STRUGGLES IN VAIN

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUED, but in the end.......

We just weren't good enough. 

I suppose we always knew that it was going to be a struggle to maintain Premier League status, and so 2014 proved that to be very true. I really thought that the win against Norwich would give us the impetus to pick up a few more points, but this proved not to be the case. However, a number of other teams around us also continued to struggle, and with 3 games remaining in the Premier League season our fate was “still in our own hands”. Alas, it was not to be and so we return to the Championship for another crack at getting back to the big time of the Premier League.

RESULTS SINCE MY LAST POST:-

Swansea 3 Cardiff 0

Cardiff 0 Aston Villa 0

Cardiff 1 Wigan 2 (FA Cup)

Cardiff 0 Hull 4

Tottenham 1 Cardiff 0

Cardiff 3 Fulham 1

Everton 2 Cardiff 1

Cardiff 3 Liverpool 6

West Brom 3 Cardiff 3

Cardiff 0 Crystal Palace 3

Southampton 0 Cardiff 1

Cardiff 1 Stoke 1

Sunderland 4 Cardiff 0

Newcastle 3 Cardiff 0

Cardiff 1 Chelsea 2

The fixture list at the start of the season always looked as though we were going to have to depend on results in games after Christmas. It was always going to be a struggle to pick up points against the big money top 7 clubs, but we hoped that we may put up good performances against the rest of the division.

The key results proved to be the disastrous home defeats to Hull and Crystal Palace, the teams promoted with us last year and teams we hoped to beat. But we never came close. Even when we went to Sunderland it looked as though we might still have a chance, but we capitulated badly against a resurgent Sunderland side and at that point the fat lady started to warm up. She burst into song a week later following a defeat to a badly out of form Newcastle United.

Mats Daehli celebrates the unlikely equaliser at West Brom - one of the few bright moments at the end of the season.

SO - HOW WAS IT FOR ME?

Well, disappointing in the end. As my regular readers know, I do my best to stay out of the politics of the club, and I try not to play the "blame game". Therefore, I'll sum up my feelings by saying that simply "We weren't good enough".

There were only 7 wins all season, and 3 of those wins came against 2 of the teams who were relegated with us. This succinctly sums up what happened.

Mind you, there will always be that fantastic win against the eventual Champions Manchester City in our first home game! I'm definitely glad to say that "I was there" for that one.

AND NEXT SEASON?

Rather bizarrely, we are favourites to return to the Premier League at our first attempt. As the Championship is a notoriously difficult league to get out of, I think I'd rather not be favourites at this stage, before even the World Cup has taken place!

However, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was clearly more prepared than he would admit. 4 new signings before most players have gone on their summer holiday shows his positive intentions. Especially as 3 of those players are strikers. The signing of Javi Guerra from Valladolid was essentially sorted in January and so was not a real surprise. Guido Bergstaller, an Austrian attacking midfielder from Rapid Vienna had us all Googling frantically though! He looks good on Youtube!

The signing on a free transfer of Federico Macheda is also a typical Ole signing, as he is another of the promising young players he coached when with the youth team at Manchester United. Macheda seems to have been around a long time but is till only 22, and to score 10 goals in 18 games on loan at a struggling Birmingham last season is pretty impressive.

Perhaps the most important and surprising signing was Adam Le Fondre from Reading. ALF has been a proven goalscorer at all levels of football, including the Premier League, and picking up for less than a million pounds looks like good business.

Adam Le Fondre in scoring mood for Reading.

Undoubtedly we will lose a few players this closed season. Steve Caulker and Gary Medel are clearly suited to a much higher level of football and have release clauses in their contracts. It looks likely that Fraizer Campbell will also return to the Premier League, if only for one of the lower teams. Rumours start to fly around about David Marshall going after an excellent season in goal. However, with the World Cup about to start in 10 days time, I suspect that the transfer dealings at the Cardiff City Stadium will die down for a while.

SIGNING OFF.

Well, as we are no longer Premier League, there will be no more posts on this blog for now. However, normal service will now resume on my "Life of a Bluebird" blog. You can catch it on:-

lifeofabluebird.blogspot.com

Why we can make history at Swansea.

