City winning by 2 goals, what really drives the fans away and the next manager

Is this really the first home win for Cardiff in the championship since January 10^th 2015? It seems longer. It has been an age since I left the ground with a smile.

 

So thanks to the players and, it has to be said, the fans, who have remembered they also have a team to support. Today was a good day all round.

It is interesting to see that the ground appears emptier than at any time throughout the season. So what actually drives away fans is not the colour of the shirt, the thoughtless notions of an owner but poor, dull, unsuccessful play on the pitch.

So the sun shone for us and finally we look solid at the back and just clueless up front.

 

Birmingham lie below us in the league and deserve their position as they were clueless just all over the park.

Why fans demand the head of Saint Peter Whittingham is beyond me. The ball travels via Whitts for everything City do, be it moving out of defence or attacking. Without him we would be dreadful.

But after a season of self inflicted misery let us remind us ourselves of the positives, well the positive: we are not as bad as we have been.

You can also say that whoever replaces Russell Slade has a talented group of players to choose from.

Ralls, Bruno and Fabio are young men capable of true class. Whitts, Gunnarson and Noone can make things happen. Doyle has done enough to show he has potential. Marshall is the real thing in goals.

The rest of the players conform to Russell Slade’s ‘workman’ like toilers and probably out match Solskjaer’s preference for flair. But if we are to do well in the championship we need flair to match the industry. We need pace and ideas up front to match the newly well organised defence.

Bournemouth’s Eddie Howe has shown how it can be done. Their ability to hold the ball and drag the opposition out of formation before playing telling balls through has rocketed them to favourites for promotion. This is how we could have played with the talent available back at the start of the season.

Even a pie and chips championship manager like Ian Holloway could have kicked arses and driven this squad to the promotion door.

This has been a miserable season but there is sufficient promise for next season for Vincent Tan to reserve his seat for the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal of the footballing elite. Just that he needs to book his red seat for the 2016 season not the season starting in 2015.

Nigel Adkins and Paul Lambert are out there. Both men are experienced in this league, know what it takes, know their style of play and have been successful. Qualities we needed in a new manager back in the Autumn when replacing Solskjaer. Unless of course Vincent Tan has cast an eye over the promising mangers of Colchester, Crawley or Yeovil of course. Aaargh!

 

Charlton, my therapist and happy pills for all city supporters and a bit of poetry

For the first 70 minutes City bossed the game, and Charlton were left chasing the midfield tails of Whittingham, macAleny, Noone and Gunnarson. City bossed the game.

The 4 man defence team were solid but it was the the enterprising sharp midfield which controlled the game for us.

The long ball game had been chucked in the dustbin, where it should have stayed in the first place. 

The front two of Macheda and Kenwynne Jones will never get an award for hard work and industry and that is now where the problem now lies. I don’t pretend to like 4-4-2 but if you play it then the two guys up front have to put in a shift. Macheda clearly isn’t the blood and guts Costa type. He is more the cerebral ‘mommy wouldn’t like it if I got my boots dirty’ type. But the guy has scored in successive matches albeit that this goal was due to the perseverance of Kenwynne Jones keeping the ball in play and then placing it in the six yard box. And Jones has scored 14 goals this season despite Cardiff being mindless for most of the season.

Perhaps that is the next area the management team will sort.

While they are looking at that please ask why Peltier is on the left. He is a great right back but every time he gets the ball down the left wing he needs to stop and shift it to his right foot before passing back.

Our domination  made it look like it would finish as a one nil score line.

Then disaster. Slade took off MacAleny for reasons known best to him. Nothing against Kennedy, in fact I like him, but why change someone who is making such an impact? Gunnarson had already limped off in the first half. Noone lost his mojo and Whitts had over five minutes in the recovery room. That left Cardiff looking lost and Charlton suddenly remembered they were here to play football. 

By the time Whitts returned Charlton had belief and City were under pressure. The Cardiff midfield became shambolic and panic set in, or it did in my area of the stand.

Charlton pressed and scored a soft goal before being served up with an even softer penalty.

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

So we lost 1-2.

I can no longer recall what it is like leaving the Cardiff City Stadium with a smile on my face.

This was a huge improvement but we are still months away from looking like a Championship football team. Russell Slade has been in charge since the 6^th of October and the advance has been glacial.

Cardiff need to appoint a serious coach and do it right now. Give the guy a chance to learn about the players and, who knows, perhaps give us a bounce that might take us up the table. Not as far as the play offs maybe but certainly so far up we can talk of what might have been.

Yes. Let’s talk of what might have been. What if Cardiff City had more ambition and brought in Neil Lennon or Tony Pulis back at the end of November. Or indeed anyone who has managed a team at the higher levels, someone who knows more than 4-4-2. With this group of players we would surely have been in the playoffs or indeed maybe in one of the top two spots.

The appointment of Russell is among the worst decisions Cardiff have made. Definitely on par with buying Cornelius when we needed a proven Premier League goal scorer, selling Toshack before nailing down Warbouys or increasing the parking charge from £5 to £8, an increase of 62% (I think!).

The Miserable Season continues. I am not sure how much more I can take without either a therapist or some happy pills.