Not every City fan reacted the same way I’m sure, but there was almost a sense of joy felt by me when I read at Sunday lunchtime that Erol Bulut had left the club. Yes, I know all about Vincent Tan’s, justified, reputation for being trigger happy when. it comes to getting rid of managers, but this was one sacking that was justified. In fact, it’s not with hindsight that I’d argue that it was overdue by about four months.
Euphoria is too strong a word, but, for about twenty four hours, I felt more optimistic about City than I had done for months. However, the gradual return to reality which followed has me fully accepting that optimism had its origins in the Tan, Dalman and Choo triumvirate handling a procedure they appear to be getting no better at with experience (i.e. the selection of a new team manager) with the football nous and instinct that some clubs seem to have as a matter of course – I could add here that maybe that’s got something to do with said clubs having “football people” at the heart of the administration and planning side of the club, but we’ve seen that wishing for such staff to be in situ at Cardiff City is akin to pissing in the wind under this ownership.
Therefore, we choose to muddle along as normal seemingly without our owner (being fair to Mehmet Dalman, not sure about Ken Choo, he has made it clear that he would favour a Director of Football type appointment at Cardiff) realising that we have been in a downward spiral since 2019. which last season’s mid table finish did not rectify, that is going to lead to our relegation soon if he continues along the same lines.
It was being reported yesterday, hopefully wrongly, that the plan is to give Omar Riza until the October international break to try and turn this abysmal start to our season around and then a short list of managerial targets will be drawn up. We have three matches before international fixtures take over again and previous form tells you that if Riza is able to garner something like three or four points from them, then his interim management spell will be extended and maybe a new contract and permanent post may be forthcoming.
Now, I accept this is being harsh on our caretaker manager because this cannot all be put on his shoulders, but, as things stand, the man brought in on the coaching side to sharpen up our attacking play has overseen a scoring rate of around 0.16 of a goal a game and the worst thing, about that utterly miserable stat is that it’s hardly as if there have been plenty of chances to improve it squandered despite what our former manager used to say.
I hope yesterday’s story about the club adopting a wait and see attitude is untrue because it reveals two things if that isn’t the case. First, yet again, there was no contingency plan in place whereby possible new bosses were identified and, second, the powers that be at the club are seriously underestimating the size of the task facing the new man. We need to improve so much on what we’ve seen in our first six games where we’ve been so far off the pace that we’re looking worse than last season’s awful Rotherham team did in the early stages of 23/24.
Sorry to be a misery, but on Saturday we go to a Hull team that have done the double over us for the last three seasons and won their first league game of the season last weekend after a sluggish start. It would be a tough game under what I’ll call normal circumstances and it’s hard to see any Cardiff revival starting in East Yorkshire this weekend, for now I’d accept a performance which suggested we can be competitive in this division.
Here’s seven Hull related questions dating back to the sixties with the answers to follow.
60s. Born in another county north of Hull, he was a forward initially and made his debut for the Tigers as a teenager when he scored one of the goals in a 2-0 win over Halifax. The first of a number of injuries that would keep him out of the team for long spells meant that he lost his first team place having done well in his first few matches, but, upon his recovery, he got his regular place back until the signing of a prolific goalscorer meant that he was the one to step aside. When he came back into consideration after a long absence, it was in a higher division where he became a regular starter again even if it seemed like he owed his selection to other player’s injuries. The pattern continued in the next couple of seasons – for example, he replaced Chris Chilton at centre forward when. he was injured and he proved his versatility by playing as a centreback when required. In fact, that became the position he played the remainder of his football for Hull until70s. he left for Yorkshire neighbours after a testimonial match against West Ham. The rest of his career saw him playing abroad for much of the time and Portugese superstar Eusebio was a team mate when he played for Minutemen in America. A return to England saw him play a few more games in the Football League for coastal strugglers who wore the same colour shirts as Hull before he was on the move again to Australia where he settled after retirement until his early death at 53 – who am I describing?
70s. The closest this Norfolk born defender got to living up to his surname was when Hull signed him from lower leaguers to the south for a pretty modest fee. He’d been a fine servant for his first club for many years and, for a couple of seasons, he did well enough in the Second Division to become “one of the first names on the team sheet” at Hull. However, a new manager arrived and saw things differently, our man lost his place and was eventually released by Hull after four years at the club. After representing a couple of non league Yorkshire coastal towns, there was a return to league football with his first club and in the next couple of years he took his total number of appearances for them up to 376 to put himself fifth in their all time appearances list. Who is he?
80s. Purloin electricity maybe!
90s. This well travelled forward, who played for Hull on loan during this decade, had two different vowels in his three letter first name, but his ten letter surname only had one, can you name him?
00s. Revert to phase one to become promotion winner. (5,6)
10s. Question band which originated in Battle?
20s. Bona fide auditorium.