I going to go out on a limb here with a prediction. I think we are going to make history on Saturday and do the double over Swansea. Now, I know that in the long and varied history between the 2 clubs, neither side has ever beaten the other twice in the league in the same season, but I honestly think that this year we can do it. Here are a few reasons why I think this could happen

1. Saturday's dramatic win against Norwich. After half an hour we looked dead and relegated, but Ole's change of Wilfried Zaha for Peter Whittingham proved to be inspired and the turning point of the season, never mind the game. I know that a couple of fantastic saves from David Marshall kept us in the game late on, but this was a real team effort and we got the reward we wanted. Goals from Craig Bellamy and Kenwynne Jones.
2. The January transfer window. Although I am not a big fan of wholesale changes or personnel in January, Ole seems to have had a number of plans in place ready for such an eventuality, and made most of his signing long before the deadline. As a result, the new players had already trained with the squad and were ready for the start on Saturday. The final piece of the jigsaw was a new centre back which was concluded late on Friday - the signing of Juan Cala from Sevilla (a friend of Gary Medel, no less!). I may be proved wrong, but Swansea's acquisition of a player from Falkirk and David Ngog from Bolton were  underwhelming to say the least. The transfer window definitely favoured Cardiff.
3. Form. Both sides have been struggling for wins recently, but Cardiff have been putting up good performances in defeat to the very top sides in the league, whereas Swansea have been poor. They struggled to beat Fulham, and then failed to move on from that with a poor performance against West Ham. Even the Swansea loving Match of the Day pundits said that Swansea were awful in that game. When you add in the disgraceful histrionics of Chico Flores to get Andy Carrol sent off, it was not a good day for them. Rumours also persist of the departure of Michael Laudrupp at the end of the season, and training ground fights. It seems that things are not well with our neighbours.
4. Wilfried Zaha. Probably the only player on either team who can win the game off his own individual performance. He is a class player who needs to prove to his full time employers that he can still play really well. 
5. Confidence. This comes into the "all of the above" category. Cardiff seem to have it, Swansea seem to be losing it.

Of course, I might just have got it all wrong. But for once, I think the Swans are genuinely worried about what might happen to them. 3-1 to the mighty Bluebirds!

CARDIFF 2 NORWICH 1

 Our 3 new players Kenwynne Jones (9), Fabio (35) and Wilfried Zaha (36) celebrate Jones' first goal for the club with Craig Bellamy (39). (pic by Jon Candy).

Wilfried Zaha (pic by Jon Candy)

Here's to a great February!

NOW THE REAL SEASON BEGINS.

3 league defeats and 1 FA Cup win since my last post, and we now find ourselves rooted to the bottom of the Premier League. This is not the time to panic, as I always feared we would be in the bottom 3 at this time of year following our last 4 away fixtures - Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United. What was more disappointing was the 2-0 home defeat to West Ham, a team now above us in the table.

However, all is not yet lost. Ole has brought in a number of new players and shuffled his squad around. We have now signed Norwegian international Jo Inge Berget and former Manchester United left back Fabio. Also, on transfer deadline day, the exciting former Crystal Palace player Wilfried Zaha has been signed on loan for the rest of the season from Manchester United. Lets hope he can recapture some of the form which led to his £18m price tag. The team now has Ole’s stamp on it. Ironically, the combination of 2 away games that we were unlikely to win, separated by a winning FA cup tie at Bolton, has meant that he has had time to look at his team without too much pressure on them, and work out the best way to play.

The performances against the Manchester clubs were respectable, and the win at Bolton was more than acceptable. But now the team really has to step up in February. We have 3 home league games and the “Big One” part 2 - the away trip to Swansea. In addition there is the home FA Cup 5th round match to holders Wigan - another winnable game. Of course, the main problem is that none of the teams in February are exactly safe from relegation either, so starting with our home game tomorrow against Norwich, we really must start winning.

Matches since my last post:-

CARDIFF 0 WEST HAM 2

MANCHESTER CITY 4 CARDIFF 2

BOLTON 0 CARDIFF 1 (FA Cup)

MAN UNITED 2 CARDIFF 0

Steve Caulker challenges against West Ham (pic by Jon Candy)  

The result against West Ham was obviously very disappointing. However, the team kept attacking and on another day might easily have won 3-1. Sadly, this did not happen and a very late West Ham goal made the scoreline more convincing than should have been the case.

Craig Noone and David Silva

We didn’t give in easily at the Etihad against Manchester City, even though they have won every home league game this year. A Craig Noone equaliser gave us some hope for a few minutes, before the Manchester City strike-force re-asserted their authority.

