If you ever encounter a fire, my advice to you is not to pour petrol on it. You risk making the situation a whole lot worse, and you may also lose your eyebrows.
Transfer embargos exist for good reason. They’re there to prevent a bad situation from getting a whole lot worse. It is the clearest of indications that a football club is not operating properly and needs an intervention. Cardiff City’s current situation is a little different, in that they’re making a stand laced with tragedy, warring factions and conflicting principles. The central kernel of logic remains though. Cardiff have an outstanding debt and why should they spend more money elsewhere while it remains unpaid.
Now if you take away a football club’s ability to sign players, you’re taking away all the fun for some supporters. The transfer window has become an event in itself and it is enjoyed as much as any game. It offers hope to hopeless teams and a solution to any ailment. If you’re not involved, expect to be accused of lacking ambition and intent.
Like a still shark, a football club that is not signing more players is considered dead in the water because upgrades are always out there and enough is never enough. Either the lure of the top flight or the threat of relegation is always close at hand, so too panic and overreaction.
Cardiff’s current league position makes for grim reading. Currently 20th, they’re two points off 23rd ahead of a tricky run of festive fixtures. It could get worse before it gets any better and by then the transfer window will be open, but as it stands, Cardiff will only be an interested onlooker.
That may not be such a bad thing though.
Cardiff signed 17 players in the summer and that was always going to result in some degree of a rocky bedding in period, with progress and improvement to be expected later in the campaign. When you then sack the manager that assembled the group though, you’re pretty much resetting the clock.
Mark Hudson has not enjoyed the most prosperous of starts either, winning only three of his first 13 games. He’s enjoyed some rotten luck at times, but however you cut it, he can probably consider himself fortunate to have already received a contract extension.
I can see what he’s trying to do though. There is promise there and combinations are forming on the pitch. Maybe that potential will be realised or maybe it will once again be cut short because no one knows what the owner’s whim will be.
Cardiff manager is a tricky role though. It is presumably viewed as a sacking club within the industry, which is not the most attractive trait for up and coming managers, but will remain attractive to jobbing managers out for a quick buck. Plus, to return to the central theme, you can’t currently bring in any new players for the next two years.
You wouldn’t bet on Hudson still being there at the end of the season, but it’s also never been a less attractive post. Cardiff now find themselves in a position where they have to make the most of what they have. Fortunately, what they have is a squad of shiny, new players and a wealth of options.
There are at least two options in every position, with players and combinations Cardiff have yet to even try. Isaak Davies has yet to feature this year, but he is finally fit and ready. Twinning him with Rubin Colwill remains the golden ticket and will surely be at least trialled at some stage, while Callum Robinson and Kion Etete already have the look of a very promising partnership. It looks likely that Cardiff’s formation is heading towards a 4-2-3-1, which feels the best fit for the squad’s constituent parts and when you factor in Jaden Philogene, Mark Harris, Gavin Whyte and Sheyi Ojo, there are potent attacking options at their disposal.
Further back, Joe Ralls and Ryan Wintle work well together, while Romaine Sawyers and Andy Rinomhota offer able support, plus different interpretations of the deep lying role. Ebou Adams is still to come, Tom Sang provides versatility and Eli King is developing on loan at Crewe.
Callum O’Dowda has drifted back to left back, where Cardiff also have Niels Nkounkou, Joel Bagan and the recovering Jamilu Collins, who will hopefully be back in time for the start of next season and ready to build open his impressive start at the club. Mahlon Romeo has been rock solid and Vontae Daley-Campbell provides competition on the right.
Perry Ng and Cedric Kipre quickly formed a bond and unrivalled in the heart of the defence, but Jack Simpson and Curtis Nelson are able deputies and options should they change shape. Mark McGuinness is impressing on loan at Sheffield Wednesday and will hopefully return next year and Sean Morrison has now recovered from a serious knee injury. His chances of agreeing a new deal have presumably increased with the transfer ban.
Supporters tend to be quick to write players off and sadly, some Cardiff fans appear to be quicker than most. Plenty have already had their pants pulled down by the impressive recent form of Philogene and Etete, both of whom had little to no Championship experience. It is a tough, relentless, physically imposing division and players need time to adapt. They will get that now and may not have otherwise.
Maybe this lot are good enough and maybe they’re not, but the club have made their bed and now its time to lie in it, which is as it should be. It’s a situation that benefits the players in both the senior squad and the academy, but heaps more pressure on Hudson, who occupies one of the few areas the club can still change.
Cardiff will likely appeal the decision and may yet get the ban overturned, or at least reduced, so none of the above may come to pass anyway, but even if the powers that be hold firm, it may not be the cause for concern it first appeared to be. They were forced to rely on their academy graduates last year and they didn’t let them down, so they should also keep the faith that the squad they so meticulously and impressively assembled can dig Cardiff out of their hole and thrive in 2023.