The local media’s desperation to try and keep the feelgood factor going following our promotion knows no bounds as the stories they carry tend be outlandish rumours or finding a different way to say precisely what they reported last week.
However, tucked away among the inane speculation and non stories, there was one last week which I feel was fairly close to the truth about what will be happening at Cardiff City in the next couple of months or so.
Rightly or wrongly, this piece has an air of authenticity to me. However, what is not clear is the degree to which “The Cardiff boss wants five or six players to supplement his current squad and is set to once again utilise the loan and free transfer market.” applies. “Utilise” means use to me, so if it’s meant to say there will be a mixture of loans, free transfers and players that will cost a fee, then that’s fair enough to me.
However, I tend to agree with this comment in reply to the article;-
“The championship play off final to get to the Premiership was billed as the £170 million pound game. We were already there, so why is WOL continually suggesting that Cardiff will be shopping at ‘Pound Savers’ looking for freebies, past sell by dates and loan signings?”.
Burnley were often quoted as the template that City would wish to follow if they were promoted and since their survival was clinched by drawing at Man City and Chelsea in the last week of the Premier League season, Huddersfield have also been mentioned as an example by which Premier League survival can be achieved for City in 18/19.
The thing is though, that neither of these teams owe their continued presence in the Premier League to their ability to “utilise the loan and free transfer market.”. Burnley have tended to buy from British clubs, but, rather than shopping in the players with Premier League experience market which it’s reported is Neil Warnock’s preference, they have tended to look to the Football League for the players who have kept them in the top flight for the last couple of seasons – this is an expensive market compared to many, but, if the plan is to pay transfer fees for these players with Premier League experience, we will be shopping in the most expensive market there is.
Like Burnley, Huddersfield’s domestic signings have tended to come from the Championship, but their results have been mixed as far as that goes I reckon – for me, it was Huddersfield’s transfer business on players based in mainland Europe that played the bigger part in keeping them up.
As a rule, I don’t think you can place great credence on online sources that quote what a player’s salary is, but I would say that the £3.12 million per annum (around 60 grand a week) I’ve seen quoted for West Brom’s Salomon Ronda (a player to whom we were linked a lot in the fortnight following our promotion) sounds about right.
I’m pleased to see that article saying that Rondon “could be out of reach because of budget restraints.” if that applies to wages. Once again, with the proviso that we cannot be certain about online figures, Burnley having their seven best paid players at the club all on 35k a week, as I saw in a messageboard which, obviously, involved a lot of research, seems the sort of model we should follow when it comes to wages.
However, if the thinking is that the supposed £18 million asking price for the Venezuelan international is beyond us, then I would say that is a reasonable price to pay for someone of his talent in the current market. Certainly, a club looking to sign experienced Premier League players still good enough to perform week in, week out in the top flight should expect to be quoted asking prices like that one,
Turning to the loan market, we were strongly linked yesterday with another move for Marko Grujic (who was selected in the Serbian World Cup squad this week). This seems to be a possible move that would not cause the club financial problems – more likely, I’d say that, with only two loan players allowed at the same time and a maximum of four in a season in the Premier League, the question might be, would we like to see one of them taken up by a player who ended the Championship season out of our team and had to be subbed after coming off the bench in his last appearance, seemingly because his manager feared he was going to be sent off? Grujic also doesn’t fill the Premier League experience criteria, but I’d grade this rumour as one that could well happen when compared to most we have seen so far.
Similarly, having talked Robert Snodgrass up in a radio interview recently, I think there is every chance that he is someone who Neil Warnock would like to sign. The Scotland winger cum playmaker was a success in the Championship this season as he contributed eight goals and thirteen assists to Aston Villa’s failed promotion bid during his loan spell with them and I’d say a contribution like that could, largely, be carried into the top flight by someone who has that Premier League experience which we, seemingly, want.
