Malkys Future In Tan's Hands

Monday 14th Oct 2013 time 22.00
From the Guardian.

' Malky's Agent says '

Malky Mackay could be sacked after his agent admitted that, while the Cardiff City manager remains determined not to resign, his future depends on the "powers that be" at the club. Effectively this means Mackay's position will be decided by Vincent Tan, the owner.

Mackay attended a meeting of the board on Monday to discuss the direction of the club following the departure of Iain Moody who, as head of recruitment, was the manager's key adviser.

Tan replaced Moody with Alisher Apsalyamov, a 23-year-old Kazakh friend of his son who was formerly on work experience at Cardiff, a decision that compounded the uncertainty at the club.

While confirming that Mackay would not offer his resignation, the manager's representative, Raymond Sparkes, was clear that there are no guarantees the 41-year-old would retain his job.

"There is absolutely no prospect of Malky resigning from a job that he loves, a job he's ensconced in. No – absolutely, categorically not. That's not something Malky is contemplating," Sparkes, who was also at the board meeting, told BBC Radio Wales.

"Malky loves being at Cardiff City, has started a job there and feels that he's been given the opportunity to be the architect in some respects of a new Cardiff City. But football is a precarious business and Malky's decision to stay might not be matched by all the powers that be deciding that he should stay, so that's pretty much in the hands of other people."

Mackay remains angry at the treatment of Moody. Last week Moody was suspended, then placed on gardening leave before it was announced he had departed.

"Malky's feeling a little bit bemused and a good bit frustrated and certainly concerned," Sparkes said. "He has been concerned in terms of what this would mean to the club and also for the fans, who he feels have really not had anything said to them that has been meaningful.

"Malky is concerned that the fans had been kept pretty much in the dark."

Moody is unhappy at the allegations which led to his removal. These referred to an overspend of the summer transfer budget, after he helped Mackay sign Sevilla's Gary Medel for £11m, Tottenham Hotspur's Steven Caulker for £9m, Andreas Cornelius of FC Copenhagen for £8.5m and Rennes's Kévin Théophile-Catherine for £2.1m.

Tan's desire to remove Moody from the club had been building for several weeks, according to Sparkes. "Both men have made their positions quite clear but Iain has still been removed from his position and that's not going to change," he said.

"The real question is how do we go forward from here, how do we get things back on to an even keel and not only have a plan for taking the club forward but convince the Cardiff City fans that it's something that they can absolutely rely on and trust in going forward.

"Iain was a crucial member of Malky's team and for anyone who knows Malky or has come into contact with him, he is a tremendous character in every respect.

"No one will be surprised to hear that when a member of his family – if that's what we can call him – has been removed, then Malky, on complete morality grounds, is always going to jump to the defence of that individual."

I have to admit, the more I hear Malky talked about in this light the more my pessimism is growing.

Is Malky making himself a martyr deliberately? It's hard to deny that the only thing missing from that statement a that Malky Mackay is the messiah reincarnated and that he saves orphans from burning buildings.

He's gathered national praise from the media, and several big clubs were interested in him in the summer. He knows his job is unstable here, but he also knows that making himself such a fan favourite makes him very difficult to remove without a huge a s**t storm. By playing to the fans, he earns one of two things -

1. A potential huge pay off if Tan sacks him anyway, and he could walk into any other premier league club
2. He earns a strangehold over Tan, making himself untouchable

Basically, I'm concerned Malky is the footballs version of the Lib Dems - he pretends to be for the people, but all it really is is a cleverly designed marketing plan.

Just a theory. It would be nonetheless a tragedy if Malky left now, but I can't personally rule this out.

Worth mentioning that Steve Borley, who most definetely was at the meeting, has said that Malky's agent wasnt there. On that evidence, this story is a lie.

Why does a football manager need an agent in the first place......... 

TDA wrote:Why does a football manager need an agent in the first place......... 

Certainly seems to help when you have a boss like Vincent Tan...

The agent will obviously talk up the best deal they can get for their client. They owe no loyalty to the current employer, even if the manager feels that he does.

I had no doubt that Malky would have taken the Everton job if offered and my feeling is that the agent's involvement now is a precursor to Malky moving on.

It is just a question of whether he will jump or be pushed.

Again, to be a pessimist, I think being pushed would do Malky just fine.

If he quits , he gives up the remainder of his salary earnings (potentially millions).

If he is sacked, he gets a multimillion pound pay off for the remainder of his contract, and probably walks into an even better paid job. Plus he gets the martyrdom that Tan would suddenly find instead of 25% of the crowd being against him, suddenly that number is closer to 80-90%.

I want him to stay, but at this point in time it wouldn't surprise me at all if he went, nor would I blame him. He's been treated like a whipping boy by Tan these last few weeks.

I have just read that report and had to look up the word "ensconced"...... I think Malkys agent is just playing the game and I am sure that chairman and owners of other clubs are watching this with interest and monitoring Malkys conduct.

Malky is only going to do what is best for him regarding his contract and so would the rest of us, but it is a shame Tan doesn’t show the same measured approach to certain club matters.

The only thing that winds me up is the fact that the club seems to have a vow of silence towards us fans and that can only be damaging in the long run.

Red614 wrote:Again, to be a pessimist, I think being pushed would do Malky just fine.

