" A WARNING TO CARDIFF CITY PLAYERS "
Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:55 pm
Cardiff City manager Russell Slade warns Bluebirds stars it's his way... or the highway.
Friday 10/10/14
It seems almost fitting that as I sit chatting with new Cardiff City boss Russell Slade a storm rages outside the Bluebirds’ Vale of Glamorgan HQ.
Rain hammers down, lightning flashes and thunder rumbles in ominous fashion, indeed you half expect to turn to Slade and find him wearing a black cape, exposing fearsome fangs and cackling with laughter as he retires to his crypt.
OK, of course, we need to get this straight from the start, Slade is not your average bogeyman, he’s by far too nice and jovial for that, but as he takes charge in the Welsh capital you get the impression the 53-year-old is not here to be everyone’s best mate, to give some of the, shall we say, substantial egos within the Bluebirds’ squad a reassuring massage.
It is obvious Slade means business at Cardiff, he has a job do, a big job to do. To say the Bluebirds have underachieved this season is like saying Dr Jekyll had a bit of a personality problem.
Currently languishing 15th in the Championship, the pre-season talk of the best squad in the division and bouncing straight back to the top-flight currently seems a million miles away.
Slade’s mission is to make what seems unlikely a reality, with his own ambition already declared as surge to the top-six places. To do that he is going to have to bring under control a squad that is undoubtedly packed with talent, but one which has become unwieldy and seemingly impossible to wrangle into any coherent line-up.
But Slade himself has a more pressing task on his hands, overcoming something of a perception problem, not just amongst supporters, but perhaps within his own dressing room.
When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer bit the dust there was hopeful talk of Tony Pulis taking over or perhaps Neil Lennon being next in. When Slade emerged as a front-runner it was a case in some quarters of: ‘Russell who?’
When he got the job itself there were immediate murmurs of discontent that a man who had ‘only’ been in charge of the likes of Scarborough, Grimsby, Yeovil and most recently Orient was just not up to the job of handling a ‘big’ club like the Bluebirds.
If such suggestions are bugging him, then Slade is doing a good job at hiding his irritation.
“That doesn’t concern me. I know what I’m about. I’m confident in what I do and I know what I can get from my teams,” said Slade. “For a manager who is in League One I really think it’s about being given an opportunity. The chance to show what you can do.
“I had that opportunity 18 months ago and Barry Hearn turned that one down. This time I did not want to lose what I thought was a fantastic opportunity for me.
“The fact I’ve done 650 games shows I’m more experienced than recent managers who have been at this football club. That’s important. I think this club needs that little bit of experience particularly at this moment in time.
“I believe I have something to bring to the table. There’s no doubt about that.”
If supporters are starting to warm to Slade’s no-nonsense, honest approach then it is unclear what the men at the sharp end of his double training sessions, the Cardiff players themselves, think of his approach.
However, he pointed out: “The players have two choices, they either buy into what we are doing or they don’t.
“They decide their own attitude. When they wake up in the morning they either roll their sleeves up and come in with a positive attitude and give absolutely everything they’ve got or they don’t.
“If they do I will see that in them, I will notice that. They are the players who will eventually be playing for this football club.
“The ones that don’t buy into it, well, as far I’m concerned there are two kinds of players, there are energisers and there are energy sappers. Nobody in the club or outside it, the staff or the fans, want the energy-sappers here.”
One man who will have a big part to play under Slade is goalkeeper David Marshall. The Scot, who excelled in the Premier League last term, is regarded as perhaps the cream of the shot-stoppers in the second-tier.
Marshall was handed the captaincy by Solskjaer following the departure of Mark Hudson to Huddersfield last month. Slade may be keen to change many things at the club, but Marshall as skipper is evidently not one of them.
But what the new manager does want is a host of leaders on the pitch, a nucleus of men in the Cardiff side who can inspire when the chips are down and lead from the front.
“David will keep the armband of course,” said Slade. “It is more unusual to have a goalkeeper as skipper that’s for sure, but do you know what I want? I want five or six leaders out there. That’s the important thing.
“He’s a good man is ‘Marshy’ really solid as a character so I can fully understand why he is captain here. But also he requires a little bit of support and I will be looking, either from within or eventually from outside, for those sort of characters to come into the club. Any successful team does not just have one captain, it’s got several.”
There may have been stormy clouds louring over the Bluebirds so far this season, but, as they say, the darkest hour is just before dawn.
Far from being the Prince of Darkness, Slade might just be the man to lead the capital club back into the light.
