Huddersfield, the Hadron Collider and Miranda.

Huddersfield 0 Cardiff 0

I start with a history lesson:

Cardiff City beat Reading 2-1 on November the 21^st, and in the succeeding 14 games we have only won once, against struggling Fulham. In the meantime Reading came back to beat us at home in the FA Cup in January. I think that fate allowed that to happen just to show us how far we had tumbled.

Teams who are dancing close to the grave of relegation, like Brighton and Rotherham, held us to draws at home and do not forget both had more possession than us.

Now we have people getting out the bunting and dancing in the streets because we have drawn the last four matches. After the last two draws people have sent their footmen to fetch the aged bottles of Brains SA from the cellars in celebration. No wonder Russell Slade compares us to Real Madrid. 4 draws eh?

Those bottles of Brains beer put away for a special occasion - like City drawing two matches.

 

I didn’t see the Blackburn draw when the Trollope effect and the talented Kennedy powered us forward but possession in that match was only 50/50 anyways. Today, against Huddersfield, we only had the ball 39% of the time. Possession has been grim since Mister Slade donned his extra lkarge tracksuit and took to the touchlines - and this from a team full of ball players.

At the start of the season the bookies looked over our squad and ticked the box marked ‘favourites for automatic promotion.’ Now the manager’s ambition is for us to finish in the top half of the table. Yet we may not get high enough up the table to press our noses against the window of the top 6 to look in at the party we didn’t get invited to.

A mediocre team in a mediocre championship.

Despite being bored and ground down by the pitiful displays from Cardiff over the last couple of months I was dreaming of us knocking together the five wins that would propel us back up the table like a Saturn V rocket. I confess I still have that dream, because it remains possible.

Some teams presently in the top 6 will plummet before your missus starts on about this year’s Summer holiday. The championship is always a merry go around across the mad Easter period. Some teams will get momentum and others will collapse. It has always been so.

But that record of a single win in 14 championship matches tells me all I need to know. Solskjaer and Slade were the wrong choices. I backed Solskjaer and was prepared to give Slade a chance but this season will be the worst I have suffered at Cardiff City – ever.

Yes, in the last thirty years we have suffered the ignominy of relegation, we have come close to administration, and we have been toe curlingly disappointing. But never before have we started the season as sure fire winners boasting the best squad in the championship. Even Malky’s Championship topping promotion team was not talked about as favourites at the outset. Nor Dave Jones plucky group of the injured, the lame and the out of favour guns for hire he moulded into a team that came close to winning the play offs.

Dave Jones squad of the injured, old and rejects

 

Dave Jones could have put this squad into the play offs - honest, it is not a gratuitous picture of girls bottoms to cheer up suicidal Cardiff City supporters.

 

This is amongst the most talented squad of footballers I have ever seen here in many years.

It is like paying to see a Bond movie and end up watching Miranda or booking Raymond Blanc’s restaurant and being served cold pie and soggy chips. Actually both those disappointments would be just about bearable compared to the season thus far.

Maybe if Solskjaer had the benefit of Trollope, or someone like him, then the Norwegian would still be here and we would be contenders.

I do feel we are getting better, though surely it couldn’t have become any worse, could it? I do give Slade the credit for bringing in the two Everton youngsters along with the lively Doyle. My heart goes out to the guy. If someone asked me to run the Hadron Collider I would end up looking as distraught as him. “Honest guys, I have never run a Hadron Collider before, don’t you need someone who can do the job? It would be like anyone from the lower leagues trying to manage a talented group of players in one of the toughest leagues in the world. Well ok then, if you think so.”

The Hadron Collider, Russell Slade's next job

 

I still dream of those elusive ‘five back to back’ wins Russell Slade talks about, starting against Malky’s Wigan, but the despair is overwhelming.

It has been a shit season, and I see no reason to feel that next season will be any better.

If by May we are not in the top 8 then Slade must go. We must not make the same generous mistake we made with Solskjaer and give Mister Slade an opportunity to prove himself. We need to get someone in who knows the championship and understands success and give him a Summer to build his squad.

Those that claimed they would be happy to see Cardiff play in Blue in the lower leagues have come close to getting their wish.

 

Please Cardiff, please, prove me wrong, ‘just 5 back to back wins’ against Wigan, Wolves, Rotherham, Charlton and Brentford and then we can see where we  are in the league. Surely it won’t be 17^th!