Carl Curtis : Time to cut Russell Slade some slack
” Time to cut Russell Slade some slack ”
Slade was certainly not the choice of manager of any Cardiff City fan when Solskjaer was sacked and he has faced a difficult time since his arrival.
Not only has the manager had to cut the wage bill, sell players but he has also had to try and win over a fanbase, including myself, the performances last season didn’t go anyway to helping Slade but so far this season there has been an improvement.
This week, leading up to today’s game, I spoke to many people and I asked the same question to all, what happens if City don’t win but draw against Wolves?
Each and everyone reply I had was almost identical, ‘ the knives will be out! ‘
My feeling was that if we had drawn today, the performances have certainly been much improved to what they were last season, so it would have been unjust in my opinion to call for the managers head after better displays and not losing a game in five, if you include the cup win over Wimbledon.
The team are getting the ball down to try and play football, partnerships are forming and triangles of football are evident with more movement than we saw last season.
It does not mean we are world beaters by any stretch of the imagination but there are definite signs of improvement, a togetherness among the players and hopefully confidence will come on the back of these performances and results like today’s.
If I have a concern, it would be the confidence of the team, I am hoping we can continue on this mini run we are on, as the team doesn’t look like it is brimming with confidence but if we can get a couple of back to back wins, I am hoping that changes quickly.
What I saw today was encouraging indeed, even in the first half when we didn’t look brilliant on the ball, what we did have was a good shape, two good banks of four that worked, for the majority of time, in unison. When 4-4-2 works it proves to be difficult to break down and that was clearly what frustrated Wolves today.
Not one shot on target for Wolves this afternoon is testament to the defending of the whole team.
Slade could have been stubborn today and kept belief in Revell but chose to go with the popular choice of Kenwyne Jones and it proved correct, not saying Slade was not going to make the change anyway but the fact is he did and who can complain.
Where Slade perhaps had a little bit of luck was the performance of Fabio, the Brazilian was simply brilliant today but Slade must have been gutted to lose Scott Malone to a sickness bug, who would have thought we would be saying that, as the left back has been a revelation in the early part of the season.
Is Russell Slade a good enough manager to get Cardiff City promoted this season ?
I don’t know what the answer is to that but what I will say is, after the first five games of the season, he deserves to be cut some slack and given the opportunity and support from the stands in trying to do so.