This was the week when Cardiff City’s preparations for the 23/24 Championship campaign moved up a notch with the second and third pre season matches being played and three new players arriving, one on loan and two on two year contracts.
Of course, the terms of the embargo we’re under mean that not a penny was paid in transfer or loan fees for any of them and so all you can say really is that we’re shopping in the “could go either way” department in much the same way as we were doing last summer.
I’d already written about Ike Ugbo whose season long loan from French club Troyes was confirmed last Monday. With Ugbo, the question is are we signing the player who had a very acceptable goalscoring rate at Roda JC and Cercle Brugges during loan spells from Chelsea or the one who has a record which cannot be described as any better than modest everywhere else? We’ll have to wait and see.
As of yet, Ugbo has not kicked a ball for us, maybe we’ll see him in action for City in Tuesday’s game with Bristol Rovers (or those of us at least who will be watching the second of our behind closed doors games online might)?
Yesterday, we signed another forward in Ivory Coast international Yakou Meite. At around the time Meite was winning his two caps for his country in 2018 and 2019, he was on his way to establishing himself as one of the Championship’s most consistent marksmen. In the three seasons from 18/19, Meite scored forty two times for Reading with his seventeen goals in 20/21 being the highspot – he also became one of those players who always seemed to score against us for a while!
However, an ACL injury meant that his 21/22 season did not get started until February and there were no goals from him as Reading managed to wriggle clear of relegation despite a six point deduction for the financial irregularities which have blighted the club in recent years. Last season, Meite was available for selection for most of the campaign, but spent a lot of time on the bench, scoring just four times as his club were unable to overcome another six point deduction this time and dropped into League One.
Given that Meite can play as a striker or winger, it’s not surprising that he’s being seen as a replacement for Mark Harris by some supporters. That being the case, it must be said that, although his injury clearly didn’t help his cause in 21/22, Meite comes out worse in a comparison against Harris over the past two seasons, but, before that, it’s no competition, our new player wins hands down.
The impression I’ve gained of the twenty seven year old Meite in his encounters with us is that he’s more pace and power based than skill and technique, but, although most of the goals in this video come from before his injury, the general quality of the finishing suggests I may be doing him a disservice there.
What we know for sure is that Reading wanted to keep Meite as he turned down an extension offer from them and, although it’s not unanimous, the view from their supporters is a positive one with allowances for him not having the same impact since his serious injury.
The third newcomer is three times capped Greek defender Dimitri Goutas who, we’re told, was one of Erol Bulut’s main targets when he was appointed. Twenty nine year old Goutas has played most of his football in Greece and Turkey, but, interestingly, he’s also had a loan spell in Belgium with the club Vincent Tan used to own,Kortrijk, as well as a loan in Poland with Lech Poznan.
Goutas is six foot four and said to be a threat at set pieces even if he did not find the net last season when he was with Sivasspor in the Turkish Super League who finished fourteenth out of nineteen.
The Turkish League has a reputation for being a strong one compared to many others in Europe, but it seems that it’s quite similar to Scotland in that it has a small number of big clubs (one of which Bulut managed in Fenerbache) with the rest being made up of sides who tend to play in front of small crowds and have come to view survival in the division spiced up by an occasional high finish or cup run as success.
This site is as good as any for stats I reckon and, although we’re talking subjective judgements here, it ranks the performance of every player within many leagues through Europe. In the Turkish section, Goutas is marked as Sivasspor’s third best player in 22/23.
This balances what I’d call a no more than decent international record (three caps in the era when Greece were European Champions is one thing, but three in a time when they just about scrape into the world’s top fifty and seldom qualify for anything is another completely). I can only talk in vague terms here, but I’d say that, generally speaking, if you were a Championship club signing the third best player in a Scottish Premier League side, you could be pretty confident you were getting someone who could cope in the English game’s second tier, and, as I mentioned earlier, I’d say the Turkish Superleague and the SPL are on a par.
What I think cannot be argued is that these are not the players Chairman Mehmet Dalman had in mind when he boldly predicted that we would sell eighteen thousand season tickets for 23/24. It’s becoming increasingly clear who hewas thinking of there and there’s nothing new to report on the Aaron Ramsey front really. It’s now been admitted that there have been talks between the two parties and Rambo seems to be spending plenty of time around the Vale training ground, but a personal view is that we’re getting fairly close now to the point where you could say that if it was going to happen, it would have done so by now.