If he quits , he gives up the remainder of his salary earnings (potentially millions).

If he is sacked, he gets a multimillion pound pay off for the remainder of his contract, and probably walks into an even better paid job. Plus he gets the martyrdom that Tan would suddenly find instead of 25% of the crowd being against him, suddenly that number is closer to 80-90%.

I want him to stay, but at this point in time it wouldn't surprise me at all if he went, nor would I blame him. He's been treated like a whipping boy by Tan these last few weeks.

Unfortunately, the 80 - 90% that you are talking about are those who are too blinkered to see the limitations in Malky's set up.

No doubt one of the finest managers we have ever had, but at the moment, a man for the Championship. That is where he spent the majority of his career and that his where his mindset is.

Tan has quickly realised that the PL is a different proposition altogether and as well as PL quality players, we need a PL-savvy manager.

We have readily dismissed players who played their part to the end of last season like Conway, McNaughton, Connolly as not being good enough for the PL........surely it's fair to give exactly the same consideration to the management team?

If we are brutally honest about our opening 7 games, we have been battered in the majority of them and are fortunate to have accumulated as many points as we have. The team has shown potential from time to time, but the writing is all but on the wall.

I still fail to see where you're coming from with this TDA. With regards to 'battering us', were yet to concede more than 2 goals this season, and the only posession battering's we have suffered so far were courtesy of Man city, Everton and Spurs - can you honestly tell me you weren't expecting that?

Our tactics are evolving from the long ball we've criticised in the past as gloves' stats show. Personally, considering I still think our attack is too weak in its current format mostly due to Campbell being inefficient as a lone striker our performances thus far have been damn impressive. If Cornelius returns and shows the form he has in the past, we could really surprise people.

Red614 wrote:I still fail to see where you're coming from with this TDA. With regards to 'battering us', were yet to concede more than 2 goals this season, and the only posession battering's we have suffered so far were courtesy of Man city, Everton and Spurs - can you honestly tell me you weren't expecting that?

Our tactics are evolving from the long ball we've criticised in the past as gloves' stats show. Personally, considering I still think our attack is too weak in its current format mostly due to Campbell being inefficient as a lone striker our performances thus far have been damn impressive. If Cornelius returns and shows the form he has in the past, we could really surprise people.

I would add West Ham to your list of teams that have clearly outplayed us, as did Newcastle for at least the first half.....4.5 out of 7 so far..... 

You are absolutely correct in your comments regarding the attack, but the fact that we have spent so much time defending makes it somewhat irrelevant as to who is playing the lone striker role, as we are seldom in possession long enough to mount any sort of meaningful threat. How many of the goals we have scored so far have come from open play?

The fact that we haven't conceded more than two goals is largely down to the excellent performances of our goalkeepers.......the number of chances we have given other teams is laughable.......

West ham was a uniform disaster, can't deny it. I have to be honest though, the problem was very much player performances rather than tactics, it was opening day nerves. Likewise with the first half against Newcastle, the players just switched off. Malky did completely turn around the Newcastle game however, and that should be praise not critiscism.

I think you're mistaking poor tactics for poor performances. There's absolutely nothing that the manager can do if the whole team fail to turn up.

if we look at the games we have played and the actual results against what was generally expected;

west ham lost 2-0 most we hoping for at least a draw 0pts
manchester city won 3-2 unexpected victory 3pts
everton 0-0 when many were anticipating a first home win 4pts
hull city 1-1 everybody thought we would win 5pts
tottenham lost 0-1 expected
fulham won 1-2 hoped for victory 8pts
newcastle lost 1-2 8pts

i think most guys were rather disappointed that we failed to win at hull, drawing may well be a result that will come back to haunt us as may the result against newcastle.

whilst we have picked up three bonus points (man city) we have dropped invaluable points against hull, newcastle and west ham and those are teams we may have a relegation battle with at the end of the season. think we could and possibly should have been on 10 points by now. would be feeling a lot more comfortable

we have yet to play one of the top 6 away from home, so against them it has to some extent been bit of a false dawn

I wouldn't blame the players for the performances.

Malky appears to set his team out, more often than not, not to lose, rather than try to win games from the outset. Furthermore, the team, from day one of "Regime Malky" has habitually sat back on a lead and invited pressure in the final quarter of a game.......these are tactical decisions.

davewebber65 wrote:if we look at the games we have played and the actual results against what was generally expected;

west ham lost 2-0 most we hoping for at least a draw 0pts
manchester city won 3-2 unexpected victory 3pts
everton 0-0 when many were anticipating a first home win 4pts
hull city 1-1 everybody thought we would win 5pts
tottenham lost 0-1 expected
fulham won 1-2 hoped for victory 8pts
newcastle lost 1-2 8pts

i think most guys were rather disappointed that we failed to win at hull, drawing may well be a result that will come back to haunt us as may the result against newcastle.

whilst we have picked up three bonus points (man city) we have dropped invaluable points against hull, newcastle and west ham and those are teams we may have a relegation battle with at the end of the season. think we could and possibly should have been on 10 points by now. would be feeling a lot more comfortable

we have yet to play one of the top 6 away from home, so against them it has to some extent been bit of a false dawn

To be fair though, if it worked like that then we would finish in about 7th place! The only games this season I have been disappointed with: West ham and Newcastle. I'm more than happy with our position.