As Yazz said, the 'Only Way Is Up' for our Bluebirds as we bask in the glory of ending our losing streak in mid-week and come up against a team who's recent form is actually worse than our own! Stoke City come to town in what can only be described as a bit of a mess. Just 1 win in their last 6, coming at home to struggling QPR, they've just sacked their technical director Ricky Martin, they're on their 2nd manager of the season after poaching Stephen Shumacher from Plymouth in December following the sacking of Alex Neil and have once again spent quite heavily, yet are still languishing in the lower half of the table. I know it may be a touch of schadenfreude but it's nice to see someone seemingly in more of a mess than our own beloved club!! Stoke are a side we have historically done ok against with them being winless against us in their last five in South Wales (D3 L2) since a 1-0 win in August 2007 though draws have definitely been the order of the day in the most recent of times (6 draws out of the last 10 games). Stoke though do still possess some decent players and so we really can't afford to take them lightly on Saturday. Last time out saw the Bluebirds draw 0-0 (what odds that happening again today?) in a tight game, with the result being a positive at the time for both teams. Stoke had just come off 3 wins in a row dropped to 12 place and our Bluebirds, despite a good showing against a form side slipped to 7th and out of the play-off spots as a consequence – how times have changed! Bulut's Bulletin Perry Ng is expected to return for this one following his recent hip issues and Yakou Meite has also recovered from his calf injury so will also be in contention. We could also see a return to the starting 11 for Joe Ralls who has been missed over recent weeks, with Ryan Wintle or Manolis Siopis most likely to drop out. Odds are Rubin Colwill will continue his run in the side as our 'creative' force following the new injury to Aaron Ramsey. What Are The Odds On That? Found this guy hanging around in the car park - apparently he played for us for a while but then he went off muttering something about looking for his car but being worried by some masked man who was also loitering around the place looking for flashing headlights and being delayed in getting to his next club!! Well I Never Did you know that if the team fail to score against Stoke this Saturday they'll have scored less often than Joseph (John) Merrick did way back in the 1800's! Sharing The Love Loans, loans and non-appearances again this week! Michael Ricketts Signed on loan from fellow Championship side Leeds Utd in 2005 by Dave Jones, the striker had had an unimpressive time at the Yorkshire club as well as a fruitless loan spell at our visitors Stoke just prior to joining the Bluebirds, the big striker went on to score 5 times in a 17 game spell, including a winner in a 1-0 victory over Leicester with his first goal for the club. Manager Jones revealed that Ricketts had been signed to help relieve pressure on the emerging Cameron Jerome in City’s push for a play-off spot. Chris Greenacre Greenacre joined the then 3rd Division Bluebirds in the bottom tier on loan from Manchester City in 1997, making 11 appearances as the club ended up finishing in 21st position (joint 20th with Swansea) above Hull, Brighton & the relegated Doncaster Rovers. Greenacre’s 2 goals helped the Bluebirds to a win at Mansfield and a draw away at Cambridge. A sign of how desperate the times were is the Bluebird’s average attendance for that season was just 3,547. The highest home figure being 6,623 against Exeter, which even outranked the South Wales derby game v the Jacks (a 1-0 defeat for the City) which attracted just 6,459 fans. Greenacre himself would go on to leave Man City to enjoy his most prolific spell, netting 58 goals in 134 appearances for Mansfield Town, finishing his playing career in New Zealand, racking up 19 goals in 84 games for Wellington before moving into coaching/management. Rabbi Matondo For the 2nd game running we have a player on the list that made no senior appearances for the Bluebirds, however, unlike Jason Brown this one rankles a little bit. Coming through the Cardiff youth ranks, in 2016 Matondo was plucked from the Bluebirds youth set up by Manchester City under the Elite Player Performance Plan, an initiative created by the Premier League regarding movement of youth players, with a minimal compensation fee being provided. Following appeals by the Bluebirds, a reportedly £500k fee was apparently eventually paid by the Premier League side. Matondo never hit the heights at Man City though and in 2019 moved to Shalke for a fee reported to be up to £11 million, making a mockery of the system that allowed him to be taken from Cardiff for a pittance. His spell at Shalke however was also less than convincing and included loans to both Stoke and Cercle Brugge before he eventually made a permanent switch to Rangers in July 2022 for an undisclosed fee said to be in the region of £2 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Player_Performance_Plan So, can the Bluebirds end the recent home curse and pick off the Potters? Will Bulut boot the boys up the butt and finally get them hitting the net with the frequency of a run of salmon when Remote is about?? Or might we see an Ng classic with Perry popping in a pearler from a free kick??? All I know is we've just gotta stick with it and 'enjoy' the ride. As bad as times may feel, a little glimpse back to 1997 has definitely served as a bit of a reminder that despite Yazz's optimism things can go down as well as up, so perhaps even stasis may not be so bad in some respects?? Bloooooooooooooooobirds!!!! <0>\0/<0>\0/<0>\0/<0>\0/<0>\0/<0>\0/
Yet another masterpiece Brizzle. I can’t remember half of the players sharing the love, never mind writing a mini wiki on them. The only way is preparing for next season for me I’m afraid.
Mr Brizzle!!!!! You absolute literary superstar. Thanks again for a joyful read sir. Good to read you stoking the pot of enthusiasm. My advice to Erol is to keep the back line as Blackburn and play Ng as striker. Cmon City Blooooooobirds
Let's face it Clingo, our Perry couldn't do any worse than the rest of our supposed specialist forwards could he? Actually, isn't he our top scorer currently???
Excellent as ever BB. Just one small point on the motivational back up music. I remember Yazz being of the female variety, not unattractive. Masky would give her the benefit given the opportunity. The photo appears to show someone of the male gender. Has Yazz gone trans on us, with hormone tablets encouraging facial growth?
Wonderful read Brizzle. It's like as if you know something about football and the teams involved!!! Lovely!!
Absolutely sir. There will be no solemn Sunday this week. It's got to happen sometime hasn't it? Blooooooobirds
Morning, morning? It's the middle of the day. I was defrosting a tractor at 7 this morning. Most of my chores done. Ready for a day of rugby and football. Just need to pick up the catch returns from the fishery to update the stats. Look at that, corrupted the thread 3 times with 1 post. Farming, fishing and egg. I did mention football though. Got us down for a win today.
Good evening remote. I didn't mean to offend . I didn't realise what a thread hooligan you are. Anyway let's have a positive day of sport now that you're back in BST.
Don't know what it's like in Cardiff, but everything is frozen in Cheshire. I hope Vincent has approved an extra 50p in the meter for the undersoil heating. Let's hope Erol plays our guys in the right positions and the right combinations. It looks as if there should be goals in the team, Erol just needs to take the handbrake off.
It started a bit frosty here in Glosser but is warming up slightly. I was actually serious about trying Ng up front or at least as an attacking MF. Surely the guys that kept out Blackburn can do the same against Stoke? Can't see Perry being played anywhere other than RB though. I think he's like the guy who doesn't get promoted because he's too good at what he does. But you're right, we gotta go for the three points today. Cmon Erol.. positivity man, positivity.
I think Ng is a bit like Patterson. Good when he's occasionally in those positions, but not permanently. We've had some odd full backs.
