A quieter week on the transfer front, but, even so, it wasn’t all just the usual speculation that you get at this time of the year – Cardiff City were involved in one deal, this time it was someone leaving the club. Left back Andrew Taylor was sold to Wigan Athletic – actually, I say “sold”, but given away would be a more accurate description if the reports about Wigan only having to pay a fee in the event of them being promoted are true!
Having praised the club last week for the way they have gone about their business this summer, both in terms of the players brought in and the timing of the signings, I believe that letting someone who was a virtual ever present in a Championship winning team from only a year ago leave on a free with just the possibility of us receiving a sum if the buying club gets promoted undoes some of the good work we saw in May – especially when the player concerned had two years of his contract left and, at 27, it could be said that his best years are still in front of him.
Taylor struggled badly during the second half of the season just finished – after missing games through injury, he was poor in the embarrassing home defeats by Hull and Palace and, by the end of the campaign, seemed to be behind Fabio and Declan John in the pecking order at left back. However, I think Taylor got it right when he said he’d had two and a half good years at Cardiff. Although he had his messageboard critics, I thought he was a very reliable performer at Championship level and he didn’t do too badly during last autumn in the Premier League either.
I’m speculating here, but it’s a fact that, under Malky Mackay, Taylor was our left back every week unless he was injured or suspended and it seems to me that he is one of those players in the “old guard” who the new man in charge didn’t fancy much (judging by the way they were treated by Ole, I’d say Aron Gunnarsson and, possibly, Ben Turner fit into that category as well) – if I’m right, then it’s probably for the best that he left, but I still say we could have got a decent (say, £500,000?) fee for him.
Andrew Taylor, not the most adventurous of full backs, but he usually produced a quality ball when he did get forward. Solid rather than spectacular, he didn’t give the ball away much and, certainly at Championship level, he had very few poor games in a Cardiff shirt – I think there’s a decent chance he’ll find himself back in the Premier League in 2015/16 (it seems that’ll be the only way we get any money for him!).
It could well be that Fraizer Campbell will also be leaving soon – City want to keep him, but recently promoted Leicester have put in a bid which meets the release clause in his contract and you have to think that our striker will accept the chance to stay in the Premier League. With that release clause only being set at £800,000 it seems that, once again, City will not be getting value for money, but I wouldn’t blame them too much this time because it could well have been that Campbell would not have signed for us eighteen months ago without the club agreeing to such a clause.
On the subject of release clauses, it was being reported early in the week that Jordon Mutch to Sunderland for £1,500,000 (the value of his release clause we were told) was virtually a done deal. The club denied that this was the case and my understanding is that the release clause in this case is quite a bit higher than the figure used – subsequently, the Sunderland fan whose messageboard “exclusive” started all of the rumours admitted he had made the whole thing up, but this didn’t stop some papers from reporting that Gus Poyet would be coming in with another bid!
It seems that Arsenal had a bid of £6 million for David Marshall rejected as well with it being reported that City wanted another £9 million on top of that before they’d sell. Assuming that is true, it remains to be seen if the club’s resolve will be as strong in, say, two months time, but, if it is, then maybe “Scotland’s number one” will be with us for next season because, for £15 million, clubs will be looking to sign a first choice keeper and I don’t believe that the teams who would look on him as their no. 1 goalkeeper (i.e. those outside last season’s top seven) would be willing to pay such a fee.
On the players coming in front, there have been stories that we are after Palermo diver Kyle Lafferty, Palace’s Kagisho Dikgacoi and that we have offered £2 million for Legia Warsaw’s left winger Michal Zyro. In all three cases, our chances of landing the player don’t look great because it’s reported that we are in competition with Premier League clubs for their signature – in Lafferty’s case it’s Palace and QPR (they’re welcome to him as far as I’m concerned!), Leicester are, seemingly, in for Dikgacoi, while 21 year old Zyro (who won his first full cap for Poland when he came on as a sub in midweek in their 2-1 win over Lithuania) is, apparently, a target of Stoke’s with two German clubs being interested in him as well.
The story about Lafferty also mentions that City are interested in signing Palermo goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano if Marshall does leave. Viviano spent last season on loan at Arsenal, but ended up not playing a single minute for the first team and it seems odd that someone who was winning full caps for Italy three years ago should now find himself restricted to very occasional appearances for the Gunner’s Development side. Seemingly, Viviano’s move to Arsenal was a gamble because he figured that he had little chance of making Italy’s World Cup squad while playing in Serie B with Palermo. That makes sense to me, but it also makes it pretty unlikely he would be willing to come to Cardiff – I may be proved wrong, but I don’t see much mileage in this story.