As for the players who have already been representing the club this season (Jamilu Collins has still to feature and Callum O’Dowda and Romaine Sawyers have not played yet because of their late return to training following the end to their 22/23 season being extended because of international commitments), there was a second game at Cardiff City Stadium last Tuesday when City took on TNS (The New Saints or Total Network Solutions).
As the runaway champions of the Cymru Premier last season, TNS represented a step up in quality from the Pen y Bont team City had faced three days earlier, but, with them having drawn 1-1 at Hamilton Academicals some twenty four hours earlier, it was hard to judge how much different the challenge was to the one faced on the previous weekend.
Actually, the two matches followed a pretty similar pattern, but I’d say City played slightly better than they had done against Pen y Bont. Certainly, for twenty minutes, it was a most entertaining affair with both sides playing at a pace you would not associate with a pre season game ad the early stages produced three goals which were all high quality efforts despite being quite different.
For the first, Joel Bagan, who seems to be enjoying the inverted full back role which gives him licence to wander into midfield at times in the manner favoured by our new manager, slid a lovely ball through a square defence to Callum Robison who finished well from fifteen yards to put us ahead. Within a short time, Danny Redmond had equalised for TNS, who are a full time professional team, with a shot from fully thirty yards – if it had been conceded in a few weeks time with league points at stake, I daresay questions would have been asked about how quickly City got out to try and close down the shot, but, for now, it was just time to admire a fine strike.
There had only been nineteen minutes played when Mark McGuinness headed us back in front with his second pre season goal. His previous one had come direct from a corner, but this time, McGuinness nodded in a good cross provided by Sheyi Ojo from around the penalty spot after a set piece had been half cleared by TNS.
I don’t think anyone was expecting such a cracking early pace to be maintained, but it was a little disappointing how much the standard of play declined through the rest of the first half and, just as in their first game, the new City team introduced at half time offered little on the attacking front until their opponents began to tire in the closing minutes.
City got themselves a two goal lead with another fine move, this time on the counter attack, that saw the Colwill brothers, Joel and Rubin, combine to set up Ollie Tanner who still had a lot to do as he worked himself into a shooting position and then the winger enjoyed a little luck as his shot deflected off a defender beyond the keeper.
City may have embellished their win with a further goal or two, but that would have been harsh on TNS who had a great chance to equalise at 2-1 down and, overall, I’d sat the 3-1 scoreline was about right.
Both of the matches against the Cymru Premier teams had followed a similar pattern of a lively first quarter followed by a long period with little happening and then a forceful last fifteen minutes or so, but, yesterday that changed when we faced League One opposition in Cambridge United in a behind closed doors game on the pitch adjacent to the one at Leckwith athletics stadium.
This time City began with not a first half team,, but a first hour one – the eleven changes happened at a time where those coming on only got half an hour’s game time, whereas Cambridge changed their side at half time.
I had mixed feelings watching City’s first half showing because there was a lot to admire about it. For someone who has not enjoyed the way we’ve played for a decade or so, I must admit I had no great hopes for a change to something more watchable under Erol Bulut, but, so far at least, I ‘m enjoying how City are trying to play.
The word “slick” could seldom be applied to recent Cardiff sides, but here I’d say it described much of our play in terms of how we moved the ball around – it was attractive stuff made the more so because the likes of Rubin Colwill and Keiron Evans displayed their undoubted talents – the much criticised Ojo was another who showed up well.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that City were dominant in the first half, but, the down side was that, rather like Steve Morison’s team of early 22/23, the attractive football was not producing much in terms of putting the opposition under threat. Joe Ralls and Ojo were both denied by decent saves by the Cambridge keeper, but I’d like to think that our manager, while being happy with some of the passing and movement of his team, would have been disappointed by the lack of an end product.
Going beyond the forty five minute mark for the first time combined with a reinvigorated opposition after their eleven changes probably helped contribute to a totally different feel to the opening stages of the second period as the visitors, using more direct methods than we had, came closer to scoring than we had done when we were enjoying superiority before the interval.
Ryan Allsop made a good diving save to deny Cambridge, but it was hard to see why their headed goal from the resultant corner was disallowed. The arrival of eleven City substitutes turned it into a more even contest again, but there was not the quality which had been there in the best parts of our play during the first forty five minutes.
