Usually a bit long winded for me is this guy, as I said before , can make Salad the dragon look like he's using text speak. However, this is a good read and should offer up differing opinions.....or not, as the case may be! http://thelonegunmanblog.blogspot.com/
Seeing it's quiet SBFF & if your not busy , just a few questions . Do you think Jones was forced to take loans , instead of buying players outright , by the owners ? . Also a while back , Ridsdale went off the deep end about a snitch in the Cardiff offices in which someone was let go for passing information , do you think it's possible that the " News of the World " phone hacking scheme might have been responsible ? Cheers !
All open to speculation Cracker(breezey?) but my opinion is he might well have felt forced, but i can't see how he WAS forced. He was practically given the reins at Cardiff, to make the choices he felt would do the job. It had been a long standing criticism of Jones that he has a stubborn streak and i feel this finally led to his downfall. As for the NOTW, I don't think so, in fact it is quite noticable that leaks have been plugged since the new regime has come in. This is most apparent on the AAMB where inside info is now a scarce commodity, so much so that over the last two days the dullest of rumours abound and mayhem is riegning on there at the moment. Pity, as there are good posters on there and i enjoy reading it.
For a guy that was known for buying low & selling high , the whole loan situation seemed a bit ... out of character for Jones . Just following his dealings with Chopra from the first time he went to Cardiff , till he left the last time , makes Jones look brilliant . Also , I remember thinking at the time something was fishy with Ridsdale having a go at the staff , then with the NOTW fiasco coming out in the news , it just got me suspicious . Thanks for the time Cheers
seems the boys are off somewhere sunny indeed http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10335~2391967,00.html
SB - A good, interesting read, if you have the time. Thanks. I think (if you can dig back in the last year or so) that DJ sought the counsell of Tony Pulis who managed to get Stoke to the Prem on the back of a number of loan deals. As a result of this and the fact that it didn't involve large upfront transfer fees DJ changed his policy of seeking new blood from Scotland and lower divisions. Also, there weren't the funds available to pay the sort of transfer fees needed to improve the squad. It seems he took the point of view that if he could get Prem quality players on loan the positive results would appear more quickly without the need to coach improvement and greater levels of fitness from the incoming players. Sadly this failed and as the lonegunman questions Malky's ability in the transfer market, so the loan fixation detracts from DJ's previous successes.
Tidy read that.Only one problem,when I read the Heaton paragraph it reminded me that we still haven't got a a coach for the keepers sorted.
Some fair points there BFB, sometimes its easy to criticise with hindsight. I know I was quite happy with the loans when they were coming in, and if they had all tried a bit harder I suspect DJ would still be manager and a hero. Some players let us down badly and DJ paid the price for that.
A bit one sided but I suppose he was focusing on the fact he believed DJ was on his last chance and failed to deliver. He wasn't going to focus on DJs 6 years and the good he did the club was he? Some valid points and good reasoning but I am still of the opinion DJ generally did us proud and his record is the best in recent history. So I wonder if he'll blog about what J did well?
Does anyone actually know how high our wage bill was last season compared to other Championship clubs? Bellamy aside, surely no-one was on big money?
Big money what do you mean, apart from Chopra, Bothroyd, Burke, Olifinjana, JLS, i think our wage bill would have been very heavy, and will be at more reasonable levels this year.
Like most of us with the arrival of Bellamy and Koumas returning, I was very optimistic and thought "We've already won this league" A good point was made that there were players who were not match fit, and at times seemed lost. Signing a keeper from a mid to lower championship team who is out of favour has to be looked at, and was there any point of Brown coming to the club. This season we can watch and see develop these fresh new players who belong to Cardiff city and will be proud to wear the shirt and fight for their place.
to be honest i think the issues discussed in the article have been exhausted completely by the fans, and we'll do better by looking forwards to a more balanced, long term approach by MM. you could sum up that article in one sentence really. DJ used a short term approach and knew that if he failed he would be quite likely to lose his job. if you sign that many players then some with be successful, some won't. overall, i would compare DJ's tenure to that of rafael benitez at liverpool. during his first years he progressed the club year on year, but at the end did comparatively poorly, meaning that the many fans only memory of the manager will be that of his failure later on during his period of management.
Regarding the article, yes some of the signings last year didn't work out but where did we finish...4th! Just behind Norwich & Swansea, they weren't that much better than us despite it all. 4 more points than 09/10 too. Jones deserves much more credit than he gets.
