Warning – The following contains plenty of speculation and hypothetical pondering!
As Cardiff head into August, with the start of the season fast approaching, the transfer window is sure to ramp up and intensify. At the time of writing Cardiff have made a couple of signings and sold a player at a profit, which is a rare occurrence and in this instance, more by accident than design.
Chris Willock is a very smart addition. Recent injury issues aside, he is the sort of player that will make a rather predictable whole far more unpredictable. Direct in his dribbling, there tends to be an end product to his endeavours and by securing his services, Cardiff have landed one of the very best free agents on the market.
Callum Chambers was something of a teen prodigy and despite still only being 29, he has a decade of top flight experience under his belt. He will be looking to replicate the impact Nat Phillips had last season and solidify his place in the heart of the Cardiff defence. On a reported £50,000-a-week wage at Aston Villa, he is surely now one of the top earners at the club and sure to play, which raises questions about the future of Mark McGuinness.
Embed from Getty ImagesOne of Cardiff’s best recent signings, McGuinness has returned to full fitness after missing most of the second half of last season with injury. Now 23, he has a wealth of first-team appearances under his belt and is on the fringes of the Republic of Ireland squad. Mystifyingly, Steve Morison loaned him out to Sheffield Wednesday during his tenure and they immediately fell in love with him, so he certainly and understandably has admirers elsewhere in the division.
It has been suggested that interest has been registered in McGuinness at around the £5m mark. There has also been speculation that Cardiff hold an interest in £5m-rated Fulham forward Jay Stansfield. You can see where I’m going with this. We may be about to enter the juggling act stage of the transfer window.
The ideal scenario would be for Cardiff to retain McGuinness AND land Stansfield, were the speculation in both instances proven to be correct, but there are strict spending stipulations in the EFL. Cardiff have only just emerged from a partial embargo and will be keen to avoid another one. It’s also safe to assume that McGuinness will not want to be third choice at this stage of his career, so it will be interesting to see what the hierarchy proves to be with Chambers and Dimitrios Goutas.
Embed from Getty ImagesAt present, the squad is a bit bloated and unwieldy. Its hard to picture what the preferred shape and personnel will be. Cardiff have A LOT of central midfielders, whether a 6, 8 or 10. Adams has departed and Ryan Wintle looks set to follow. Wintle’s desire to play every game was mentioned recently as a reason and while having a wealth of options is always ideal and advantageous, keeping everyone satisfied and motivated then becomes the almost impossible challenge.
At this stage last year, Erol Bulut started handing out new deals and it was great to have a season where contract uncertainty was addressed nice and early. Hopefully that was a template and the futures of Goutas, Kion Etete, Callum O’Dowda, Callum Robinson and Isaak Davies, amongst others, will be tackled in the next few weeks.
Herein lies the philosophical conundrum though. Would you, for example, effectively swap McGuinness for Stansfield? The allure of goals is always great, and Cardiff do need to score more if they’re to trouble the play-off places, but they scored 12 more last year than the previous season, while also conceding 12 more too. In many respects, it is their defence that needs more work, so selling one of your better defenders therefore feels like a big step in the wrong direction. He would also need to be replaced, which would not be a cheap task.
Embed from Getty ImagesThese are the issues that will need to be rationalised and addressed in the coming weeks. What I will say is that, despite the revisionism of some, Cardiff always seem to maximise their budget in the transfer window. They’ve proven time and again that they can make a little go a long way and have made impressive use of the loan market. The players that they’re getting linked with, the likes of Tyrese Campbell and Kasey McAteer, are exactly the calibre of player you would hope to see them pursue.
If they’re after a marquee striker, the sooner they can bring them in the better because the late comedown from Kieffer Moore to Famara Diedhiou in January remains fresh in the memory, but that was a rare misstep. I would be very sad to see McGuinness go though, if that proves to be the compromise, but those are the difficult decisions that are sure to await next month.