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Who are the “very young” players you expect to be in the starting line up next week? It looks like Bagan will be, but who else? Giles is only twenty, but played a season in the Championship last year. After years of giving young players no chance at all, City have become like nearly every other club in that they have a core of four or five young pros who might see some first team action if we’re nit by injuries, illness and/or suspensions.
I take no pleasure whatever in recalling the evening of the Emiliano Sala tragedy.
I noticed a French newspaper report of a missing plane en route from Nantes to Wales. Unusual route and knowing that the poor young man was travelling overnight I followed up and was reluctantly convinced VERY early what had happened and to whom.
I posted it sometime between 10pm and midnight on *****’ forum and if it still exists you can probably see the disbelieving and quite nasty tirade I received, which went on for about 24 hours until the dreadful truth emerged.
Point being not that I’m claiming some brilliant insight but that it’s very possible for an apparently unlikely truth to be picked up on correctly. Now I don’t either, for one moment, claim that my speculation on this matter is correct, but I thought Taunton , of all people, would know that a majority of opinion on a factual matter is no indication whatsoever that they have it right.
We censor a bloke from Cardiff’s name ?
Is that fair on his dad, who had exactly the same name ?
Relying on "I was right once, so I might be again" is a bit feeble isn't it?
Saying something like "If the assembled squad starts getting hammered 5-0 every game" could be taken as just a way to get across the notion that we're going to struggle, but then you qualify it with "as is quite a possibility to be frank and realistic" takes it onto a different level. What you say could legitimately be called frank, but realistic? No chance! Tell you what, if and when we've lost our tenth consecutive match 5-0 this autumn, I'll join all of the others on here in hailing you as a genius - you can't say fairer than that!
You've posted some strange stuff in recent weeks - you advocate us paying £12 million or whatever it was for Harry Wilson and then casually declare we should sell Gavin Whyte because he's not good enough. You seem oblivious to the facts - for most Football League clubs (i.e. those not in receipt of parachute payments), paying fees for players is on hold for a while and, if they are one of the few able to do so, I'm sure they're looking to spend what little they do have on better than Gavin Whyte. As for Wilson, you really expect the man who is, reportedly, putting £3 million a month into the club to fork out four times that on a player? Understandably, Vincent Tan has decided the club (i.e. him) has to cut down on the transfer spending and, anyway, even if we were able to match Fulham's offer for the player, I'd say it's very doubtful he'd opt for us having had experience of the "Cardiff way" last season.
It's a mare OP with the 5-0 drubbings every week, and gets worse as people seem to be taking issue with this rather than the main point.
Ronnie Bird does make a point about how long Tan can be expected to bankroll the club. It's a shame that pedantry has won this thread because the main part of his post, for me, was this line:
"it won’t take Sri Vincent Tan long to start losing most of his considerable investment."
Tan recently cashed in on his LA shares, and he has already proven the point
"How do you make anyone a millionaire? Answer: Give them a billion, and get them to invest in football".
Tan has lost most of his investment, that much is plainly obvious. If the right offer comes along, he has already said he'd be willing to accept. There was interest a while back. The list of prospective owners of Cardiff City won't include Hammam or Ridsdale will it?
With everything that has happened in recent months, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Tan's valuation of the club has become more realistic, and that may tempt previous interested parties in coming forward.
So the question is why do billionaires invest in football teams? I'm sure they expect to lose money, but they must get benefits of other sorts - whether it's vanity, prestige, profile, or commercial benefits for their other companies, I don't know. But there must be something other than money, as there are more solid financial investments around.
Our staring line up next week, based on what I saw in the friendlies should be:
Smithies, Ng, Morrison, Flint, Nelson, Bagan, Bacuna, Pack, Ralls, Giles, Collins. Subs: Phillips, McGuinness, Brown, Wintle , Vaulks, Moore, Harris.
So only Bagan will be the inexperienced one.
If you ask 100 billionaires, you may get 100 reasons.
Some will, undoubtedly, do it because they love the game.
Some, may allegedly, do it to avoid getting killed by the leader of Russia.
Most will do it, partly, because of ego. I think Tan falls into that category but I think he also has an appreciation that he is doing something good and bringing joy to thousands.
If you go back to the pre-Premier-League era, most clubs were owned by people who "loved" the game, but were "hard-nosed" businessmen who could see that spending big money chasing success was a sure path to ruin. These guys were car salesmen, travel agents, shop owners, and not very wealthy.
Then, along comes Jack Walker - the first to be called a "benefactor" although that title was also given to Rick Wright who had less deep pockets. He was the first to really not expect a return for his investment other than seeing his beloved club winning things it could never have won without his money.
People like Kumar and Cadman did, I think, understand that there was a pot of gold to be had and tried to get it as cheaply as possible. Another way to ruin in an age where there were now more benefactors than owners.
We are still in that age, which is why I don't think it is unreasonable for Tan to think of life beyond Cardiff City, nor for us to think of life beyond Tan.
No, that’s really not what I said, is it ?
In fact I pointed out that spotting something unlikely once doesn’t mean you’ll get it right next time.
Look , we’ve got some excellent prospects in this squad and it MIGHT all gel together but it’s not professional to rely on that without a plan B. There’s a limit to how many new players you can use without losing all continuity even if they were all seasoned pros who are definitely comfortable at this level, and we ARE pushing that.
Now ,my whole point is that IF that starts going wrong, then there’s no way to do anything till January. Had we held on to Sol, Junior etc then there’d have been a parachute, but we haven’t.
You and I have entirely different philosophies on football. This I’ve noticed.
I don’t disrespect your position in any way but I take a different view. I see no reason whatsoever why we can’t be Liverpool or Tottenham and we should have been building toward that over the last 40 years. It means we can never be satisfied with second best, even if through practicality we sometimes have to temporarily put up with it to some extent.
We had the chance to consolidate two years ago then a squad last year which should have challenged for promotion, but it was wasted. Unfortunate but can’t be helped now. You’ve seen me post that Sri Vincent Tan has been marvellous ,that I don’t expect him to produce endless money and that we must of needs be tighten our belts, BUT unless we’re just going to shut the doors there must be some investment to keep going.We NEED a creative player to draw this makeshift squad together, hence my Harry Wilson comments.
Hasn’t got to be him and IF Lee Tomlin was definitely fit , he’d do just as well. Could be someone else altogether who’d be much cheaper, but if there’s no one like that available we can’t just chuck a youngster or league one player ( no matter how promising) out onto the field and hope for the best. Even on reduced budgets and in hard times we NEED a reliable spine which will keep us going.
I’m not predicting a meltdown and certainly not wanting one, but rather taking the possibility into account and pleading with the club not to leave us with our arses hanging out in one very possible course of events. Let me be frank - that’s plain ****ing STUPID, and we should expect a more intelligent analysis of possible problems from a professional football manager.