I think I’ve used that line about the definition of madness being to keep on making the same mistake time after time and expecting a different outcome on here in recent weeks and applied it Cardiff City – if I haven’t, I’m sure there are very many supporters of the club who have done.
However, I’m going to go for a variation of it this time and say that the definition of madness for a Cardiff City blog writer is to watch the same old, same old week after week, have nothing new to say on the subject, but still write reams and reams of stuff that, in essence, is a repeat of what you said the previous Saturday night.
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So, rather than bang on ad nauseum about things like the lack of football expertise in the Boardroom and on the recruitment front, the lack of any sort of coherent recruitment and footballing philosophy, the firing of managers on a whim by the owner and the ignoring of the bleeding obvious fact that we need a Director of Football or some such position, I’m going to leave my talking (writing) to others this time – well, kind of.
That’s the thing, it would be easy to fall into the trap of believing what you read on social media on a topic was a true representation of what the normal person in the street thinks. However, people who have their say on a given subject tend to be more committed and/or passionate about something that many others are apathetic about, so you become a victim of what tends to get called the echo chamber effect.
I would argue however that Cardiff City and their current problems (actually, their long running problems) are an exception to that rule. I say that because, if you talk to supporters of the club (and a few people who aren’t), you’ll hear some or all of the same things said that I set out above from the vast majority of them.
You can imagine the City hierarchy shrugging their shoulders on hearing something like that and snorting “they’re only the punters, what do they know!”. Then, when it’s gently pointed out to them that journalists are saying the same, they’d respond with “The media! They’re even worse – none of them have played the game”.
That’s the time when it should be pointed out that the army of ex pros you get in punditry, even at a medium sized club like Cardiff City, these days are also saying the same things.
In fact, I’m being a bit unfair on the Cardiff City hierarchy there because one of them has let it be known that he thinks we need a Director of Football and that he has no say in the firing of managers.
Chairman Mehmet Dalman (who gave a nothing to do with me guv type interview this morning) is at odds with club owner Vincent Tan on some subjects and, to digress for a short while, did a pretty good job of defending the club in that interview when it comes to fall out from the death of Emiliano Sala. I still think the club are open to criticism over the way they’ve handled the whole episode, but reading what he has to say on it does serve as a reminder that, notwithstanding the tragedy, grief and suffering involved, it was also incredibly unfortunate for Cardiff City football club who are now faced with paying a £15 million fee for, to put it bluntly, nothing.
That said, the criticisms I’m talking about here apply irrespective of what happened to Emiliano Sala and they represent the almost unanimous verdict of supporters, media and ex professionals who give their opinions on the club.
Why is it then that the owner of the club appears to think he knows better than all of these people as he watches the team play from tens of thousands of miles away? Mr Tan is clearly an intelligent man as evidenced by the way his working life has mapped out- but, when he stubbornly continues, in recent years especially, to follow a course that clearly isn’t working with so many telling him why it isn’t working then, all you can conclude is that his intelligence doesn’t stretch to football.
That’s certainly not an earth-shattering conclusion to arrive at – two promotions and a League Cup Final appearance or not, what other verdict can you draw at the moment than that the Tan project at Cardiff City has failed conclusively?
I said somewhere this week that, in a crowded field of candidates, the biggest failure of the Tan era has been the almost complete inability to bring in players of an age and ability which would enable them to be sold at a profit – think what a difference it would have made if City had become a “selling club” instead of a “give them away” one!
For me, this, and a few of the other elements which have reduced the club to the sorry state it finds itself in now, has its roots in the sense of betrayal Vincent Tan felt in his feud with Malky Mackay more than a decade ago – I’ve always believed that since then Mr Tan has had a distrust of “football men” and it would hardly come as a surprise if it was this that was behind his reluctance to operate with a Director of Football or its equivalent.
I mentioned earlier that Vincent Tan was an intelligent man – I wonder what he would think of someone of a non-retail background who acquired a pretty successful shopping chain and then proceeded to run it into the ground while ignoring the well-meaning advice of those with its best interests at heart? What would he think as the owner of this shopping chain kept on hiring managers with little or no proven record of success and then firing them after only a few months? Am I that far wide of the mark if I said that Vincent Tan would think the way that person was behaving was the definition of madness?