Nevertheless, it was the replacements who ended the deadlock around the seventy minute mark when Tanner was worked into space on the right and, although it looked lije he was running down a bit of a blind alley, he pulled back a cross which appeared to be deflected into the path of Robinson who scored easily from eight yards out.
I must say Tanner doesn’t strike me as someone who will be challenging for a first team place any time soon, but it’s now two goals and an assist for him in our three warm up games and he is someone who is capable of “making something happen” in a squad which didn’t have too many who fell into that category last season.
From then on, it looked like City would be able to record a third straight win without too many alarms, but as the small amount of added time was being played, Mahlon Romeo lost Gassan Ahadme and the visiting striker converted a cross from no more than five yards out while Jak Alnwick opted to stay on his line to give his side a draw which I didn’t think they deserved.
On an individual front, it was encouraging to see Rubin Colwill play as well as he has done in a City shirt for some time after a couple of understated showings against the Cymru Premier sides. Jack Simpson played well, as did McGuinness who looked more assured when in possession than he sometimes does, while Eli King is looking as though he can make a success of any switch to centreback and although Joel Colwill was quieter here, I thought he was as good as anyone against TNS.
Finally, I must mention a couple of podcasts the Second Tier did last week as they counted down from twenty to one to name the Greatest Championship (i.e since 2003) player of all time – I’ll admit to being a little emotional when the winner was announced because I’d convinced myself that they weren’t going to include him, but, the hosts were united in saying that he’d won at a canter so to speak.
Here are links to the two programmes for any one who wants to listen to them.
I haven’t seen any clips of set-up this pre-season but on paper it looks like we’re lining up as a 4-2-3-1 with fullbacks encouraged to get forward, Ralls and Wintle (latter dropping back to make a 3rd CB?) in the middle and a number of options to fill the front four positions. O’Dowda and Ojo possibly the more defensive of the wide options but otherwise Robinson, Meite, Evans and Davies all more forward thinking.
I suppose a lot this season will therefore depend on whether Goutas and McGuinnes can form a successful partnership (real threat from set-pieces if yes) and how well our two CM’s can shield the defence as we’re making serious commitments to playing on front foot.
I wonder therefore if King’s appearances at CB are partly necessity with Goutas not ready to come in but also partly setting him up to deputise the Wintle role?
It’s unlikely that we buy a third senior keeper (fourth first team keeper) but at the moment this looks like the area most need of attention – something to keep in mind as we come out of transfer embargo and Allsop/Alnwick’s contracts expire at end of the season. The other slot of interest is number 10, although question marks remain as to whether Simpson and Denham are ready to come in if required.
Pleasing to see so much business done early and getting on the grass before most others in the Championship. A lot of pre-season to go and yet BBC’s Championship page highlights that we’re now less than a month until full fixtures return.
Hopefully enough time to find good loans for Tanner, Daley-Campbell, Semenyo, Watters, Zimba and our most promising youth players.
Hello DJ, good to hear from you again. You’ve got the team formation right there, but the main tactical difference between the system used by the likes of Warnock and Harris and this one by Bulut is that the full backs are encouraged to get forward more, but in more infield positions with the wide midfielders being more like wing backs as they are charged with doing a covering job when Ng and Bagan go forward – both of these players can pick a pass and you’d like to think it’s a talent which can be utilised more than it would be in a more traditional version of 4-2-3-1 – of course, it’s likely that Bagan will make way for Collins eventually, but as the new system seems less suited to someone like Romeo. I think we can expect to see Ng at right back while we continue with a back four (still think there’s a good chance Bulut will have to revert to three centrebacks). As for Eli King, I’d say you may well be right – based on what I’ve seen so far, he seems quite well suited to how Bulut wants to play.
I have reservations about the goalkeeping position as well, but I would say that it looks like we will be making more use of Allsop’s footballing skills again after just wanting him to knock it long all of the time in the second half of last season – I’m saying all of this mind while wondering if Bulut will be the latest of a few Cardiff managers who will deduce that there’s something about this club which intrinsically links it to playing the game a certain way!
As for laons out, I think they may come a lot later in the window and quite a few of them will be dependent upon being able to make the signings we want to – I can see us making two or three signings very late on in the window.