Friday 10/10/14
It seems almost fitting that as I sit chatting with new Cardiff City boss Russell Slade a storm rages outside the Bluebirds’ Vale of Glamorgan HQ.
Rain hammers down, lightning flashes and thunder rumbles in ominous fashion, indeed you half expect to turn to Slade and find him wearing a black cape, exposing fearsome fangs and cackling with laughter as he retires to his crypt.
OK, of course, we need to get this straight from the start, Slade is not your average bogeyman, he’s by far too nice and jovial for that, but as he takes charge in the Welsh capital you get the impression the 53-year-old is not here to be everyone’s best mate, to give some of the, shall we say, substantial egos within the Bluebirds’ squad a reassuring massage.
It is obvious Slade means business at Cardiff, he has a job do, a big job to do. To say the Bluebirds have underachieved this season is like saying Dr Jekyll had a bit of a personality problem.
Currently languishing 15th in the Championship, the pre-season talk of the best squad in the division and bouncing straight back to the top-flight currently seems a million miles away.
Slade’s mission is to make what seems unlikely a reality, with his own ambition already declared as surge to the top-six places. To do that he is going to have to bring under control a squad that is undoubtedly packed with talent, but one which has become unwieldy and seemingly impossible to wrangle into any coherent line-up.
But Slade himself has a more pressing task on his hands, overcoming something of a perception problem, not just amongst supporters, but perhaps within his own dressing room.
When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer bit the dust there was hopeful talk of Tony Pulis taking over or perhaps Neil Lennon being next in. When Slade emerged as a front-runner it was a case in some quarters of: ‘Russell who?’
When he got the job itself there were immediate murmurs of discontent that a man who had ‘only’ been in charge of the likes of Scarborough, Grimsby, Yeovil and most recently Orient was just not up to the job of handling a ‘big’ club like the Bluebirds.
If such suggestions are bugging him, then Slade is doing a good job at hiding his irritation.
“That doesn’t concern me. I know what I’m about. I’m confident in what I do and I know what I can get from my teams,” said Slade. “For a manager who is in League One I really think it’s about being given an opportunity. The chance to show what you can do.
“I had that opportunity 18 months ago and Barry Hearn turned that one down. This time I did not want to lose what I thought was a fantastic opportunity for me.
“The fact I’ve done 650 games shows I’m more experienced than recent managers who have been at this football club. That’s important. I think this club needs that little bit of experience particularly at this moment in time.
“I believe I have something to bring to the table. There’s no doubt about that.”
If supporters are starting to warm to Slade’s no-nonsense, honest approach then it is unclear what the men at the sharp end of his double training sessions, the Cardiff players themselves, think of his approach.
However, he pointed out: “The players have two choices, they either buy into what we are doing or they don’t.
“They decide their own attitude. When they wake up in the morning they either roll their sleeves up and come in with a positive attitude and give absolutely everything they’ve got or they don’t.
“If they do I will see that in them, I will notice that. They are the players who will eventually be playing for this football club.
“The ones that don’t buy into it, well, as far I’m concerned there are two kinds of players, there are energisers and there are energy sappers. Nobody in the club or outside it, the staff or the fans, want the energy-sappers here.”
One man who will have a big part to play under Slade is goalkeeper David Marshall. The Scot, who excelled in the Premier League last term, is regarded as perhaps the cream of the shot-stoppers in the second-tier.
Marshall was handed the captaincy by Solskjaer following the departure of Mark Hudson to Huddersfield last month. Slade may be keen to change many things at the club, but Marshall as skipper is evidently not one of them.
But what the new manager does want is a host of leaders on the pitch, a nucleus of men in the Cardiff side who can inspire when the chips are down and lead from the front.
“David will keep the armband of course,” said Slade. “It is more unusual to have a goalkeeper as skipper that’s for sure, but do you know what I want? I want five or six leaders out there. That’s the important thing.
“He’s a good man is ‘Marshy’ really solid as a character so I can fully understand why he is captain here. But also he requires a little bit of support and I will be looking, either from within or eventually from outside, for those sort of characters to come into the club. Any successful team does not just have one captain, it’s got several.”
There may have been stormy clouds louring over the Bluebirds so far this season, but, as they say, the darkest hour is just before dawn.
Far from being the Prince of Darkness, Slade might just be the man to lead the capital club back into the light.
Re: " A WARNING TO CARDIFF CITY PLAYERS "
Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:37 pm
I wonder who could be re-wording the titles in my posts 
... hmmm.
... hmmm.
Re: " A WARNING TO CARDIFF CITY PLAYERS "
Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:50 pm
NIGELNIGLE wrote:I wonder who could be re-wording the titles in my posts