A fee of £12 million (a bit rich this from West Ham when you consider that they signed him for £10 million and he’s not really pulled up any trees at the East London club) has been mentioned in terms of a permanent signing, but Snodgrass is another who is reported to be on £60k a week (again a figure which seems about right to me) and so, I’d like to think that it would have to be a loan move, with West Ham paying around half of his wages, for this one to come off – if that could be arranged then I’d say this one, like Grujic, could be a deal that we’d do.
Just to say on the International front that Aron Gunnarsson was an unused sub in Iceland’s 3-2 home defeat by Norway last night and that Kenneth Zohore did not even make the bench for Denmark in their goalless draw in Sweden, so it would seem that his hopes of making it to the World Cup are negligible now.
Another very thoughtful and well constructed article, Paul
I think Snodgrass would be an excellent acquisition. John Toshack found with Swansea that older players (admittedly his former Liverpool colleagues in the twilight of their careers) could genuinely make the difference.
And remember, a I think I mentioned some time ago, there are plenty of bargains at Poundsavers.
Cheers again Paul for the latest update.
It does seem to me that established premiership players not only come with high fees but prohibitive salaries as well. I can’t see Cardiff being able to compete in that market.
What worries me is we only have to look at our near neighbours down West as an example of how not to run a premiership club. After seven seasons they haven’t got a lot to piss in and are lumbered with the likes of Bony and the older Ayew apparently earning 100k a week each and both on long contracts. We also have recent experience of buying the likes of Odemwingie and Kenwyn Jones again high earners and dare I say it like the Jacks duo both past their sell by date. Buying so called established premiership players guarantees nothing apart from substantial debt.
Moving on to the examples of Snodgrass and Rondon, both were good players in their prime but are now on a downward slope. Snodgrass has lost a yard of pace and Rondon is not as prolific as he once was. Tan is not going to sanction their wages and transfer fees.
Follow the Burnley model sign hungry up and coming players with a point to prove. It served us well last season, Etheridge, NML and Paterson were bargains who must be worth a fair amount now. There a bargains still to be had a cheeky bid for Nick Powell and Paddy McNair are just two examples.
Thanks Paul, as ever.
Nice to hear AMO sing the praises of Poundsavers. Let me tell you a story about them.
Here in Grimsby, they recently closed down their two stores, and chose to move into the mighty space vacated by BHS, when that spiv ran the BHS chain into bankruptcy. I was in there, just yesterday. And here’s the thing…
They are selling lots of items considerably dearer than I could get them in market stalls and indie bargain stores. So even in Poundsavers, you can get stitched up.
Indeed, I don’t know what a trick cyclist would make of this, but for a few years, after their branch in Grimsby closed, I would drive 50 miles to Donny* in my very thirsty Jag (yes…don’t say it…!!), just to visit my favourite chain of “el cheapo” shops “the 99p stores”…
No it wasn’t the penny folks, honest. It was the much better range. And quality fresh and frozen food, such as really good packs of back bacon for 99p.
Alas, the whole chain went the way of all flesh eventually…people (presumably) reckoned that they were being ripped off at 99p for many items that should have retailed for 69p.
So AMO dear boy…we can be stitched up there in “El Cheapo” land, too. Do you remember that centre forward from the League of Ireland we bought for £100K the best part of two decades back (was he called something Byrne?)…well we paid about TEN times too much for him. £10K would have been a fair price for someone who was not even HALF the player that Jordan Hugill is…and Hugill cost PNE just £25K from Port Vale…(what a bargain!)
And in more modern times…we paid the £700K still owing Grimsby when we got Omar Bogle from Wigan. People I know here in Grimsby are still ROTFL…(at the thought of him fetching a million quid).
As for Gary Madine and his astonishing £5 million…OMG. Please Sir Vincent, let him be the dearest player we buy for at least a year. If we survive relegation next season, then maybe we can look to emulating such purchases…but not before.
I suggest the City board take on our esteemed newish MAYAn colleague, Jeff Blight. He talks such sound sense. I especially like his take on the estimable Robert Snodgrass.
