See, the perfect end to the season would be for Sunderland to be docked the point they won with Ju playing and Cardiff to be given the 3 points lost to 'cheating' Palace. The ion the last day of the season to beat Chelsea to finish a point ahead of Sunderland in 17th place. Only for Michel Vorm, following treatment when injured bringing down Borini, to sent off (hence the additional time). at 1 - 1 Borini steps up to take the penalty against stand in keeper Leon Btritton. 2 -1 3 points to SUnderland.
Cheers Goodland, good to get an honest, objective opinion from someone further west. If only there were more like you and Swans Cartoonhead. Interesting thoughts on Bellamy. He is Cardiff through and through and in time could well manage the club if that is what he wants to do with his life. However, he probably needs some managerial experience first either as a number 2 with us or elsewhere. To have him as a number 2 might be tough though - I expect his forthright views would make him somewhat high maintenance and friction would be inevitable. Whoever is in charge, and I expect OGS to be given more time, inevitably there will be a lot of comings and goings this summer. At present there are more rumours on who will leave, Medel, Caulker, Mutch and Campbell, possibly Marshall being the obvious ones (it also appears Chelsea are interested in the one good thing from this season, Matts Daehli, as a home grown player - they can nick him on the cheap), than who will come in. If we can hang on to at least 3 of those then with a number of players who got us up from the Championship we have the makings of a reasonable team for next season. It is the quality and ability of whoever comes in that will make the difference for us. It appears we already have a commitment from a striker from Spain - can't remember his name - but whether that stands now we are relegated I don't know. As ever it will be an interesting summer and if it is OGS in charge I hope he gets most of his deals done early so the whole squad have good pre-season preparation and hit the ground running. It will be interesting to compare notes again in August. Have a great summer.
I'm not convinced that money alone is going to do it for us this time. There's no doubt that Tan's wealth helps, and was a huge advantage to Malky when he took us last season. As much as it depends whether Tan tries to recoup some of his investement with a sale of our most valuable "playing assets", the club needs to get back to the basics for a Championship season. This coming season isn't going be the "bright lights" that Tan envisaged, it's the slog of a hard 46 game campaign against teams that will battle rather than overwhelm us with skill like this year. Hard grafters rather than "names" must form the spine of the side. There is room for a couple of Noone type players to break defences down, but a serious hold up target man must also be high on the agenda. Don't know if Jones is the right guy, I just hope we get it right this time and not another Cornelius fiasco. Got a feeling that Mutch will stay, and maybe even Marshall. The manager (whoever that'll be) will need to get it right in August/September. The Ole style of tinkering is only acceptable for a short period. If we more or less accept he had to play the cards he held and tried to get the best setup with them, that would be a bit of a let off for him to be honest. Easy to say now, but I personally believe he was the wrong guy to employ at that crucial time, and we paid the price for his inexperience. If he gets to keep the job, he'll be under a lot of pressure from above, and his usual casual relaxed manner if it doesn't go to plan won't be enough - he'll have no place to hide.
