GLATZEL’S EXIT SHOWS CHANGE IS NEEDED BY BLUEBIRDS IN WINDOW
THIS weekend, Robert Glatzel hit his tenth goal of the season for his new club Hamburger SV against Schalke. Some might scoff at the fact it is the German second tier, and they are within their rights to do so, but for those who liked him at Cardiff City it is a form of vindication after they were left angry by his departure.
His exit in the summer divided the opinion of supporters. Some believed he fell victim to a system or style of play which did not suit his game, others thought he simply was not good enough to cut it in the Championship.
It is a serious adjustment to come from Germany to England and it is rare players hit the ground running after such a seismic shift.
That was the case with Glatzel, who showed glimpses of what he could do while with the Bluebirds, but also frustrated with how little he seemed to offer in his all-round game.
Of course that was a difficult task when he was invariably being used as a target man for the most part, despite not physically being up to the task.
It begs the question; how would Glatzel have fared under Steve Morison with this newly-implemented style of play? A fair guess would be a darned sight better than he did playing the old way.
Glatzel was a £5.5million signing under Neil Warnock and was sold for less than £1m, a figure which will sting the eyes for many City fans and Vincent Tan, no doubt.
His goal return at Cardiff was meagre, he netted 11 times in 58 games for the Welsh capital city club, but his time at City came to a very abrupt end.
After Glatzel’s exit, James Collins was brought in as a free agent, a player McCarthy knew well from his time with the Republic of Ireland.
Collins came with Football League pedigree and a decent goal tally with him. He is a work-horse, a bruiser and a real team player and it is easy to see why McCarthy liked him.
He is another who endured a slow start and has found it more difficult to nail down a starting spot following another managerial change.
But Isaak Davies, Mark Harris and Rubin Colwill all seem better suited to Morison’s style of play, especially playing around Kieffer Moore. Whisper it in hushed tones, but so, too, does Max Watters, who is currently out on loan with MK Dons.
If Cardiff were to know that Morison would be in charge just a couple of months into the season, would that have had a bearing on whether they would have preferred to keep Glatzel over signing Collins? Difficult to say.
That’s what the crux of all this, really. We are by no means writing Collins off, he has too many goals in the bank to do that, but it is a case of decision making and how City’s transfer policy must change moving forward.
There have been calls for a director of football for some time now and, in this age of transfer austerity at Cardiff City, those calls are more pertinent.
There is less scope to get transfers wrong now. Money is so thin on the ground that any outlay is pored over and scrutinised more than ever before. The margin for error is small and costly.
What was encouraging, if a little cryptic, was Morison’s verdict when asked about transfers a few short weeks ago.
“As a football club we all know where we want to go in terms of how we want this club to look going forward,” he said last month.
“I’m sure you’ll see that when it all starts coming together. It’s shortterm at the minute. Really short-term goals; get to January and see where we are.
“It won’t be a case of not being prepared if we do get the option [to do something in the window]. We are fully prepared and are aligned as a football club and a recruitment and a management and team.”
That is a positive step. Maybe the club doesn’t need a director of football, a technical director, a sporting director or in whatever guise teams employ these figures. Mehmet Dalman has been quoted as saying Vincent Tan is not particularly in favour of having one.
And, by the way, this is not a case of Glatzel versus Collins and who would have done better. It’s far wider-ranging than that. In the summer, McCarthy overlooked bringing in a more creative midfield player because, the fact of the matter was, the midfield had a primarily defensive role under the old regime and was fairly low down on the priority list.
One would like to think, under Morison, the midfield is far more important now in transitioning and mounting attacks and that should be an area Cardiff target in the upcoming transfer windows. In turn, those sorts of players should seamlessly slot into any subsequent regime after Morison.
What is clear, and what it is hoped can be gleaned from Morison’s comments, is that transfer strategies will need to change in the windows ahead as Cardiff look to shift to a new, sustainable model on the pitch and off it.
If they do that, based on the longterm implementation of the style and brand of play we have seen in the last few weeks, then many will see that as a firm move in the right direction.