Look, I yield to nobody in my admiration for Snodgrass. I have loved his talent, and especially his Whittinghamesque free kicks. And his ability to get stuck in, when his team is under the cosh. I also like his singularly “non footballer” looks – he seems to have the look of a fruit & veg manager in Asda – but most of all …
…I love his …
…NAME…!!
I have often wanted to change my name ever since my third cousin once removed** started being called by Peter Alliss this strange Fu Manchu name…to rhyme with Mr Wu the Chinese laundryman of George Formby fame.
If ever I meet Alliss, I shall call him Ellis…see how he likes it. I’ll tel him to rhyme my name with wood…or couscous. I am not a Chinaman…although I have nothing against the Chinese…a talented race.
But hey if I could only choose a new surname, I would take “Snodgrass” in a heartbeat. It is a brilliant name. It is redolent of kitchen sink writers of the 1950s, and Privates First Class who went over the top in WW1 and won the VC for their heroism.
But hey …enough of my musing…back to football…
Paul, you mention Grujic…
If Fulham have got any sense, they should go for Grujic. Here’s for why…
Their Serbian Svengali will really get a song out of him, in the way we haven’t really. Yes, we can clearly see the boy has good athleticism and a fine football brain: but to me, he has a tendency to give away silly free kicks by pulling back opponents, and I question (perhaps wrongly) just how much he wants to roll up his sleeves to battle for City in the trenches. In other words, to me, he is the quintessential antithesis of an Aron Gunnarsson.
Am I saying that this player may not become a leading member of the Serbian and Liverpool team for years to come…? No, I am not saying that, at all.
I am just pointing out that Slavisa Jokanovic could make this boy purr, and sort out his indiscipline, in the same way that he sorted out the much greater hernia in the head of Aleksandar Mitrovic, and really transformed him as a player.
But should Cardiff keep him on loan, if offered by Liverpool? Yes, for sure. But that said, I would love the boy Harry Wilson from them, even more.
*”Doncaster”, to those of you, non local.
** my great grandfather and his great-great grandfather was the same person.
Thanks Paul for your thoughtful summary.
I think the last thing any of us want is a repeat of the kind of mistakes made after our last promotion in 2013 but I too felt somewhat apprehensive after reading the loan-market and free- transfer quote. ‘From one extreme to the other’ was a phrase I think you yourself used Paul and that’s how it seemed to me. The fear we have I suppose is that Vincent Tan will use our promotion as nothing more than an unexpected financial windfall to clear the debts owed to him while a bargain-basement premier league squad are left like lambs to the slaughter on a weekly basis.
On reflection though I’m not so convinced that really is the case. Firstly, Warnock himself has apparently agreed to whatever budget we have and I think he too will want to be given at least a fighting chance of proving the critics who say he can’t manage in the top flight wrong. Secondly, part of Neil Warnock’s ‘modus operandi’ is to emphasise a rhetoric of being the hard up underdog and I’m quite sure he will be delighted if the impression of us being cash-strapped by premier league standards was to become ‘perceived wisdom’. Thirdly, I don’t think the signing of Madine as recently as January were the actions of a manager not being given adequate financial backing when he felt it was needed and I don’t think Warnock is naive enough to not have a fairly good idea as to what is needed to make a fist of it next season. I hope his signings are a tad more successful than Gary Madine has proved so far though.
Richard, as always, makes very pertinent points.
I would say this however regarding our Malaysian owner…
Last time, a fortune was frittered away. Caulker looked magnificent, and was a fine athletic specimen. But not a centre back and not a leader of men…as his subsquent career has proved.
The Chilean boy was pretty good, and had good distribution, good tackling skills and great positional sense. But his lack of height and his long trips to South America for internationals did not help. I believe we got most of his transfer fee back…so we dodged a bullet (ofsorts) there.
The Great Dane did not hit the ground WALKING…let alone running. And the money lost on him was extraordinary.
The Nigerian boy Odemwingie should have been avoided like the plague after his antics in making that crazy “deadline eve” drive to Loftus Road. And what happened to the excellent John Brayford, was a disgrace.
