New owners ?

[the other bob wilson]

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.

I think you're right about us having a different philosophies on the game, but I think you may be misunderstanding me concerning my attitude towards younger players at the club through the last decade or so. I've always believed that any young player has to earn their place in the side, not just be presented with one because they came through the Academy. My concern is that, almost entirely, young players have not even been part of the conversation when it comes to first team selection for nigh on a decade.

Instead, in the past whenever a vacancy, like the current one at left wing back, has cropped up at Cardiff since Dave Jones' days, the attitude has always been okay, lets go and buy someone. That someone has often been nothing special, overpriced and, more often than not, with no sell on value.

The policy has worked to the extent that we've been promoted twice, but it seems to me that the net position we find ourselves in under Vincent Tan's time in charge is slightly worse off on the pitch, an extension to the Ninian Stand added, an Academy which has not been serving its purpose and debt levels that are far higher, although not as threatening, as they were under Peter Ridsdale. It's not surprising in the slightest that Vincent Tan has decided to cut back on the football budget at a time when the parachute payments have stopped and gate receipts have declined.

Like others, I think you're over dramatising things. As has been pointed out by Cardiff 55 and myself, the only young players likely to start on Saturday are Bagan and Giles - the first of whom acquitted himself well in the senior matches he played last season, while Giles, seemingly, had plenty of Championship teams interested in taking him on loan following forty three appearances at this level in 20/21.

That hardly represents the sort of complete overhaul you are claiming. All that has happened is that we've, thankfully, become like most other clubs in having a nucleus of home produced young players who will come into consideration for first team selection if needs be and we've started doing what most other Championship clubs have been doing for years - occasionally recruiting from levels below us, rather than nearly always looking to the Premiership or Championship if there's a gap to be filled which cannot be done so by a youngster already at the club.