Anyway, there was a match played today and Cardiff City lost it by 1-0 at home to Millwall to make it eleven games now without a win and, if I read the mood right, there are very few supporters feeling optimistic about a relegation escape this season tonight.
City have made a habit of losing 1-0 at home in these last two seasons and this was like so many of these matches in that the goal came in the first half and then all our opponents had to do was defend pretty resolutely on the rare occasions when we put some decent attacking play together and they’d be fine.
Like virtually every team that wins here 1-0, Millwall were nothing special, but they didn’t need to be. What is different now compared to other 0-1s mind is that we now have a team which is completely shot when it comes to confidence – everything has become an effort as the fear of making a mistake has taken over and in a team with the goalscoring issues that we’ve had all season, it manifests itself in the side looking even more inept and ineffective in front of goal.
This was confirmed when Millwall centreback Jake Cooper gifted us possession some twenty five yards from goal and we were presented with what was virtually a two on to none situation with only goalkeeper George Long to beat, but Callum Robinson, the City player you’d most want to be in this position, made a mess of his pass to Jaden Philogene whose first touch wasn’t great and a Millwall defender got back to clear for a corner.
Honestly, if City couldn’t score from a position like that, they were never going to. They had a total of twenty two goal attempts, with the high, for them, figure of four on target, but the only time I can remember Long being forced into a good save was from a Callum O’Dowda effort from an offside position.
That apart, it was the usual combination of scuffs, slices and row zeders with the odd air shot thrown in. That’s not fair actually, Robinson, Kion Etete and Philogene were not too far away with well struck efforts from around twenty yards out.
The goal came from a catalogue of errors from City. First, Philogene, who was careless all afternoon, presented the ball straight to Cooper who advanced to play a through pass for Welsh international Tom Bradshaw. Cooper’s pass was over hit and should have been easily dealt with by Cedric Kipre, but the defender who has been one of City’s most consistent players, was having a poor afternoon and now he hesitated as if believing the ball was going out of play. Kipre’s indecision allowed Bradshaw to put in what amounted to a sliding tackle that enabled him to jab the ball fairly slowly towards goal, but it was enough to beat Ryan Allsop who I think will be disappointed to have been beaten by such a shot.
Straight after the ball hit the net, I thought City would never have scored that. Not many other teams would have made the three individual mistakes that led to the goal, but some would and a Cardiff forward could have found themselves in the position Bradshaw was, but would any of the current bunch have shown the presence of mind and desire to score that the Millwall man did?
There’s not much else to say really – for all of City’s huff and puff in the second half, it was the visitors who came closest to scoring, first when a good block by Mark McGuiness (the back from Sheffield Wednesday defender was probably City’s best player, but can he maintain that standard when so many around him are struggling and out of form?) turned a George Honeyman shot over the bar and then when a fine run and pass by Zian Flemming set up sub Jamie Shackleton who should have scored, but his shot was too close to Allsop who saved well.
As for our latest manager, I often think we could do with Dean Whitehead at his peak in our midfield, but I’m not so sure about him stood in the dug out making the decisions (to be fair mind, I don’t envy him his task in the slightest). I was mystified by his use of substitutes – actually that should really read non use because he waited nearly seventy minutes to make a change and then we only saw two of them. I’m always banging on about Rubin Colwill, but I’ll limit myself this time to just saying that I’m baffled as to why Dean Whitehead only introduced Joe Ralls and Isaak Davies out of the six outfield players he had available to him.
Away from the first team, the under 23s were beaten 1-0 at Wolves in the Premier League Cup yesterday afternoon in a game where they needed to avoid defeat to qualify for the knock out stage. City were unlucky in that the goal which beat them came via a pretty big deflection off captain Xavier Benjamin, but I’m afraid that it was all a little like watching the first team play in that there was nice play at times, plenty of effort and almost no sign of a goal.
Anyway, on to happier times, a further reminder that my book on our 1975/76 promotion is on sale now in paperback form or as an e book – it’s called Tony Evans Walks on Water and can be bought from Amazon