Fraizer Campbell and Aron Gunnarsson celebrate the only goal of the game against Bolton.

The Bolton FA Cup match was a welcome distraction, and despite a slightly lucky goal we just about deserved to go through to the last 16.

Mark Hudson and goalkeeper David Marshall fail to stop Robin van Persie opening the score at Old Trafford.

Yet again, a creditable effort at Old Trafford against Manchester United, but unfortunately no reward.

TIME TO GET MOVING!

I’m pretty sure that by the end of February, we will have a pretty good idea about whether we can avoid relegation. Lets hope our new players can prise open the Norwich City defence tomorrow.

BLUEBIRDS!  

The latest on the Top 7 v the Rest.

As could have been predicted at the start of the season, the usual top 7 clubs occupy the top 7 places in the Premier League. (Man Utd, Man City, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton). None of the remaining Premier League clubs do very well against the top 7, and at the moment only 3 of the other 13 have won more than one game against them. We have played 10 of our 14 games against them, whereas Sunderland and West Ham have only played 7 (West Ham play Chelsea tonight 29/01/2014), and Norwich only 8. 

We have to believe we can do better in our remaining fixtures than those teams around us, lets keep the faith.  

Table of The Rest 13 v The Top 7 as at 4.00pm on 28/01/2014

Team                      Pl       W    D    L      Pts
Newcastle                8        3     1    4      10
WBA                        8        1     5    2       8
Aston Villa               9        2     1    6       7
Sunderland              7        2     0    5        6
Southampton           8        1     3    4       6
Stoke                      9        1     2    6       5
Cardiff                  10        1     2    7       5
West Ham              7         1     0    6       3
Hull                        9         1     0    8       3
Norwich                  8         0     1    7       1
Crystal Palace         9         0     1    8       1
Swansea               10         0     1    9       1
Fulham                  9          0     0    9       0

TOTALS:            111       13  17  81

The top 7 teams therefore WIN more than 70% of the games against the rest, and the rest only win around 11% of the games against the top 7. 

Therefore, 4 of the teams have not managed a single win against the top 7. Credit must go to West Brom who despite a poor season by their standards have only lost twice to top 7 teams.

I know their are no easy games, but I hope this puts things in a hopeful and positive light.

New Year. New Manager. New Players?

I usually try to keep club politics out of this blog, but in view of recent events there is no way I could ignore what has been happening at the Cardiff City Stadium. Following a woeful performance on Boxing Day against Southampton, manager Malky Mackay was relieved of his duties. By the 2nd of January, the club had announced that his successor would be former Manchester United player Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who most recently has been manager of Molde in the Norwegian League.

Malky Mackay was clearly a popular manager, following his 2 years of building a new team which delivered top flight football to Cardiff for the first time in 51 years. However, there were some unhappy comments from the more moderate areas of the fanbase, about his negative tactics and also the quality of some of his signings. Also, of course, there was a great deal of press speculation considering his relationship with owner Vincent Tan, resulting in the now famous e-mail which is alleged to have said “resign or be sacked” to Malky. There was obviously a major breakdown in the relationship between these 2, and the press jumped on the story very quickly and made it very big news.

There have been all sorts of allegations and speculations (Is that a word?) going around about what actually happened. My own opinion, for what its worth, is that Vincent Tan is not as much of a villain in this episode as the press make out, and Malky Mackay is not as much of a saint as the press and certain die hard fans would like to believe.

No matter what, it is now time for the fans to get behind the new manager. We have been in quite an unusual position compared to most teams in that we have only had 2 managers in the last 8 and a half years, with 2 and a half years of Malky Mackay following 6 years of Dave Jones. The majority of football clubs have had more than 2 managers in that space of time (some of them many more!). Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seems to have really hit the ground running, as he was in place as manager less than a week after the departure of Mackay. In addition to that, he already has his backroom staff installed at the training ground and at the time of composing this blog is in the process of signing 2 new Norwegian players for the club - Magnus Wolff Eikrem and Mats Moller Daehli. Ole has worked and developed these players over the last couple of years whilst with his previous club Molde and with the Manchester United reserves. He certainly hasn’t wasted any time, so lets hope these guys are up to Premier League standard with such an important game coming up against West Ham United on Saturday.

