Only we could realise a long awaited dream of entering the biggest league in the world, make a decent start and then sack the man who helped us make that decent start. This ofcourse is the story that the club have sacked head of recruitment Iain Moody and replaced him with Alisher Apsalyamov. You know Alisher yes? One of the leading men in recruitment in world football?
Oh.
Well Vincent Tan has so I am sure it will all be fine.
Alisher Apsalyamov is a 23 year old from Kazakhstan with zero experience in football apart from shadowing Moody for a few months that is. Just last year he was painting our lovely walls inside the Cardiff City Stadium. A simple web search brings up results showing that he went to the same school as Vincent Tan's son. Iain Moody on the other hand had years of experience and arguably just as important, had an extremely good working relationship with Malky Mackay.
Moody is responsible for bringing in players that allowed the Bluebirds to make a decent start to their maiden season in the top flight of English football. Cardiff are currently 14th after seven games and sit one place above rivals Swansea. Several players have impressed during the opening of the season and almost all of them are here as a result of Iain Moody.
Gary Medel - Chilean midfield destroyer. He has had praise from nearly every pundit on TV, he has had acclaim from the likes of Xavi and Lionel Messi and looks at home here in Cardiff and the premier league.
Kim Bo Kyung - Outstanding in the latter end of last season and is showing no signs of being scared of the big time so far this season.
Steven Caulker - A big case for signing of the season if we stay up. It said a lot that other fans ridiculed us for even attempting to sign a player of that quality. It also says a lot that Spurs fans were very angry at the sale of a prized asset with a huge future.
Jordan Mutch - Scorer of the wonder goal at Fulham that won us the game and changed the game when he came on against Newcastle. Malky has said this week that Mutch has a fantastic career ahead of him.
All of these quality signings did not just happen because of a simple button press like on Football Manager (I think). A lot of work went into this, probably from quite a few people. But no doubt the main two were Malky and Iain.
It has also broke tonight that Vincent Tan has bought out shares from Paul Guy and Steve Borley and now owns a fair 98% of the club. Great.
Has Tan's money helped us realise our dream of playing in the premier league? yes. At what cost? in money terms, £140m. In terms of pride, heritage, tradition and stability, a lot higher than that.
The change to red, the changing of the badge, his row over bonuses and now the sacking of well respected staff. Vincent Tan is surely and not all that slowly, annoying nearly every Cardiff City fan. You do not have to be a brain surgeon to realise what our Malaysian owner has in his plans. He is adopting a FAW approach to management. He is doing this by replacing successful working staff with 'yes men'. Men that will happily let him do what he wants and when he wants. He takes this further by having a 'jobs for the boys' mentality when it comes to hiring new staff. So a friend has a job and won't stand in his our owners way. Everyone wins. Well actually not everyone, just Vincent Tan, but in his world that probably is everyone.
What does this mean for Malky? a successful professional bond has been broken for no reason whatsoever. Will he still want to be here? Will he still want to work for someone who has the footballing nous of an ironing board? Speaking from countless hours on Football Manager, if my staff were fired for no reason, I wouldn't be happy.
But the silence from the club is deafening. Despite attention from national media, not one statement has been on Moody or Malky. Not that a statement will explain anything to us
It really is a crying shame that at a time when Cardiff are going forward on the field, our owner seems hell bent on taking us backwards off the field.
