No, I did not write this letter......

..............but I could have..........


SIR -

My first game I watched at Ninian Park was in the 1940s and Cardiff were in the third division south .

I have supported the City ever since and I am a great admirer of what Mr Tan has done for the club.

Like it or not, without him City would have gone into administration and would be another Portsmouth wearing BLUE.

However, I must say that I am extremely worried about the current situation on and off the park. It is the style of play in particular that is a worry to me.

Mr Slade has no experience whatsoever of Championship football which as we know is very very competitive.

Our midfield at present goes missing for too many times during games and our back four resort to good old fashioned big boot tactics.

We can watch that every Saturday on local parks.

Slade is playing with two wingers who constantly come inside when they have the ball making the pitch too small.

I believe that Scott Young is having too much input into the current team as Slade continually discusses things with him during matches... we never saw that with Malky, who quite rightly managed his team on and off the pitch.

This team lacks leadership and direction on and off the pitch. How can a goalkeeper captain this lot? We need a leader with fire in his belly... someone like Mr Kavanagh!

I realise Mr Slade is new to the job but already alarm bells are ringing re: his style of play. No wonder there is such a poor atmosphere in the stadium.

We must have better midfield players in the squad than Mr Slade or Mr Young are playing at present.

Look forward to hearing your comments on this subject
Regards
Peter Fryer

i think mr freyer has hit the nail on the head

Where did you find this letter then TDA? I have to say, although I agree with some of it - I don't agree with all of it. Scott Young's influence is speculative and unlikely to be true - I say this because the current squad & tactics are very different from that which Young put out during his time in charge.

Secondly, Slade is doing a much better job than I imagined - although not very attractive to watch, he has won every home game in charge and seems to, slowly, be sorting things out away.

He had a lot of work to do and he had to prioritise.

The main issue when he arrived was out leaking defence. He has mainly been successful in sorting those lout out, he has put a bit of steel back into the defence, making us hard to beat.

His next job is too sort out our attacking play, we are having a lot more efforts on goal than we did with either of out last two managers. Both under MM and OGS, we often managed one, maybe two, shots on target on average per game. Slade's team has done a lot better than that over already. Bearing in mind that he can only use what he has - Maynard any good? Nope. LeFondre is working hard but is yet to deliver.

Finally, the point on the midfield. I'm not sure there are better players - the middle four he currently uses are the same that I would pick.

After writing the above, I am of the view that Slade is currently exceeding my expectations.

Just did a bit working out - if Slade's games in charge would have been at the beginning of the season we would have been 2nd in the table right now.

The league table currently doesn't flatter but that is due to OGS, not slade.

Rhys wrote:Where did you find this letter then TDA? I have to say, although I agree with some of it - I don't agree with all of it. Scott Young's influence is speculative and unlikely to be true - I say this because the current squad & tactics are very different from that which Young put out during his time in charge.

Secondly, Slade is doing a much better job than I imagined - although not very attractive to watch, he has won every home game in charge and seems to, slowly, be sorting things out away.

He had a lot of work to do and he had to prioritise.

The main issue when he arrived was out leaking defence. He has mainly been successful in sorting those lout out, he has put a bit of steel back into the defence, making us hard to beat.

His next job is too sort out our attacking play, we are having a lot more efforts on goal than we did with either of out last two managers. Both under MM and OGS, we often managed one, maybe two, shots on target on average per game. Slade's team has done a lot better than that over already. Bearing in mind that he can only use what he has - Maynard any good? Nope. LeFondre is working hard but is yet to deliver.

Finally, the point on the midfield. I'm not sure there are better players - the middle four he currently uses are the same that I would pick.

After writing the above, I am of the view that Slade is currently exceeding my expectations.

A pretty fair assessment by you there Rhys i think. There are definite concerns for me about Slade especially away from home while the second half showing against Reading at home was woefully unambitious against 10 men. Nevertheless there are big improvements that have been made in terms of organisation and solidity since he took charge. As long as these are bases to build on and not almost the finishing point then that is ok.

I think it is going to be very hard to judge Slade until the end of the season (unless we suddenly start becoming very consistent for good or bad) and certainly not until the end of the January window when we can see what we are left with and how the squad takes shape from that point on. I think Slade has gone too far in terms of picking the same players all the time but i do have to go back to my post before about my thoughts of the squad. I simply don't think any of the alternatives in most positions and through the midfield have shown enough when they have played to warrant a starting place over the current midfield. I still hope that the likes of Morrison (while he is here), Ralls, Daehli and Adeyemi will be used enough to help the squad out but i couldn't honestly say that i believe that any of them would definitely improve the team for being it.

Unfortunately through a mixture of dubious signings, dubious training regimes and the building of a squad too large in numbers but still lacking in quality in key areas, Ole has done a lot of damage to this squad. Any manager would need time to try to sort things out and shape the squad as he wants it. As long as the results don't get too bad then i will be happy to criticise what i see as Slade's mistakes but give him the time he needs to sort things out.