With Cardiff Premier League bound, summer thoughts turned to which members of the promotion-winning squad were capable of making the step up. A mean defence formed the bedrock of Cardiff’s ascent, but while Sean Morrison and Sol Bamba were the names on most people’s lips, it is Bruno Ecuele Manga that has shone in the opening few games.
With Cardiff short of numbers in midfield, Bamba was used further forward in the opening game at Bournemouth and Manga stepped in to fill the void. He struggled, like everyone else, rather harshly penalised for a challenge in the box that Neil Etheridge went on to save. Like the rest of the side, Manga has since improved.
For the following match, at home to Newcastle, Bamba returned to the heart of the Cardiff defence and Manga moved across as Lee Peltier was jettisoned from the right back berth. It is not his natural position, but a role he played many times last season with distinction. The fear was that Manga might be exposed, but he thrived and has actually got better game by game.
http://gty.im/1026104430
Against Arsenal, Manga was pitted directly against his Gabon international team mate Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, a world class opponent that cost his club just shy of £60m. Manga had his hands full, but gave as good as he got and was not at fault for his goal, where Aubameyang had drifted inside to receive possession and possibly to escape his shadow.
Like Joe Bennett on the opposite flank, Cardiff’s full backs have overshadowed the centre backs thus far and few would have expected that. Manga actually looks more comfortable at a higher level somehow. He sometimes looked a little bit bored at Championship level, as if it was all a bit too easy and his concentration would occasionally wander. At a higher level, he has raised his game and looks hungry to make his mark.
Manga is out of contract next summer, so he has more reason than most to show what he can do. Cardiff certainly need to be thinking about extending those terms because replacing him would cost them a small fortune.
http://gty.im/1015150624
Manga was brought in amidst a centre back spree as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s marquee signing when Cardiff were relegated from the Premier League in 2014. Along with Sean Morrison, another expensive addition that summer, they would shore up the back as a swift return was plotted. Solskjaer departed a few weeks later though, with everyone baffled as to why the club sanctioned such expensive reinforcements in a position that was already regarded a strength.
Manga was clearly a class act from the off, as you would expect for £5m, and was crowned the club’s Player of the Year in his debut season. He has rarely been that good since and it looked like he was also set to run down his contract and depart as a free agent too, which would have cost the club any return on their investment.
Somehow, and it remains one of his very finest achievements since taking charge, Neil Warnock, against all odds, managed to talk Manga in to agreeing a new two-year deal last summer and he played an integral part in their second-placed finish.
Unfortunately, here we are again, as the clock ticks down on the final few months of his current deal. He is in the same boat as Aron Gunnarsson, who saw his contract expire at the end of last season and tacked on another year.
http://gty.im/1001230332
Manga turned 30 in the summer and Gunnarsson will join him by the season’s end. Both are perfectly entitled to see how this season pans out before committing to the club for any longer. Gunnarsson has already stated that he has no desire to play in the Championship again, due to the physical toll of playing twice a week.
Had Gunnarsson starred at the World Cup in the summer, chances are that he would be elsewhere now, but both Gunnarsson and Manga will be looking at their current situation as their last chance of a lucrative contract. Should Cardiff stay in the Premier League, maybe (hopefully) they can meet the pair’s terms and ambitions.
In the meantime, Manga remains very much a Cardiff asset and they will need him at the peak of his powers ahead of a particularly daunting run that includes Chelsea on Saturday, with Manchester City, Tottenham and Liverpool to follow in the next month or so.
Will not signing Tammy Abraham prove to be a sliding doors moment?
http://gty.im/1012856754
Ahead of the Chelsea game, Neil Warnock has revealed his frustration at not being able to get a loan deal for Tammy Abraham over the line before the transfer window closed. That’s a real shame because you could just imagine him in this Cardiff team, interchanging with the likes of Bobby Reid and Josh Murphy. Were Cardiff to stay up, he’s the sort of player you could have imagined staying put too.
The even bigger blow is that their pursuit seems to have cost them their other targets and left Cardiff short-handed. It is a failure that could cost them, as they look rather blunt in attack and it now feels a bit like they’re treading water until the January transfer window.
Time will tell if it proves to be a sliding doors moment, where Cardiff’s season forked off in one of two different directions.
http://gty.im/181429840
The last time Cardiff were in the Premier League, I still feel that their failure to land Tom Ince proved pivotal. Having had talks and stayed the night in a Cardiff hotel to ponder a potential move, Ince pulled the plug and Malky Mackay did not replace the creative spark that he would have provided.
Here’s hoping Warnock can cobble together a satisfactory solution, at least in the interim.