' WERE CCFC TOO QUICK IN GETTING RID ? '

Cardiff City were too quick to dismiss worth of hot prospects as loan-star four clearly indicate

Walesonline

Sat Feb 20th


Cardiff currently have a full team’s worth of talent out on loan.

Some have been shipped out until their current deal expires and they become a free agent, with the list including Kenwyne Jones and his prohibitive wages, king of the flops Etien Velikonja, Joe Lewis, who started only one league game in four years, plus Filip Kiss, who has not represented the club since January 2013.

There are also a smattering of youngsters, Semi Ajayi, David Tutonda and Rhys Healey getting invaluable experience at Crewe, York and Dundee respectively.

Then you get down to a small group of senior players – Eoin Doyle, Matthew Kennedy, Tom Adeyemi and Adam Le Fondre – who all face an uncertain future at the club.

These guys are hardly disposable assets, collectively they set the club back close to £5m. Yet none appear set to return to reclaim a place amongst the first-team regulars. In some instances, it is hard to understand what they have done wrong.

If you take Doyle as a case in point, he was on fire for Chesterfield in the first half of last season, netting 25 goals in 32 games. Making the step up from League One to join Cardiff in a deal reportedly just shy of £1m, he found the going tough but still ended the season with a respectable five goals in 11 starts.

He was starting to form a promising pairing with Joe Mason and ended the season strongly, but this season he tumbled well down the pecking order.

After only two League Cup showings, Doyle headed to newly-promoted Preston on loan, in a move that looked a great fit. He has not been pulling up any trees at Deepdale though, with only two goals in 12 starts to date.

There were rumours that Cardiff were willing to take a hit on him in January and cut their losses. Although a deal never materialised, it does cast a shadow over his future prospects.

Doyle is not an up-and-coming prospect, he turns 28 next month and it is now or never for him in the second tier. When you consider that Cardiff have been crying out for a finisher this season, you do wonder if it may have been wise to keep him around.

Matthew Kennedy, who was signed the same day as Doyle, also featured regularly in the second half of last year. A tricky winger with great balance and designs on beating his man, there have been times this season when it has been hard to rationalise his continued absence from the match-day squad.

Cardiff only really have Anthony Pilkington and Craig Noone as trusted wide options, yet despite the former filling a void up front and the latter sustaining an injury, Kennedy was allowed to join Port Vale on loan. Peter Whittingham has stepped in to a role he has not played for several years and it’s starting to feel like Cardiff only pick Sammy Ameobi out of obligation or sympathy. Kennedy’s youthful exuberance is missed.

Tom Adeyemi was very highly regarded at Birmingham, but has yet to demonstrate that potential at Cardiff.

A box-to-box midfielder, the kind of player that the club has being crying out for, but he has never looked match fit in a Cardiff shirt.

Like Kagisho Dikgacoi, Adeyemi appears to be the kind of player who needs to be playing regularly to generate any momentum and like so many others before him, he has not had that luxury at Cardiff.

He has not started a game for the club in over a year now and his loan spell at Leeds has been up and down.

Adam Le Fondre is the most problematic of the four.

An expensive acquisition, he signed to play for his idol Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who in turn dumped him on the wing. When he returned up front, he was paired with Jones and subsequently had to do twice as much running.

His departure was sudden and seemingly due to being located so far away from his family, but that did not deter him from signing a lucrative contract a few months before. For this reason alone, a return looks slim to none, yet he remains Cardiff’s best striker.

I’m one of few who thinks he played well in his brief time in South Wales, although his public utterances on the subject suggest even he would disagree with that assessment.

Three goals in 19 games would appear to back that up. I can claim that only tells half the story, but a striker lives and dies by his goals tally.

Eight goals in 16 games for a struggling Bolton side was rather better, while Wolves fans were probably hoping for more than a goal every three games. Le Fondre has been recently angling for a return to Reading and assuming Cardiff probably still owe them money for him, maybe there is a deal to be done.

