CITY’S MAN OF THE YEAR?
IT’S that time of year again. Tickets are on sale for the end of season awards and Sky Bet have announced their Team of the Season, with eight games and the play-offs left to play. As hasty as their announcement may have been, it got me thinking about who will be crowned Cardiff’s Player of the Year this season.
The general consensus among supporters seems to be Aron Gunnarsson and he would certainly be a worthy winner. Having drifted in and out of favour under Russell Slade, Gunnarsson recaptured his warrior spirit captaining Iceland at last summer’s European Championships and has maintained that fine form for Cardiff.
Gunnarsson has recorded the third highest amount of time on the pitch, after Sean Morrison and Joe Ralls, also chipping in a couple of goals.
His performances may have been a bit better earlier in the season, but his form has remained pretty much consistent throughout the campaign too. Yet for me, it has to be Sol Bamba. The head may say Gunnarsson, but the heart favours the Ivorian. It feels like this is his team and that was the case pretty much from day one.
I admit that when Neil Warnock signed Bamba, I didn’t really understand the logic.
Cardiff already had Morrison, Bruno Ecuele Manga and Matthew Connolly after all, elite Championship-level centre backs. Leeds fans were also rather uncomplimentary about him, although that may have been coloured by his sudden departure at the very end of the transfer window.
Then he arrived and I got it almost instantly.
Despite being stationed alongside Cardiff captain Morrison, he took immediate ownership of the side, marshalling the back four and those in front of him. Sometimes you don’t fully realise what a team lacks until it finally materialises and Bamba filled a leadership void that had existed since Mark Hudson’s departure.
Like Ainsley Harriott without the frying pan, he’s a larger than life man mountain and also covers a great deal of ground.
Having benefitted from a full preseason at Leeds, Bamba was ready to go and made his debut in the Severnside derby. He bagged the winner and has not looked back since.
Despite the many pros in his favour,
there are also a couple of key cons. Firstly, that he didn’t arrive until the start of October.
Having slumped towards the foot of the table under Paul Trollope, despite Gunnarsson’s best efforts, the arrival of Warnock and Bamba prompted Cardiff’s gradual ascent up the league.
Warnock has rightfully taken the plaudits for that rise, but Bamba is his on-field lieutenant and we’ll never know if that rise would have happened without the presence of Bamba to steady the ship.
Had both been in situ from the start of the season, who knows how much further up the table Cardiff would be positioned now.
There is also the whole Ipswich episode, when Bamba let himself and his team mates down by getting sent off for totally overreacting when a challenge on him went unpunished.
He confronted several officials and Warnock as the red mist descended when he was escorted from the pitch and a lengthy ban ensued.
He publically apologised and his actions appeared out of character when measured against the composed performances before and after the incident. After all, Bamba had not picked up a booking all season until this past weekend.
In recent weeks, Bamba has been pretty much faultless and he has become so influential, it’s hard to imagine Cardiff without him now. Warnock awarded Bamba an 11 out of 10 for a recent performance and his effusive praise has been entirely justified.
Gunnarsson may scoop the honours at the end of the season, but Bamba has managed to shape the side in his image and has become Cardiff’s most influential player in the process. He certainly has my vote.
Gunnarsson and Bamba appear to be front runners for recognition at Cardiff’s end of year awards, but another aspect that draws them together is that they are both heading towards the final year of their current contracts. Cardiff are currently trying to wrap their heads around the immediate futures of Manga, Peter Whittingham, Junior Hoilett and Kadeem Harris (a tip: try and keep all of them), who all see their contracts expire in the summer. Once they have navigated those situations, their attentions will then have to turn to half a squad’s worth of players who could be in the exact same situation this time next year. Those players include the aforementioned pair, plus the expensively acquired Morrison plus Lee Peltier, of whom Warnock once claimed: “If you gave me £10m to spend, I don’t think I could buy a better full back.” There is also Craig Noone, Frederic Gounongbe, Declan John, Greg Halford, Rickie Lambert, Brian Murphy, Rhys Healey, Idriss Saadi and Matthew Kennedy.
Retaining Gunnarsson, Bamba and Peltier will presumably be the priority, while Morrison remains more popular within the club than he is on the terraces. Noone appeared to be close to leaving a January and might be sacrificed to generate funds.
Halford is a Wanock favourite, but may be viewed as a temporary measure, as is surely the case with Murphy.
Gounongbe and John appear to be largely out of favour, whereas Saadi and Kennedy have been tearing it up on loan, hopefully earning a stay of execution. Warnock may also be keen to rid the club of Lambert’s hefty salary though, as his body no longer appears capable of supporting his talent.
Warnock is preparing for a testing time in the forthcoming transfer window, but that might prove to be a walk in the park compared to the multiple negotiations that need to take place within the club in the coming months.
Like Ainsley Harriot but without a frying pan, Sol Bamba is a larger-thanlife man mountain Scott Johnson