' Where do Cardiff City go from here? '

Where do Cardiff City go from here? They cannot afford to drift like this much longer



Scott Johnson ponders the future for the Bluebirds and their manager

By Scott Johnson

Tuesday 29th October 2019



Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock - what happens now?



"The biggest mistake I made was announcing I would leave at the start of the season. I think a lot of the players had put their tools away. They thought, 'Oh, the manager’s leaving', but when I changed my mind in the January, I started thinking about how we could get back on top. It was a mistake and my family changed my attitude towards it and I started to think again."

These are the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, reflecting on his glorious career. He retired in 2013, but 12 years earlier, aged 60, he announced his intention to step down. He changed his mind, bought Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, all was forgiven and dominance was restored.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because Neil Warnock did a similar thing in the summer and things have since followed along similar lines.

"Absolutely, this is my last season," Warnock announced in August. "One or two of my best friends have struggled health-wise this year and my wife Sharon and I want to go and do a couple of things while we have our health. The club is in a great state now. They’ve got time to look at candidates now and if I can help them in any way before I call it a day then great."

All perfectly reasonable and no Cardiff City fan would begrudge Warnock leaving on those terms. With designs on a record ninth promotion, he had a fairytale finish in mind. "It would be a lovely way to finish. It couldn’t get any better than that, but I’m also a realist and I know how difficult it’s going to be."

You wonder if this is as difficult or more difficult than he had envisaged. After Warnock’s announcement, Cardiff lost at Wigan, lost Bobby Reid and lost the plot a little bit. They bear little resemblance to the all-conquering promotion side, despite spending in excess of £15m over the summer.

Admittedly, Cardiff turned a profit and lost a lot of key players, but we have every right to expect more than this. By this, I mean the performance against Swansea City , and plenty of other performances besides.


The Swansea game held up a mirror to Cardiff’s current issues. Our neighbours have always knocked the ball around with enviable ease, but Cardiff were struggling to pass from A to B. The least you would expect is for Cardiff to be competitive, but they were also lacklustre and second to every ball.

That’s bad enough at Wigan or Reading, but its unforgivable at the Liberty Stadium .

Something is clearly amiss. You expect a hangover when relegated from the top flight, but Cardiff just haven’t managed to shake it off yet and we’re now heading into November. Everything is terribly stale, despite an influx of new faces.

Reid blindsided the club and he has left a talent and creativity void in his absence, but if he was so keen to jump ship, you wonder how many others would follow given the chance. Judging by some performances this season, plenty.


All of which brings me back to my original point. Did Warnock make an almighty blunder by revealing his intentions on the eve of a new campaign? Did he give his players an excuse when they needed extra motivation? Is this it now for the rest of the year? One step forward, two back.

Laying my cards on the table, I will forever be a Warnock loyalist and I will be the last to turn on him. What he has done for the club cannot by quantified or underestimated. When he arrived, the club was in terminal decline and he healed it with honesty, common sense and the force of his personality.



Football fans are fickle, though. Familiarity breeds contempt and patience is always in short supply. If you asked a disgruntled Cardiff fan what they want right now, I bet they couldn’t tell you. Ask them what they don’t want though and you’ll get a confident response; ‘no more of this.’

I think most Cardiff fans have actually been very patient on this occasion and that is due to their reverence of Warnock. There are grumblings, but you would have expected them to turn by now. Ryan Giggs knows all too well what it’s like to be an unpopular choice with fans ready to pounce.


Warnock has already stated that he considered walking after the shambolic 3-0 defeat at Reading and that was only the third game of the season. He gave the impression that the players had to talk him down. If he was considering it then, chances are that it will still be at the forefront of his thoughts with Cardiff now sat in the bottom half of the table.




So, where do Cardiff go from here? What is the plan for the short, medium and long term?

Were things going to plan, you wouldn’t have bet against a Warnock U-turn, in line with Ferguson’s. He has always said that the backing of supporters was of the utmost importance to him, so what happens now that has started to wane?

Do Cardiff have designs on evolution or revolution? In the recent past they have veered from one extreme from the other and not only did it not work, it also cost them a fortune. The presence of Warnock gave the club one less thing to worry about, but that is no longer the case.

Either Warnock goes in the summer or he goes sooner. Either way, his departure is forthcoming and Cardiff need to be ready. The question they may now be forced to answer is which of those two options is in the best interests of Cardiff City - because they cannot afford to drift like this for too much longer.

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People can say we are only two wins off the playoffs but we are only two losses away from relegation as well. The football has been piss poor so far this season and players are looking uninterested. If we carry on like we have so far I can only seeing it going one way. Unless we can put a few good results together I think that gutless performance on sunday may be the tipping point. 3 points is must Saturday.

People can say we are only two wins off the playoffs but we are only two losses away from relegation as well. The football has been piss poor so far this season and players are looking uninterested. If we carry on like we have so far I can only seeing it going one way. Unless we can put a few good results together I think that gutless performance on sunday may be the tipping point. 3 points is must Saturday.

I dont think it'll go any way tbh mate. I think where we are is where we'll stay because that is our level and we dont have the fight or discipline like our promotion season to play above it.

I know what I want, I want to know why we don’t use our wingers properly or why we don’t have a driving midfielder.

We got the safe players or the midfielders who can run all game to help cover our more attacking players.

Swansea showed how simple it was, suck players in, pass in front of a running winger and then there in to either go down the flank or cut inside.

We are just slow and predictable

Maybe as fans we could stop the whinging and bleating, be appreciative of how far the club have progressed over the years and realise that Warnock was there for us when we needed him and it’d be good to now return the favour. Let’s get Neil Warnock’s Barmy Army chant going loud and proud against Birmingham and watch a rejuvenated team with Sol Bamba hopefully returning.

People can say we are only two wins off the playoffs but we are only two losses away from relegation as well. The football has been piss poor so far this season and players are looking uninterested. If we carry on like we have so far I can only seeing it going one way. Unless we can put a few good results together I think that gutless performance on sunday may be the tipping point. 3 points is must Saturday.

it don't work like that the bottom teams average about a point a game so we are 5/6 straight defeats away from the bottom 3

People can say we are only two wins off the playoffs but we are only two losses away from relegation as well. The football has been piss poor so far this season and players are looking uninterested. If we carry on like we have so far I can only seeing it going one way. Unless we can put a few good results together I think that gutless performance on sunday may be the tipping point. 3 points is must Saturday.

it don't work like that the bottom teams average about a point a game so we are 5/6 straight defeats away from the bottom 3

I didn't mean we would be in the bottom three in 2 games. I just meant that unless things improve we'll end up closer to the bottom 3 rather than the top 6.

He knows he was wrong to say that he is to retire at season end, but the players still have to play for a place , some are ot good enough to play the long ball tactics we play.
We played some good football at millwall last week but this week missed the midfield out, yes Tomlin didn't play but the rest of the team have played in sides who play football on the floor so no excuses. People say glatzel not good enough but watch YouTube and see where all his goals have come from. Anyway we all still go and back the team so we go again Saturday. If we were good enough to be a football manager then we would be.

LAST 9 Games = 2 wins : 2 Loses : 5 Draws .