What these four players all have in common is that they all only lasted half a season in the Cardiff meat grinder.

Le Fondre and Adeyemi only got up until Christmas, while Kennedy and Doyle only arrived last January and were seemingly out of favour before the following season got underway.

Cardiff have prematurely cast aside so many players in the last few years that fans are now quick to disregard players too. Half a season’s worth of games is no time to make a fair assessment of a player’s long-term prospects.

Kennedy is the one I just don't understand.....never had a bad game when he did play...we are crying out for a decent wideman yet he was shipped out on loan????

Slades has not given any of our youngsters even a sniff of a chance in the first team ...which I find unbelievable..another reason why he shouldn't be here next year

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

My attitude would be a lot worse if I was treated like Kennedy.

Shows we still have to many players.

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

Couldn't disagree more.

Sure, if we were talking about a professional player in his mid-20's, then yes sometimes it's better to ship them out. But Kennedy is pretty much a kid still, hasn't had many games in his career, and has come from a Premiership club where he's probably been able to develop a bigger ego than he should've.

A good manager would take Kennedy aside, work on all that stuff, and fix the attitude problem. All Slade has done is make things worse by cutting Kennedy off from the first team and has just pissed the kid off as a result. Can't blame Kennedy for having a chip on his shoulder.

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

Couldn't disagree more.

Sure, if we were talking about a professional player in his mid-20's, then yes sometimes it's better to ship them out. But Kennedy is pretty much a kid still, hasn't had many games in his career, and has come from a Premiership club where he's probably been able to develop a bigger ego than he should've.

A good manager would take Kennedy aside, work on all that stuff, and fix the attitude problem. All Slade has done is make things worse by cutting Kennedy off from the first team and has just pissed the kid off as a result. Can't blame Kennedy for having a chip on his shoulder.

Don't let your anti-Slade sentiment cloud your judgement.The fact is we are both commenting on an issue without knowing the facts.He might be a fair player but is he better than what we've got and does he fit in with the group.That is the way it goes and some of the big ego's don't take to a friendly arm around the shoulder.I mentioned Malky in my last post because it is relevant to this argument.Now whether your a Malky supporter or a Tan supporter is irrelevant to the arguement that if you fall out with your boss then either you go or your boss does and its the same in life outside of football even if its the wrong decision.And of course its never the boss that walks.

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

So any young player that doesn't have a 100% attitude gets binned.

None of those players have amounted to much away from the CCS.

McCormack and Ruddy are the only players I recall that have gone on to bigger or better than we thought when they left.The only conclusion I can draw is we do have a poor record for improving players here, or do we forget the profits on Mason and Mutch and moan about ALF & doyle.

Kennedy has got better the less he played. I recall him being the only spark in a drab end of season, although the other Everton kid looked a division higher than him when fit, so we may be over egging his ability.

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

So any young player that doesn't have a 100% attitude gets binned.

Basically yes.Remember JET,Wenger knew what he was doing and thats just one example.

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

Agreed, I'd love to see kennedy involved but for me there's no place for bad attitude in a squad. Professionalism is a minimum requirement, especially for the cash these guys get paid

Kennedy should be in the team, OK his attitude appeared to be an issue but a decent manager sorts that out early and gets him refocused. Port Vale can't believe their luck and Slade is asking for more money to bring in a loan winger.

Your quite wrong.A decent manager gets rid which is what Slade has done.Doesn't matter how good the player is if his presence is detrimental to the group then you get rid simple as that.Same goes for a manager,remember Malky.

So any young player that doesn't have a 100% attitude gets binned.

Basically yes.Remember JET,Wenger knew what he was doing and thats just one example.

Ridiculous, if you binned every player who was a tear away at age 21 you wouldn't have any left, did Bellamy have a perfect attitude through his career? A good manager, in any profession, should work to improve staff.

It's not like Kennedy has gone to Port Vale and caused them a load of problems.