Cardiff City return to pre-season training on Wednesday and the squad is largely unrecognisable from last year.
Ollie Tanner, Mahlon Romeo, Ebou Adams, Ryan Allsop, Jak Alnwick, Jamilu Collins, Vontae Daley-Campbell and Callum O’Dowda will all be present and correct, with as many players heading in the opposite direction. Gavin Whyte, Tom Sang and Kieron Evans ( who is set to go out on loan to Yeovil ) also return to a refreshed group and Steve Morison has done remarkably well to get so many players in at a time when most have unplugged and disappeared on holiday.
When Morison was managing on an interim basis, he was very much concerned with the here and now, not looking too far ahead. Once his appointment had been made permanent, his focus then became more long term and he spent the last few weeks of last season already looking ahead to pre-season. His goal was to get as many in as possible and he has certainly succeeded in that regard.
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Many of the players who have arrived will be relatively unknown to your typical Cardiff supporter, which is both exciting and slightly terrifying. You feel like such a vast turnover of staff will therefore either be the making of Cardiff or their undoing.
Cardiff’s budget meant they were fishing in new waters and it remains to be seen whether the new players will represent an upgrade, but there is no doubting the squad had become stale, so a revolution was both enforced and necessary. The reset starts here.
When you look at the squad as a whole, there is plenty of strength in depth in most areas. Two new goalkeepers have arrived, so you can’t help but feel that Dillon Phillips’ days may now be numbered. His contract expires next summer, so Cardiff may use the opportunity to cash in on him while they still can, or loan him out until his deal ends.
Jamilu Collins and O’Dowda can both play left-wing back, so you wonder what the future holds for Joel Bagan, who can also play as a left-sided centre-back. Daley-Campbell and Romeo look set to fight it out on the right side of the defence, which means that Perry Ng’s immediate future appears to be in central defence and talented prospect Jai Semenyo may in turn leave on loan to gain experience. Both have very big boots to fill if they’re to emulate the impact Cody Drameh had last season.
Mark McGuinness, Curtis Nelson and Oliver Denham join Ng, possibly Bagan and down the line, maybe Sean Morrison, in the heart of the defence. O’Dowda, Whyte and Tanner finally offer some options if Cardiff decide to play with wingers, while Ryan Wintle, Eli King and Adams are central options.
It is a shame Joe Ralls remains in limbo because Cardiff could certainly do with his experience and influence in midfield. With Marlon Pack, Aden Flint and Will Vaulks all leaving, there appears to be a leadership void he would help fill. It appears both parties want to strike a deal, but they appear no closer to a resolution than they were several months ago.
I also hope a place can be found for Sang, who is a player with plenty of potential. There appears to be a difference of opinion between him and Morison in terms of his best position, with Sang favouring right-wing back, which is now an oversubscribed role, and Morison seeing him operating centrally, where there is now far more scope for playing time.
In attack, Cardiff currently have James Collins, Rubin Colwill, Isaak Davies, Max Watters and Mark Harris. The fact Flint was Cardiff’s joint-top scorer last season tells its own story and this is certainly the area of the squad that requires the most attention.
Cardiff need to replace Kieffer Moore and appear to have already absorbed the money they made from selling him, so that won’t be an easy task. He proved to be Cardiff’s perfect striker and it cost them a fortune before they finally found him. They no longer have that luxury, but the task remains and goalscorers remain the most expensive and valued commodity in the market.
I won’t ignore the elephant in the room, which is that Cardiff appear to be in a holding pattern while they await a decision on Gareth Bale’s future. If he is prepared to make an unprecedented gesture of generosity to his hometown club, then a lot of that burden will be wiped out, but the squad otherwise remains a whole that is lacking in stardust.
That is understandable with a year-on-year downgrading of players and significant cost cutting, but Cardiff have a lot of ground to make up if they are to make a significant improvement on last year.
Last season Cardiff scored 50 goals, when the teams in the play-off places scored between 63-73. At the other end, they conceded 68, the same amount as Swansea and only better than five others. So, using a rule of thumb, their goal difference will need to be at least 25 better than last year, which is a big gap to bridge.
I expect Morison will be keen to utilise his allowance of five loan signings to once more add the sort of quality that he can’t afford to acquire permanently, while expecting further improvement from Colwill, Davies, Harris, Denham, Bagan and King.
So much still depends on what happens with Bale and Ralls, but with or without them, Cardiff evidently need to be far more potent in attack next season. Fortunately, Morison’s prompt transfer dealings have given them a solid base to build upon and an exciting, unpredictable season awaits.
