in David Turnbull’s well flighted free kick. However, after another very sloppy goal had brought the home side level, the second half turned out to be one way traffic as City rammed in the goals with Cork looking like they had completely run out of steam.
Isaak Davies soon restored City’s lead with what I’d call a typical finish and then the very impressive Rob Tankiewicz volleyed home an Ollie Tanner cross from close range. Davies tapped in a fourth after Yousef Salech’s shot fell into his path and Tankiewicz then scored perhaps our best goal of the night when he ran from half way to kickstart a move which ended with him smoothly controlling a Joel Bagan pass and then placing his shot into the corner from ten yards. The final goal was scored by Salech with a simple finish after his header had been kept out by the keeper.
Surprisingly, it’s now ten days until our next scheduled game, at Forest Green, but the aforementioned Eli King did say something about a game against Crawley during his stint as a co commentator at Tuesday’s match, so it does look as if we may have a further game, almost certainly behind closed doors, lined up.
The news that attracted most attention though was that we’d finally made a move in the transfer market with a bid of around £5.5 million for Norwegian midfielder Jens Hjerto Dahl which was turned down by his club Tromso.
Like I would guess the vast majority of City fans, I knew nothing about Hjerto Dahl until this week. However, it didn’t take too long into this video for me to become convinced that this was a signing we had to make if it was at all possible.
The video also made it understandable as to why City’s bid was something like £2 million short of Tromso’s valuation, but with reports stating that negotiations between the clubs were continuing, it was clear we were deadly serious in our pursuit of the player.
Of course, there was bound to be interest from elsewhere and Rangers and Turkish side Besiktas had been linked with the former having made a bid which was a little lower than City’s. Hjerto Dahl had spoken of his preference for Rangers over Besiktas, but, with the Ibrox club having already signed Cammy Devlin and, reportedly, paying in the region of £4 million for another number six from Serbian football, it seemed a bit like overkill for a club that have certainly had their financial problems in the past to go chasing after Hjerto Dahl, who is playing as a number 8 for Tromso, but is said to favoured a deeper role.
Hjerto Dahl would be one of fifteen midfielders on Rangers’ books if he signed for them, so reports which emerged yesterday saying their interest in the player was cooling did not seem too surprising. Consequently, optimistic City fans were hoping we may have a chance of pulling off what was looking like a real statement signing.
Unfortunately, that changed last night with a Twitter post by one of those transfer rumour sites saying that Hjerto Dahl was favouring Rangers over us and Celtic who had both made more “inticing (sic)” offers to him.
Apart from this one post on social media, there had been no mention of Celtic being after Hjerto Dahl and I must say that, unless he’s always been a Rangers fan, It’s hard to see why he’d favour a team which was going to pay him less and had generally been less successful in recent years than Celtic (who could also offer Champions League football) – it needs to be said mind that, as was pointed out by some in their replies to the post, it’s hard to see the traditionally tight fisted Celtic paying more in wages than Rangers!
As for us, European football is a big draw, as is the prospect of playing in front of some of the bigger home crowds in the UK, but I’d definitely say that shining every week in the Championship would increase your profile more than shining every week in the SPL and I would argue that playing regularly in English football’s second tier would be better for any player’s development than doing the same in Scotland’s first tier.
Nevertheless, I can fully understand why any ambitious footballer would choose either one of the Old Firm clubs over us. When. we were in the Premier League, I thought we had a chance of getting players they were after, but there aren’t many teams in the modern day Championship which could have realistic thoughts of doing that.
Of course, it’s just one report and it might be rubbish. I’ve finally got around to getting Chat GPT installed and so, being the nerd I am, I asked about the reliability of the author of the Twitter post. The AI rated him at three out of five as a transfer pundit with his plus points being how quickly he reacts to stories after someone else has broken them in the national press. As for his own exclusives, the advice was to treat some of them “cautiously”.
So, I’d say it’s a little too early yet to put our interest in Jens Hjerto Dahl to bed, but, hand on heart, I think the story is probably right and, if it isn’t, the likelihood is that someone else will gazump us just as we think a deal is going through.
In a way, the pursuit of Hjerto Dahl reminds of the last time we got promoted to the second tier nearly twenty five years ago when we were trying to bring in players like Fitz Hall and Rob Hulse to name but two who both favoured more “established” clubs over us.
It’s still encouraging though to see BBM being backed to this degree by Vincent Tan and the Board,. Waking up this morning though to see someone online resurrecting the Lawlor to West Ham rumour from early in the summer is a reminder that we’ll probably have to sell one or more of our brightest talents if we are going to be shopping in the £5 million range of player while staying within the EFL’s financial rules.
Finally, the under 21s have also played two warm up games in the past week with a 1-1 home draw with Poole Town (Troy Perrett got the goal) being followed up by a midweek 2-0 win at Bath thanks to goals by Hayden Allmark and Mannie Barton (pen).
