CARDIFF MUST PUT WINS BEFORE ENTERTAINMENT VALUE

Cardiff fans are currently displeased with the standard of football and the entertainment value served up by their beloved Bluebirds but there’s one thing that remains far more important and that is winning games. Despite the criticism from the fans, Russell Slade must keep his focus on winning games with entertainment value in the back of his head and here’s why..

The Bluebirds had a good start to the season and seemingly they returned from pre-season with a more entertaining style of football but fast forward a couple of months and Russell Slade’s side seem to have reverted somewhat to a more tedious style of play and results of late have been more than a little dis-pleasing.

It doesn’t take a football expert to watch the current Cardiff squad play and work out that they’re not as pleasing on the eye as the Los Galacticos but at the moment, that’s not the important issue, its the fact their not winning enough games. Cardiff are now ninth and although they’re only three points off the desired play-off positions, they seem a world away when they come up against the free-flowing teams like Brighton and Hove Albion and Derby County.

Former manager Dave Jones created a Cardiff City team who would put a smile on the face of any Sky Sports producer because they were guaranteed entertainment value. Having said that, although Dave Jones did a fantastic job, he couldn’t guide them to the promise land that is the Premier League.

Next came Malky Mackay, a man of totally different football style and ethos, Mackay created a team who could win games on demand but not without defensive tactics and an all-together tedious style of play. Mackay, of course, managed to guide Cardiff to the Premier League and (I might add) with little problem.

The difference between the two managers is that while fans got bored of entertaining football because promotion is what they wanted and entertainment wasn’t enough, who stopped to question the style of football on promotion night when Cardiff drew one of six draws in seven at the end of that monumental season.

Supporters pay phenomenal amounts of money and perhaps more importantly, they spend an awful lot of their time watching the club so they deserve to be entertained, or at least with some sort of success. Having said that, the club has to put itself and its success before the entertainment value because entertainment value won’t achieve them a Premier League status and the new record television deal that goes with it.

In my opinion, football is about winning, it’s not about entertainment value because I’m sure if you ask Sunderland (who have struggled in the Premier League for the last few years) fans what they think, they’ll tell you that they want to see their team winning games a long while before entertainment value becomes an issue.

Cardiff aren’t playing great at the moment and that’s no secret but there’s no point pretending it’s a disaster because there’s nothing ‘disaster’ about it, or at least not yet. The Bluebirds are in a good place, without spending money in the summer they have managed to stick around the Play-Off’s and what more? it’s almost Christmas.

Derby looked a million miles in front of Cardiff on the pitch last week as the Rams run out 2-0 winners but they’ve spent £21 Million to Cardiff’s next to nothing and their only eight points ahead in the Championship table, that tells you Cardiff are probably over achieving a little.

The way it’s heading at the moment, Cardiff won’t make the play-off’s but if they can stick around the play-off’s until January before spending some money on new players the they might be in with a chance. Unless Derby run away with with the league which at the moment, I just can’t see, then for the meantime they will be catchable to most teams (given the tight nature of the league) and you can bet your bottom dollar they won’t be adding too much to their spending in the new year.

Make no mistake, investment is needed at the Welsh capital in the summer if the hierarchy want Cardiff to reach the Play-Off’s but the focus should become less about entertainment value and much more about winning games of football.

Most of the Cardiff fan-base is now firmly against manager Russell Slade and admittedly the former Orient boss has made some mistakes with the team line-up’s over the last few weeks. If Slade wants to make the Play-off’s and in other words keep his job, he needs to become ruthless with his team selection, especially over the tricky Christmas period.

If players aren’t playing well then they need to be dropped and that needs to apply across all areas of the squad, Cardiff have enough quality players in the squad to fill in the gaps and there’s no point pretending otherwise. Make no mistake, the quality is there, for example, a Premier League loanee and an Republic of Ireland international can often be found sitting on the bench.

Russell Slade insisted his side need to find their ‘ruthless’ side and I’d agree but it also needs to apply to the manager who needs to do anything he can to get three points on the board as often as possible. Forget entertaining people in the crowd, ask the infamous Malky Mackay and he will tell you that supporters forget how entertaining the football is when their driving home knowing Cardiff City have another three points on the board.

I agree with that overall.
A win on Saturday and we are right in the mix.

However I think Derby are more likely than us to spend in Jan and of the 2 players he mentioned were on the bench one wasn't fit and the other can't last 90 minutes.

Otherwise lots of good points and a fair assessment of where we are

A lot of truth but the footbal over the last 3 or 4 years has been less than entertaining, how long can you keep watching it. It's trie with regards MM

An excellent post in every respect. Exactly how I feel. He has the players. Look at thus potential team if he played it in this formation:

Marshall

Connolly. Manga. Turner

Fabio. Gunner. Witts. Ralls. Pilks

Jones. Saadi/new

An excellent post in every respect. Exactly how I feel. He has the players. Look at thus potential team if he played it in this formation:

Marshall

Connolly. Manga. Turner

Fabio. Gunner. Witts. Ralls. Pilks

Jones. Saadi/new

Problem you've got is you'll never get that lot for.
6 of them were injured or just back from injury for last week's game.

Fek off Slade!!!!!!!!

An excellent post in every respect. Exactly how I feel. He has the players. Look at thus potential team if he played it in this formation:

Marshall

Connolly. Manga. Turner

Fabio. Gunner. Witts. Ralls. Pilks

Jones. Saadi/new

Looked good until I noticed you inadvertently put Whittingham in the team. I guess it was a Freudian Slip, yes?

Entertainment or Wins... It's a hard f*cking choice when your miserably failing at both at the moment.

The Bluebirds had a good start to the season and seemingly they returned from pre-season with a more entertaining style of football but fast forward a couple of months and Russell Slade’s side seem to have reverted somewhat to a more tedious style of play and results of late have been more than a little dis-pleasing.

So basically when City tried to play some entertaining football they played well and picked up some points. And when they reverted to tedious Slade style, the results have been displeasing. I would imagine every game the team look to win, its about finding the formula to get there, witch i think just answered itself

What a load of fuckin shit this is sorry.

We play boring negative shit football lately and lose.

How about we play positive good football like v reading and we might keep winning.