But in Neil Warnock we have a manager who will not attempt to shaft his owner. And what is more he won’t begrudge the saviour of Cardiff City making sure that for once, huge sums of money are not going one way (from Malaysia to Cardiff) but instead, we will be seeing a few bob go the other way.
Mr Tan deserves his day in the sun. What a wonderful man.
Would you swop him for the owners at The Liberty?
Not blooming likely.
Thank you all for your replies, I’ve got to say though that, unusually, I find myself in disagreement with most of you. Richard seems closest to how I see the situation – like him, I think we will, in some cases, be spending transfer fees on players (he makes the excellent point that Vincent Tan was prepared for the club to spend more than most of us would have expected last January with the signing of Gary Madine). No, I believe Mr Tan will be prepared so spend fairly modest amounts on transfer fees, by current Premier League standards.
That last bit is the important thing for me, “Premier League standards” when applied to transfer fees have risen far more dramatically than any allowance for inflation in the five years since we last found ourselves in this position. I say again that, if the reported criteria of looking for players with proven Premier League experience is accurate, then, unless we are talking about players in their mid to late thirties, I’d say we are talking about eight figure transfer fees.
Furthermore, while Neil Warnock has proven himself to be adept at, to quote Anthony, looking for bargains in poundsavers when it comes to getting a side promoted from, or staying up in, the Championship, it becomes more problematic when the object of the exercise is to stay in the Premier League – to be fair, Neil Warnock can claim, with a lot of justification, that he has never really had a fair crack of the whip at the higher level for all sorts of reasons, but the fact is that there is no reason out there that I can see why City would, firstly, spot a player that would prove to be of Premier League standard that the other nineteen clubs would all miss, or, if we were in competition for that player with other top flight clubs, what would persuade him to come here when, in all likelihood, all of those competing with us for his signature would be able to pay him more than we could.
Frankly, if we stick to the range of spending mentioned by Dai (not paying more than we paid for Madine), we are going down. Based on what I’ve seen so far of Madine, Bolton saw us coming, but if he had stayed with them and played to the level he did with us for the rest of the season, we would be being quoted something like, say, £8 or 9 million for him now if we went in for him following the winning of our TV rights money.
Going back to Burnley, there was a post on the City messageboard I use yesterday breaking down their spending in the two seasons since they returned to the Premier League. Of course, just like wages, using on line sources for transfer fees can be a problem, but I’m sure the poster won’t mind me copying what he had to say on to here;-
“Johann Berg Gudmundsson Charlton Undisc. 19 Jul, 2016
Nick Pope Charlton Undisc. 19 Jul, 2016
Jimmy Dunne Man Utd Undisc. 24 Jul, 2016
Steven Defour Anderlecht £8,000,000 16 Aug, 2016
Jeff Hendrick Derby £10,500,000 31 Aug, 2016
Joey Barton Rangers Unknown 02 Jan, 2017
Robbie Brady Norwich £13,000,000 31 Jan, 2017
Ashley R Westwood Aston Villa Undisc. 31 Jan, 2017
Charlie Taylor Leeds Undisc. 06 Jul, 2017
Jonathan Walters Stoke £3,000,000 07 Jul, 2017
Jack Cork Swansea £10,000,000 11 Jul, 2017
Phil Bardsley Stoke Undisc. 25 Jul, 2017
Adam Legzdins Birmingham Undisc. 07 Aug, 2017
Chris Wood Leeds £15,000,000 21 Aug, 2017
Nahki Wells Huddersfield £5,000,000 31 Aug, 2017
Aaron Lennon Everton Undisc. 23 Jan, 2018”
The first thing to say is that, by and large, this backs up my feeling that they’ve tended to look towards the Football League for their signings and, yet, I’d say that his estimate that Burnley has spent something in the region of £80 million in transfer fees since they went up seems not far off the mark – don’t forget, the local media are reporting that we are planning to shop in a more expensive market than that.
Re how much money we fork out in the close season…
I have just read some words of wisdom in WalesOnline on how to spend some of the money.
These words come from Jeff Mansfield.
