Cardiff City continue to look a better team when not playing at home.

[the other bob wilson]

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

[Eric the Half a Bee]

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

Good read as always. In terms of passing, it sounded like it wasn't just Cunningham who was culpable, though he did have a nightmare few minutes. I just think we've got a side that, overall, is technically not that great, and so a more possession based game is going to take time to work. Our strengths have been team spirit and individual brilliance.

As for the Paterson question, I have a question in response. There probably isn't an answer to yours and I doubt there's one to mine: Are there any comparable examples of clubs wanting to get rid of one of its bigger players to get them off the wage bill without terminating contracts and getting some sort of transfer fee? I fear the club wanted a high wage earner off the books and asked Harris which one would have been most expendable. The fee reflected more our need to save on wages in the present than it reflected Paterson's abilities. This almost mirrors sending Kenwyne Jones out on loan solely to save money.

[the other bob wilson]

Good read as always. In terms of passing, it sounded like it wasn't just Cunningham who was culpable, though he did have a nightmare few minutes. I just think we've got a side that, overall, is technically not that great, and so a more possession based game is going to take time to work. Our strengths have been team spirit and individual brilliance.

As for the Paterson question, I have a question in response. There probably isn't an answer to yours and I doubt there's one to mine: Are there any comparable examples of clubs wanting to get rid of one of its bigger players to get them off the wage bill without terminating contracts and getting some sort of transfer fee? I fear the club wanted a high wage earner off the books and asked Harris which one would have been most expendable. The fee reflected more our need to save on wages in the present than it reflected Paterson's abilities. This almost mirrors sending Kenwyne Jones out on loan solely to save money.

As I feel most sides we play at Championship level pass the ball better than us, I agree that poor ball retention with a Cardiff team cannot always be explained away by things like similar kits - passing the badly is what we do "naturally"! As I mention, it's frustrating this season because I've seen so little of us and so I need to be careful when forming conclusions about the 20/21 team, but Rob Phillips has seen us play often enough to know he'll see quite a lot of misplaced passes from City and he was taken aback by how simple the passes were that we were getting wrong. Not having seen the passes in question myself, I can't really judge, but, having seen pictures of yesterday's match, I'd say it's at least plausible that Blackburn's shirts could have been mistaken for City ones in some circumstances by some of our players.

That's a fair point you make about the Kenwyne Jones loan and we did the same with Matt Connolly to Watford didn't we - I still don't think there's been a similar case to the Paterson one when it comes to selling players on the cheap, but loaning out first teamers to rivals in your division was novel, if not unique, so there are precedents for Vincent Tan going about transfer business in a different way to everyone else.

[LeningradCowboy]

I’m not as disappointed with Paterson’s departure as some because it seemed clear he was not going to be getting that many opportunities with Keiffer Moore’s arrival and I can see that it made sense in many ways to let him go.

However, what I don’t get is why we would let someone who still had two years left on his contract, who was our top scorer in a promotion season, someone who scored winning goals for us in the Premier League, go for what I’d call an almost derisory £500,000 (£425,000 once Hearts have been given their sell on fee cut).

I’ve had online discussions with supporters who say that I’m being unfair there, they say that once you factor in the player’s high wage and the new football financial world brought on by Covid 19, the fee is a reasonable one, but I’ve twice asked those who say this to come up with comparable examples to Paterson’s bargain price during this window and nobody has yet.

If Paterson is really worth significantly more than £500k, but we were willing to sell him for that amount, why weren't clubs queuing up to take him off our hands? I think it's quite telling that the only club who showed any interest in him will almost certainly be relegated at the end of the season.

[Eric the Half a Bee]

As I feel most sides we play at Championship level pass the ball better than us, I agree that poor ball retention with a Cardiff team cannot always be explained away by things like similar kits - passing the badly is what we do "naturally"! As I mention, it's frustrating this season because I've seen so little of us and so I need to be careful when forming conclusions about the 20/21 team, but Rob Phillips has seen us play often enough to know he'll see quite a lot of misplaced passes from City and he was taken aback by how simple the passes were that we were getting wrong. Not having seen the passes in question myself, I can't really judge, but, having seen pictures of yesterday's match, I'd say it's at least plausible that Blackburn's shirts could have been mistaken for City ones in some circumstances by some of our players.

That's a fair point you make about the Kenwyne Jones loan and we did the same with Matt Connolly to Watford didn't we - I still don't think there's been a similar case to the Paterson one when it comes to selling players on the cheap, but loaning out first teamers to rivals in your division was novel, if not unique, so there are precedents for Vincent Tan going about transfer business in a different way to everyone else.

I'd forgotten about Matt Connolly. That was the same thing again. Yes, Tan and the club have had a unique approach to removing players. We may yet find this out about Mendez-Laing.

[tomcat]

If Paterson is really worth significantly more than £500k, but we were willing to sell him for that amount, why weren't clubs queuing up to take him off our hands? I think it's quite telling that the only club who showed any interest in him will almost certainly be relegated at the end of the season.

I'm reliably informed that Paterson was sold for double the figure reported.

[xsnaggle]

Yes, but only better than themselves at home. The plan should be to look better than the opposition.