The Daily Mail today ran a splash story about 'boozed-up Cardiff players' based seemingly on a combination of a players tweet, assumptions and messageboard rumours.
The opening papagraphs in the Dail Mail story reads: Dave Jones tore into his Cardiff players after discovering they had been out drinking less than 48 hours before the crushing defeat that cost them the chance of automatic promotion to the Barclays Premier League.
The Cardiff manager gave his squad permission to attend a supporters' player-of-the-year function on Saturday, on condition they remained sober and headed straight home afterwards.
Spot the mistake already? The dinner was on Friday evening and as far as I am aware (and I was at the dinner) the players were perfectly behaved. Where an issue does arise is later that evening at least one player tweeted that he was in Soda (a night club) at 12.30 am (in the early hours of Saturday).
It has been rumoured that some players were out the night before the Middlesbrough game, I have no proof of that and I don't think anyone else has proved it either.
So while there may be a little truth that a player or players were out on the weekend before the Middlesbrough match on the Monday it hardly seems to have been a weekend full of debauchery.
I will say though, as a fan, I'm very unhappy at the perception the club has delivered of itself in the past few days. At a time when only one thing should have been the focus, beating Middlesbrough, we have left ourselves open to such sensationalism. Win the game and no one would have given a hoot. But didn't and the finger of blame has to point at someone.
A club spokesman on Wednesday evening told WalesOnline: “Cardiff City Football Club are aware of the allegations concerning socialising by a small minority of players in the days leading up to the Middlesbrough league fixture.
“We would like to make it known that the allegations have been addressed internally and that the full focus of Club staff and the whole squad is now on our final league game of the season at Burnley on Saturday.”
Cardiff need to win on Saturday to ensure 3rd place in the Championship. Failure to win could see Swansea move into third place which normally would mean some bragging rights, this time though could mean automatic promotion depending on what happens to QPR.
Come on City, get the job done and don't leave yourselves open to ridicule.