Mon Oct 13, 2014 6:19 am
Nathan Blake " Allow Russell Slade to Manage "
Monday 13th Oct 2014
by Nathan Blake
Cardiff City, now that Russell Slade has been officially appointed after two weeks waiting in the wings, it has to be a positive.
He has been given the managerial position and, as a player, you have the responsibility to give the manager your all and not question what he’s doing.
Allow him to manage and take on board his message. If his message is loud and clear, then that should equate to good results because we have a very good squad.
It’s all about getting the right players in the right positions to perform their best and the results should follow.
It has been said in the media that Slade is leading double sessions in training.
I, along with other ex-pros, noted that Cardiff were unable to sustain a high-level pressure game.
When they set out to counter-attack it was a sit back game, trying to conserve energy.
But then they were not able to step up and apply continual pressure.
I think that was more to do with the fact that no player was playing continuously than being unfit.
Three or four players were being changed each game so no player was getting a run of five or six games to increase their match fitness and match sharpness.
That was one of the main reasons I kept calling on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer not to keep changing things - you can’t get the fitness levels up.
Double sessions? That’s the manager’s call.
You have to be careful you don’t over-train because there is a difference between a team being fit on a Saturday and being sharp on a Saturday.
At Blackburn when I was playing, we were fitter than anyone else but didn’t feel sharp.
Nottingham Forest come to the Cardiff City Stadium this weekend.They are second in the table and what they have got right now is belief in what they are doing.
You have to look at them and say they are a strong outfit. After a couple of turbulent seasons, they seem to have the structure right.
It is going to be a difficult game but at Cardiff, player-for-player, generally we are as good as - if not better - than most.
It’s just selecting those 11 players that can play together really well.