He is referring here to the fact that 17 year old winger Rabbi* Montondo was “stolen” from our academy by Man City…
‘…
What swayed the day is that they have a Category 1 Academy while ours at Cardiff is Cat 2, so the club couldn’t prevent him being taken: Cat 1s are allowed to take players from lower Cat academies. That’s why the club should use some of the Prem money to convert our Academy to Cat 1. It’s expensive but let’s use the money while we have it to build the club’s infrastructure.
…’
Now, benighted me had concluded that most non stellar clubs had abandoned academies. The latest was Brentford. And I figured that we would be going that way too.
But Jeff has made me think again. And clearly, Jeff knows a lot more than me, here. I assume that he knows his onions…that is therefore the basis for me saying the following…
Much better to spend the dosh wisely here, than on players who you have no guarantee on. And no Paul, with great respect to your contrary view here, I am not at all sure it is a given that we will be relegated next season without a major investment in new players.
Team spirit goes such a big way. I believe that Neil will work wonders in that department.
Before signing off…
Talking of foitballers who are flyers, I note that Leroy Sane has not made the German World Cup squad. Everyone seems surprised. But not me.
To me, he had a season of two halves.
The first half he was incredible. And I have never known a more graceful runner who also combined quality crosses and deadly finishing.
But ever since that Joe Bennett “tackle”, he has never been the same player.
Take the double barrelled full back at Liverpool. Now, Man Utd’s Marcus Rashford, twice made him look a mug in the space of ten minutes. Yet within weeks, the boy has Sane totally in his pocket.
Explanations on a virtual postcard, please.
* presumably it is pronounced “RAB-ee”…? All my Christmases would come at once if we had a rabbi on the wing for Wales.
Mind you, we have had one or two rabb-ITS on the wing for Wales down the years…!!
Mentioning the word “rabbi”, makes me think of that great line re the young Peter Paul & Mary…the guys looking resplendent in their serious black suits, and the late Mary Travers looking so alluring.
And the line to describe their look?
“Two rabbis and a hooker”.
Brilliant.
God bless you Ralph J Gleason. It was you who got FOLKIE me ever interested in jazz. You were my sole reason for reading Rolling Stone too.
Dai, your belief in Neil Warnock’s man management skills is justified, as was proved last season, but, they have proved to be of little use in the First Division/Premier League where he has been unable thus far to transform squads which look short of real top quality into outfits which are capable of beating the drop – he can argue, with some justification, that he hasn’t had a fair chance to show what he can do, but the available evidence says that he has been unable to get his man management skills to have sufficient impact on his teams to make a difference.
Regarding Rabbi Matondo and category one Academies. The first thing to say is I know Jeff Mansfield and am not too surprised by his viewpoint. Secondly, I watched Matondo for a few minutes on Sunday when he came on as a sub for Wales Under 21s in a friendly game played in Georgia. The Georgian defence was wholly unable to cope with his pace, the fact that Wales were unable to take advantage of this was partly down to wrong decision making, mainly due to his inexperience, and, in one case in particular, rank bad finishing – Matondo seems to be developing well at Man City, but they barely had to pay anything for him (certainly not anything like his potential worth) and the system seems blatantly unfair to me, but the power lies with the Man City’s of the world these days and it’s likely to get worse for smaller clubs before it gets better. When you spend a lot of time, money and effort to develop good young players and you end up losing them for a pittance they are just reaching the age where they might be of aid to your first team. I can understand it must be tempting to pack up with your Academy – Huddersfield are another club who have done it and I believe there are more who are thinking of doing it.
If anyone has some time to spare, they might want to have a look at this long, rambling thread on the subject, which I was a frequent contributor to, on the City messageboard I use – it doesn’t really come up with anything ground breaking to sort out the problem, but it does show that it’s not a straightforward one.
http://www.ccmb.co.uk/showthread.php?433244-Category-1-Academy
Now I think I know why Zohore is given so much playing time despite his manifest inadequacies. The powers that be must think he’s related to the Sultan of Johor who, according to Mr Tan. has secretly pouring money into Cardiff City.