By all accounts Malky MacKay is a good guy. He is certainly a good motivator and tactician, and an excellent communicator, unburdened by the airs and graces normally associated by managers in the self-appointed Greatest Show on Earth. None of this saved him from the sack, though, accused of running riot with the cheque book in the summer.
Cardiff City certainly ran riot, spending in the region of £50m to help prepare for top flight football. If, as owner Vincent Tan alleges, the spend was unauthorised, Cardiff have a management control problem, not a problem with the manager, who is within his rights to spend whatever money made available to him.
‘Bluebirds’ fans are united on Malky’s side, they are equally united against owner Tan, who appears wholly unsuitable to control a football club. Changing their strips from blue to red, as red is the colour most associated with Wales, tells you all you need to know about Tan and where he will ultimately take the club, but the extravagance of the summer has already set Cardiff off on the road to rapid decline.
Every club should anticipating making mistakes in the transfer market, it is part of the territory, but they need to be able to afford those mistakes. Cardiff’s summer signings allowed for no mistakes. The totem was Andreas Cornelius, recruited from from Copenhagen for an outrageous £10m. The player received a five year contract worth more than the transfer fee. He’s only 20. Cornelius also earns more than seven times his salary at Copenhagen, no one will be able to afford to take him from Cardiff, his 18 career goals, all in Denmark, suggest he’s simply not worth anything like money he’s on.
If you’re Cardiff City, here’s the problem when you try to recruit for top flight football: after 50 years in the wilderness, you’re favourites for the drop. Players with other top flight options will take them, you’ll have to pay over the odds to convince players to sign on. You’re also shopping in a market you have absolutely no experience of – making mistakes more likely.
Spending £10m on a striker was possibly a sensible idea for Cardiff (I can imagine how popular it was, any sane voices would have been whistling against the wind) but what striker, genuinely worth £10m, would go there without being ‘bribed’ with copious amounts of cash? I’m aware of the parallels with Celtic, which £10m striker would come to Scotland?
They could have received 50 knock-backs before doing a deal in Copenhagen. This pattern was replicated across the rest of their summer spend. They should have invested their Premier League windfall on long-term development, irrespective of the short-term consequences.
For the sake of the club’s fans I hope they survive but inadequate controls at board level, with an owner seemingly intent on self-destruction, a rapid decline through the leagues seems inevitable, sooner or later.
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Theres the proof of the pudding ,4 of lennys signings on the subs bench. and samaras ,commons not for me, seen them paired up before,useless.lenny have the balls and start with pukki and balde or atjatc up front.
JIMBO67
You got a hangover,ya miserable sod? Sure sounds like it,haha!
Nice to see Kevin O’Donnell getting a mention this morning. He was a good friend of my father and on occasion travelled to games on our supporters bus.He rarely spoke of Wallace Mercer and Hearts, he was far more of a Christian than me, but his eyes said it all. He refereed closed door games for Celtic and loved still being part of the game albeit in a reduced capacity.
I did fall out with him once though; I was on a double hat-trick against his primary school team and he stopped the game ten minutes early…cheating bassa!
Kevin died a few years ago now and whenever he comes up in conversation the word gentleman is never far away.
HH
Adam and Izzy better be on their game today, this 2 winger nonsense does not sit well with me.
If ALL our bhoys turn up today we should win.
KTF 1-0 big effe to score
From MTH twitter.
The only way to get to the SFA is through our club, it will prove much more effective than going it alone. Use the tools available to us.
jimbo67
11:54 on 29 December, 2013
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/disinterested-not-the-same-as-uninterested/
Crawford Allan or Allan Crawford is the man in charge today…
Peter Grant – bought and paid for!
The return of Dougie Dougie demonstrates that the buffoons who run Scottish fitba truly believe that they are masters of the universe.
” Those days ” are not over , ” Those days ” are still here..
Cricket ,lovely cricket [ big thanks to the excellent Willow Tv USA -highly recommended !]
England thrashed / beaten by 8 wickets with a day to spare. Humped in a game they gave away.
Seriously, would it be that hazardous to give Atajic, Rogic, Balde, George etc a run out and maybe generate a bit of interest into the bargain?
Does anyone really care if we go the full season unbeaten, especially if its to the detriment of planning ahead?
ApathyRulesCSC
GREETINGS FROM GREECE AND BEST WISHES FOR NEW YEAR!!!
Why some of you underestimate:
A top SPL player.
A CL class player.
A player who will be GREECE’ S captain in WORLD CUP FINALS.
Who is he?
SUPER SAMMI!!!
Remember it took the shameless McDonald about 6 weeks to “resign” after Tannadice.He thought the machine would help him ride out the storm.The Club have been silent on far too many issues,will they speak out on this one?I doubt it ,yet again.
Andrew Smith is obviously still smarting about the GB stealing his “H” a few weeks ago.
“Ibrahimovic would have to play well to get into our team…” Shortbread
Nice on Neil
HH
New CQN Golf attire, including bunnet, donned and ready for its first game. After a wee roll on bacon, though…
BMCUWP
As Ernie Lynch has pointed out an inexcusable error in my last posting ( thanks Ernie!) it would appear I am hungover. And grumpy.
So no change from usual then .
Jimbo67 supporting Oscar Knox
new article posted.
Being an “equal opportunity” employer, I assume the sfa followed proper procedure wrt advertising and interviewing prospective employees. I mean, surely the days of being ” invited” on board are long gone otherwise people might think they are just some masonic-a-like secretive brotherhood. Wouldn’t they?
Good news for mineshafters.
Today is another day when your foretelling of a loss of 3 points might come true.
For me, it’s a chance for Celtic to win at a tough away ground and both opening goals to be scored by “wingers” who will automatically then revert to the status of midfielder.
Different Strokes, eh?
The Battered Bunnet. I share your balanced critique of Andrew Smith’s piece in SoS today. However, I’d add a few reasons which tempt me to miss home games despite having two season tickets in the comfy seats: Stokes’s inability to understand the offside rule, Samaras’s recent huff, The lesser spotted Ledley, Square ball after square ball, no strikers…..
GrumpyCSC