Malky Mackay's emotional Cardiff City admission...

[life on mars]

This subject has been debated on here hundreds of times, maybe even thousands, and it always comes down to a matter of opinion - here are some facts, not accusations of financial wrong doing that we're still waiting to see any proof of in the public domain, just facts.

Malky Mackay had two seasons with us in the Championship, he got us to the Play Offs in one of them (and came closer than any other City manager has done sine 1927 to winning us a major Cup Final) and then won the title in domestic football's second tier (something no other City manager has done) in his second.

At the time of his sacking in our only top flight season since 1962, we were fifteenth out of twenty with seventeen points from eighteen matches played - we managed thirteen from the remaining twenty games that season. If we had continued to pick up points over the last twenty matches at the same rate as we had done in the first eighteen, we'd have ended up with thirty six points. West Brom finished in seventeenth position (i.e, just safe from the drop) with thirty six points and a much better goal difference than us, so it's likely we would have gone down if Mackay had stayed and continued to pick up points at the rate he did in those first eighteen matches.

However, it's a matter of fact that in the nine home games we played that season with Mackay in charge, seven of them had been against sides that finished in the top ten that season - the only two matches played against bottom half teams (Swansea and West Brom) had finished in 1-0 City wins. We had ten home matches left when Mackay was shown the door and seven of them were against the sort of teams we had been beating up until then - granted, two matches is not much of a precedent to base firm conclusions on, but there is evidence there to strongly suggest that we would have done a lot better had Mackay stayed than we did under Ole and David Kerslake.

Yes, we're back into opinion territory there I know, but it's a matter of fact that we never ended up dropping points after being two goals up in a home match, like we did against Sunderland in the first match after the sacking, under Malky Mackay - again, only an opinion, but mine has always been that we would have won that match, which proved so influential that season, had Mackay still been in charge.

Your point is well made about Malky Mackay, I remember the first few games and the football commentators stressing how well the defense and the midfield was set up zonally , making it very difficult to break us down . In addition to this Marshall was receiving massive plaudits, all of which suggests a rather negative defensive approach to many of our games , he spent very big on a defender and a defensive midfielder, all of whcih was to prop up a very defense system , we had no real punch going forward "" gosh this sounds so familiar ""

In addition he let players go out loan who should have been kept as squad members to keep the promotion unity intact. I always wondered how far Ralls would have progressed in that league ,if given some game time , Hudson, Rudi , Super Kev, could all done a job, not as regulars, but squad players .

I also clearly remember fans in the championship/premiership bemoaning his lack of risk taking going forward , using Cowie, etc , as a safe pair of hands, but hey he did get us up " with financial support " He took an age to pick Noone and Mutch ?

In my opinion, he and the club were found badly wanting in the big league , they were simply not ready for that step , backroom staff ,good scouts and experience were needed , even perhaps DOF .

We find our later he had a smack of arrogance and poor behavior about him which I feel as let all the "wonderful fans" as he calls them, down , we know all about the lavish money committed to a very poor signing of a danish unknown ,and other wasted investments.

I think his defensive /zonal set up in the Premiership needed bolstering with pacy midfield and goal poachers ( jeepers its groundhog day )