Mats Moller Daehli and new Cardiff City Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in their previous days at Molde.

Magnus Wolf Eikrem - Solskjaer’s first signing from Norway, via Heerenveen in Holland.

ON THE FIELD

There have been 5 fixtures since my last blog post, 4 Premier League matches and one FA Cup tie :-

LIVERPOOL 3 CARDIFF 1

CARDIFF 0 SOUTHAMPTON 3

CARDIFF 2 SUNDERLAND 2

ARSENAL 2 CARDIFF 0

NEWCASTLE 1 CARDIFF 2 (FA Cup)

LIVERPOOL 3 CARDIFF 1

At half time in this game, I feared the worst. We were 3-0 down to a top form Liverpool side with 2 goals and an assist from the outstanding Luis Suarez, probably the best player in world football at the moment. I was really worried that we would go on to lose by a huge score, not so much because the team was playing badly, but just that Liverpool were so much better! However, the team seemed to pick things up in the second half, and actually pinched a goal as well. There was no disgrace in this defeat, although it showed the vast gulf in class within the Premier League, never mind outside it.

Bluebirds captain Steve Caulker tries to keep Luis Suarez under control.

CARDIFF 0 SOUTHAMPTON 3

For the second match running, we were 3-0 down at half time. However, although Southampton are a good team, they are no Liverpool, and this has to go down as one of the worst displays seen at the Cardiff City stadium since it opened. Maybe this was the game where the off-field activities at the club finally got through to the players. It was a woeful performance, and turned out to be the last game in charge for Malky Mackay.

Jay Rodriguez (out of picture) scores Southampton’s second goal (pic by Jon Candy)

CARDIFF 2 SUNDERLAND 2

Assistant manager Dave Kerslake was temporarily in charge for this game following the departure Of Malky Mackay. The team seemed more relaxed and played well, particularly compared to the dreadful display 2 days previously. An early Jordan Mutch goal settled any early nerves, and when Frazier Campbell added a second midway through the second half it looked like we could be heading for all 3 points. However, 2 goals in the last 8 minutes, including a deflected effort more than 5 minutes into added time, meant that we had to settle for a point against the team favourites  still for relegation.

Goalmouth action against Sunderland (pic by Jon Candy)

ARSENAL 2 CARDIFF 0

By the time that this New Years Day fixture came around, Arsenal were now top of the league. New manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer watched on from the stands before officially taking over. He saw the team put up a strong rearguard performance, but unfortunately resistance was finally broken in the 88th minute when Niklas Bendtner finally broke through for Arsenal. To be fair, this was no more than they deserved, but the team showed some admirable spirit in front of their new manager.

Kim Byo-Kyung tangles with Theo Walcott at the Emirates Stadium.

NEWCASTLE 1 CARDIFF 2

And so to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first game in charge. The FA Cup has become less intense in recent years because of the amount of money now at stake in the Premier League. however, Ole put out a fairly strong team with only a couple of regular players given the chance to recover from one or two knocks over the Christmas period. A first start was also given to Danish striker Andreas Cornelious, who has been having injury problems since we signed him in the summer.

Newcastle also had a slightly weakened team, but also had a number of top class players such as Hatem Ben Arfa in the side. When Newcastle took the lead after 60 minutes it looked as if the game was up, but a fantastic 25 yard strike from Craig Noone less than a minute after coming on as substitute and a late Frazier Campbell goal following poor marking at a corner allowed the Bluebirds to gain their first win in Newcastle in more than 50 years.

The league is clearly more important than the FA Cup, but whilst Ole is getting a look at his players, the 4th round match at Bolton will give him a further chance to look at what he has got.

BOTTOM OF THE TABLE “6 POINTER”.

The next game to come up will be at home next Saturday to West Ham United, another team fighting to avoid relegation. Let’s hope we can be ruthless here, unlike the Sunderland game.

West Ham have been on a dreadful run, and I suspect a defeat on Saturday could put their manager Sam Allardyce’s job in danger. They have a number of injuries and suspensions, as well as the distraction of a League Cup semi-final first leg against Manchester City this week. West Ham put out a definitely weakened team at Nottingham Forest in the FA cup and got beaten 5-0. apart from on one occasion, they seem to have beaten us regularly in recent years. now is the time to end that run.

Thank you Malky for what you did for the club. now its Ole’s turn!