Finally, there was confirmation a few days ago of something that had seemed pretty obvious for a few weeks. Bournemouth’s Lewis Grabban signed for Norwich thereby ending all speculation about a player we had a bid of £3 million accepted for last month, but, even with Campbell’s likely departure, the signings of Javi Guerra, Frederico Macheda and Adam LeFondre had this one looking very unlikely for some time.
so here is a god after all, I for one are glad taylor’s gone, he was rubbish, would never tackle anyone and always the wrong side of his marker, in over 100 games for our club he picked up 6 yellow cards, that’s about 2 a season that says it all. I think our keeper got more bookings. it’s not that I want our players booked, but hey, he’s a full back, he’s expected to pick up bookings. couldn’t tackle a cooked dinner
I see a lack of bookings as a good thing in any player. Football has not quite become a non contact sport yet, but full backs who find themselves having to make tackles on a frequent basis probably have to do so because they got themselves into a poor position in the first place. In my opinion Taylor was a good Championship full back at Middlesbrough, Watford and Cardiff – the fact that Wigan were prepared to sign him (Newcastle were also interested apparently) tends to confirm this.
Hello Paul,
This is “Rhondda Red” talking here…though long exiled from Porth to less exotic parts.
To be a little more serious though, I find myself in some agreement with Rhondda Blue, my fellow native of the Gem of the Valleys.
Andrew Taylor to me, always flattered to deceive. To me, he was as out of position even more often than Steven Caulker (and that is REALLY saying something!)
Both players really LOOKED stylish and easy, elegant athletes: but looks can be deceptive.
Let’s face it: Cardiff only had one class full back on their books last year, and he was amazingly shipped off to Bramall Lane. It must have been the kamikaze gene manifesting itself in both in Malky and Ole.
I find myself in agreement with you though about the “bookings” thing.
Remember that the great Brian Clough would fine players heavily if they were booked. That is why he stood no chance at Leeds with dirty – if admittedly brilliant – blighters like Bremner and Giles !!
But that “fair play” philosophy won him two European Cups in successive years with a team that virtually nobody in mainland Europe had ever heard of!
Surely the management feat of the whole century.
As for Andrew Taylor not being nasty enough: I beg to differ slightly with RB, as I recall Taylor being sent off in THAT penultimate game at Hull in April 2013 (the game when Steve Bruce showed us his real nature with that shameful hounding of the referee at the final whistle).
The saddest thing there though was not Bruce’s disgraceful behaviour, but Malky Mackay’s utterly disgusting patting of Taylor’s back as he left the field following his second yellow for a cynical and wholly unnecessary professional foul.
I will close now.
So worry not Paul, Taylor will not come back to bite Cardiff. Nor will Kenny Miller Mk 2 …an even better runner of channels that Kenny Miller Mk 1. But Fraizer will always miss far more goals than he scores…even in the Conference or League of Wales. No the man who will come back to bite City is Rudy Gestede.
Can you tell me what Blackburn paid for him?
He will be at Old Trafford or PSG within 18 months.
Kindest,
Dai
A last minute postscript before I turn in for the night: I have just read in Wales Online of the latest backroom changes.
The one exit that screams out at me is that of Julian Jenkins.
I know next to nothing about the bloke, but have heard him interviewed on the radio a few times and have been hugely impressed by his communication skills.
And it seems to me that anyone that capable of such lucid thinking and limpid self-expression MUST be a massive loss to the club.
I see he is taking a couple of key personnel with him to Geneva.
He is a far bigger loss than Simon Lim, I would suggest.
Kindest,
Dai.
Morning Dai. I think you are right about Taylor if you go by what he produced in the second half of the season, but for two and a half years he did a decent enough job for us at left back and his displays during 11/12 and 12/13 placed him among the better ones I’ve seen play for the club – I’m certainly not saying he’s irreplaceable, more that a free transfer with the chance of us getting something if they go up is very generous to Wigan.
There was a story in a Sheffield paper yesterday about how John Brayford is becoming resigned to not getting a chance at Cardiff, so, if this is true, Ole seems as keen on him as Malky was – I don’t get it, Nigel Clough thinks the sun shines out of his backside! I wouldn’t go as far as you do when rating Brayford, but he proved himself to be a good quality Championship right back about whom I didn’t read a single bad comment from Derby fans when he joined us – I hope he gets a chance to show what he can do in some of our pre season games.
Not got a clue how much Blackburn paid for Gestede and I think you are over doing things when you talk of Old Trafford and PSG, but I never thought he was anywhere near as bad as some City messageboard contributors did and, at the moment, he’s one of the main reasons why I think Blackburn (who were the worst team I saw us play in 12/13) will be quietly confident about their chances in the new season.
There are City fans who feel that Julian Jenkins blotted his copybook with his attitude to the re-branding. I agree with that to some extent, but, that said, I’ve a lot of time for him – he helped me out a few times on relatively small matters which he had no real need to bother with. Going back to the rebrand, the attitude of the locally born employees of the club who have some degree of power has disappointed me, but I think it’s vital that a nucleus of genuine City fans who know what the club means to the local population are kept in place at a time when the policy tends to be to look to the Far East when a vacancy occurs – in that respect, Julian is certainly a big loss.