Fri May 12, 2017 12:47 pm
Cardiff City's No.1 transfer priority should be finding a replacement for David Marshall — Bluebirds fan column
Scott Johnson argues that Marshall has been a big miss at Cardiff City Stadium
Friday 12th May 2017
By Scott Johnson
When reflecting on the 2016/17 season, much has been made of Paul Trollope’s torrid time in charge at the start of the campaign and how much Cardiff would have been better off had they cut out the middle man and appointed Neil Warnock last summer.
The logic is sound and not just in retrospect, as everyone was clamouring for Warnock at the time and the appointment of Trollope felt more like a marriage of convenience. The fact that he spent most of the summer in France with the Welsh national side hardly helped either.
Yet I would argue that Cardiff’s decision to sell both of their goalkeepers was just as significant in contributing to their shaky start.
Not only did David Marshall and Simon Moore depart, they left in the final few weeks of the transfer window, after the season had commenced. Moore left first and had it been the other way round, maybe Marshall’s sale would have resulted in Moore staying put, but we’ll never know.
“Any manager or coach, you want to keep your best players,” Trollope claimed at the time. “David was the captain and very important in the spirit of the group.”
The sales generated around £3m between them, but it was a reckless decision and fatally undermined their immediate prospects.
They managed to cobble together a pool of three goalkeepers, with no clear indication of who would be first choice. Ben Wilson was promoted from Cardiff’s Development side. Ben Amos, a high earner at recently relegated Bolton, arrived on loan and Brian Murphy, Portsmouth’s second choice, followed suit.
"Ben Wilson’s made really good progress,” explained Trollope. “When it came to selling Simon, Ben’s progress was a factor in that." In his first few games, it was clear that he was not ready and Cardiff lost all three of the games that he started.
The 3-0 stuffing at Preston, as bad as Cardiff have been in many a year, saw him ousted in favour of Amos and eventually loaned out to Rochdale. Coincidentally, Wilson played eight times for them, none of which they won and then spent the rest of the season on the bench.
Amos only fared marginally better and Warnock would have sent him back to Bolton in January, had he not already represented two sides, making him ineligible to play for anyone else.
Brian Murphy has proved to be the better of the three, but Allan McGregor’s arrival in the winter transfer window from Hull, where Marshall’s arrival had relegated him down the pecking order, provided some much needed stability.
By then, half the season had passed and the damage was done.
Moore was an ever present in the Sheffield United side that romped to the League One title, racking up 100 points in the process. Marshall, in contrast, has struggled at Hull. The manager that signed him got the sack and his successor prefers the other guy.
Fast forward the best part of a year and Cardiff find themselves in a broadly similar position. McGregor and Amos will soon depart, while Wilson will return. Warnock has already claimed that he is in the market for two goalkeepers and has sung the praises of Murphy, so the writing may already be on the wall for Wilson.
What happens next may shape what sort of season Cardiff fans can expect next term. Will history repeat itself or will Cardiff learn from their mistakes and push the boat out to adequately replace Marshall.
Cardiff have already been linked with Neil Etheridge and Lee Camp , both of whom are set to depart Walsall and Rotherham respectively when their contracts soon expire. Should they be the two goalkeepers in question, I think their signings, initially at least, would be perceived as underwhelming and a cheap fix.
Were Murphy, Camp and Etheridge Cardiff’s pool of goalkeepers, there would be no obvious first choice amongst them. Camp has worked with Warnock before, so would probably get the nod, but he has led a rather nomadic career path since making a name for himself at Nottingham Forest between 2009 and 2013.
If Cardiff were prepared to push the boat out, chances are that they would have tried to keep hold of McGregor, but have already stated that they cannot afford him.
Norwich recently parted ways with John Ruddy, who had been with the club for seven years and represented England during that period. He would provide an instant solution to Cardiff’s goalkeeping uncertainty, but one of the reasons why Norwich allowed him to leave is because they are trying to rid the club of all their high earners.
There is also the option of trying to strike a deal for Marshall to return. Hull will be paying for the Scotland international in annual instalments, so there will still be money owing on him and there is potential for a deal to be struck, if it suited all parties. Marshall’s future is currently entangled with Hull’s Premier League prospects, plus the futures of McGregor and in-demand manager Marco Silva.
Cardiff were spoilt when they had Marshall. It was a position they didn’t have to worry about, but they are now discovering the size of the task that replacing him is.
It is all the rage these days for clubs to have one goalkeeper for the league and another in cup competitions, but it is almost always clearly defined which is first choice. It’s not a position where you chop and change because the stability and continuity a good goalkeeper provides flows through the defence and throughout the team. Vice versa a bad one.
There are a wealth of available options in that position that Cardiff could bring in that would provide immediate authority and stability, but they won’t come cheap. Alternatively, they can bring in an array of cut-price options and hope that one cuts the mustard.
Giving Cardiff the benefit of the doubt, they were forced down that route last year due to time constraints and it didn’t work well for them. This year they have the luxury of time and choice.
If they make the wrong call this time, they will have no one to blame but themselves.