Players like Tomlin it’s a shame Cardiff Don’t come around often... didn’t see more of him
LAYERS like Lee Tomlin do not come around very often, especially at a club like Cardiff City.
Playmakers with the ability to produce something from nothing and get fans off their feet come at a premium in this game and Tomlin had all of that.
It is crying shame we saw it so rarely.
The season in which he almost single-handedly dragged City to the play-offs under Neil Harris seems like a distant memory now.
But during those magical moments in that 2019/20 campaign, we saw just why Neil Warnock forked out a fee which could potentially rise to £2.9m, it was reported at the time, to bring him to the Welsh capital in the summer of 2017.
At the time, it was seen as something of an SOS signing, with Cardiff in desperate need of adding a player to their squad who possessed the flair to keep defenders guessing and the ability to unlock uncompromising Championship back lines.
We now know that Tomlin’s relationship with Warnock was strained.
Warnock insisted the player was never fit enough to operate at the level he desired, while Tomlin said during a candid press conference that the manager always found an excuse not to pick him.
As ever in these circumstances, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
The crux of the matter is that Tomlin was not on the pitch anywhere near as much as fans would have liked, given the moments of true quality he produced when he was on it.
Tomlin played only 13 games in the Championship in that first season at Cardiff, eventually being loaned out to Nottingham Forest in the January, with Jamie Ward coming the other way, before the Bluebirds wrapped up promotion to the Premier League.
Tomlin was not in Warnock’s plans for the Premier League campaign and, after months in the wilderness, he was eventually sent out on loan again to Peterborough in League One at the beginning of January 2019.
Upon Cardiff’s relegation to the Championship, there was uncertainty surrounding Tomlin’s future. It seemed almost nailed on that he would leave the club.
The relationship between him and the manager looked to be fractured beyond, while the player himself had candidly spoken about suffering with mental health issues.
It seemed like everyone needed to press the reset button and a fresh start was needed.
But he insisted that he would fight for his place and despite Warnock not selecting him for the opening three fixtures of the season, there was an opening after the Bluebirds suffered a number of injury troubles heading into a clash with Huddersfield Town.
Warnock backed Tomlin and he strung together three impressive displays from the off. Just as things started to look up, though, Tomlin crashed his car ahead of the meeting with Derby County and he spent the subsequent three matches out of the side.
It was a constant battle for the player to put together a number of performances, be that for fitness, selection or mitigating circumstances.
By the time Warnock left the club in November 2019, Tomlin had made just 23 appearances for Cardiff in all competitions in just over two years at the club.
Whatever happened next is anyone’s guess. Something clicked, his body held up to the strain of Championship football and he struck up a tremendous relationship with the newlyinstalled Bluebirds boss, Neil Harris.
Harris trusted Tomlin in a way that Warnock seemed reluctant to, owing to how their relationship had been up until that point.
Harris told Tomlin he was his main man and started him every match he possibly could and it yielded results beyond anyone’s expectations.
Some strange alchemy of Tomlin hitting somewhere near the peak fitness of his career and having a manager who blindly put all his trust in him made for some of the most exciting individual performances any Cardiff fan could have wished for.
There were so many moments
during that time which if spread over a career would make quite the highlights package.
But the fact he produced the goods time and time again over the course of the next few months was quite remarkable.
That injury-time winner against Barnsley, smacking a volley into the bottom corner to secure a 3-2 triumph, that almost otherworldly lastminute assist for Robert Glatzel in the stunning 3-3 comeback against Leeds United up at Elland Road, the sumptuous free-kick against West Brom to earn a late winner at home and that solo goal against Luton Town at the beginning of February, rifling it into the bottom corner to ensure a narrow 1-0 win over The Hatters and set City on course for a play-off spot, are all moments which fly off the top of your head.
He was rightly named the Bluebirds’ Player of the Season for 2019/20 and Cardiff were excited to see what was to come for the season ahead.
Indeed, after transfer deadline day 12 months ago, the mouthwatering prospect of Harry Wilson, Lee Tomlin and Sheyi Ojo behind Kieffer Moore looked to be, on paper, just about as vaunted a front four as you would find anywhere in the division.
Alas, problems arose once again. That pre-season he was hit by that chronic groin niggle and he began the campaign with just the odd substitute appearance here and there.
In fact, the only game he did start last season preceded him getting sent off up at Blackburn Rovers.
Harris delivered the hammerblow that Tomlin had undergone surgery around this time last year and it left City fans with that familiar feeling of disappointment and frustration.
It was thought he would return in January this year, but in fact he would never play for Cardiff again.
He did not reach Mick McCarthy’s level of fitness demands and it looked incredibly likely that he would leave in the summer.
However, to everyone’s surprise, McCarthy dangled a carrot.
“Yeah, he is under contract,” McCarthy said at the back end of last season when asked if Tomlin could break back into the fold.
“He will be going away and he needs to come back – he has had a difficult season with injury – so I am really looking forward to seeing him fully fit and raring to go for pre-season.”
Another injury setback in pre-season though, following the win over Newport County, proved to be the final straw.
Fans’ disappointment at Tomlin’s absence soon grew to anger as weeks and then months passed by without the player so much as appearing in a matchday squad.
The writing was on the wall and eventually, after what Cardiff say were “lengthy discussions”, the club pulled the trigger and released him from his contract.
The decision was widely accepted by Cardiff fans and understandably so.
The club could not just wait around forever with the purse strings having been tightened.
Many fans are just frustrated that the player could not return to full fitness and offer this side the sort of wizardry he did during those months under Harris.
Just 57 appearances in a little more than four years paints its own picture. Those scintillating few months in 2019/20 aside, when he looked virtually untouchable, it has proved a costly transfer.
While he never looked likely to feature under McCarthy, his departure simply highlights the glaring absence of creativity within this Bluebirds squad.
There is early hope that Rubin Colwill can pick up some of the slack in that playmaker role, however lumping too much pressure on him in this early stage of his career is unwise. And while Sam Bowen has looked promising in that more advanced midfield role, the same can be said for him, too.
Tomlin’s absence has served only to fuel Cardiff fans’ desire to see more creativity brought into their squad.
It has them pining for the craftsmanship we saw from Tomlin not so long ago or the artistry brought here by Victor Camarasa and Jason Koumas as we scroll through the Cardiff City annuals of years gone by.
It is an area of the squad which needs urgent surgery in January if Cardiff have any real designs on challenging near the top of the table, that much is certain.
It just seems an almighty shame that Tomlin, the perfect person to play that role, could never return to the player we once knew, albeit far too fleetingly, to fill that massive creative void.
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