" SUNDAY JANUARY 30th 2011 UPDATE "

The talk on most City fans lips at the moment is Jay Bothroyd and whether he will still be here or not on Tuesday, I understand that apart from the offer from Newcastle a couple of weeks ago there have been no further offers made for Jay. Hopefully there will be no offer made that the club feel is a ' must take ' on Jay as it would be so late in the transfer window it would we would be back to the same situation as before but this time with no back up for Jon Parkin. The figure that the club would take for jay I believe would be a minimum of £2.5million.

Adam Matthews is another player who has been talked about recently regarding a permanent move to Celtic, the latest being that Celtic may try and hold out until the end of the season and pay a compensation and not have any sell on clauses in his contract, which is my understanding has been very much part of the deal that City have been looking for. I suppose it is a dangerous game for Celtic to play as they may end up not getting the player at all, even in the summer, but for the player he can afford I would imagine, to wait another couple of months in and out of the squad as he is not a regular under DJ as it is.

Strangely enough the agent of Matthews, Wildig and Ledley is David Baldwin, all of whom seem to head to Scotland under his guidance, I will have to find out what other players he has of ours before they are heading off north of the border.

Danny Drinkwater, as I said at the time requested to go back to Man Utd and it was not as reported by the local media,' Fergie threw his toys out the pram '. There is no issue between the club and Man Utd and Fergie did not want the player back to feature in his first team as he loaned him straight out to Watford, it was quite simply the player wanted to leave for his reasons. The FA cup was not another reason he wanted him back either as Danny was cup tied for the game he played against Stoke

Even though Sam Hammam is miles away in Lebanon, he is still involved with City and has been helping out I understand on many issues, one in particular I am aware of is, when Craig Bellamy had his name in the press recently for the wrong reasons, Sam rang and spoke with TG to advise him on how to handle the situation and the player, you will recognise the way in which Sam operates that nothing has changed.

When the media were downing Craig for what had allegedly happened in Caroline Street, Sam told TG," that it is important that we look after Bellamy and make sure that he is fully focused on the game away to Norwich, the last thing we need is a player who is worried about other things and not concentrating on the game, we must protect Craig Bellamy he is one of ours, he is our captain, he is a tiger not a rat, we must not allow anyone to make him out to be a rat, it is important that Craig knows he has the support of his family and his footballing family ( us )".

Another issue that Sam has given his advice/opinion on is Dave Jones and his management style. Throughout the summer Sam and I have talked, as fans, at length about formation, weakness', tactics and the type of player we sign. Sam explained to both TG and VT that Dave Jones has a way of working and that is to bring in experienced, quality players but often injury prone, and when they are all fit we have the best team by far in the division, but the question being when are they all fit ?

Now I told you weeks ago of a conversation that happened between DJ and Jonathan Woodgate, and that the two had very much agreed to bring Woodgate to CCS and that Redknapp was happy to the deal also, but I was told last week that the Malaysians requested the medical records of Jonathan Woodgate and after reading them they turned down DJ on his request to sign Woodgate. It is my opinion that this happened because of the conversations that took place earlier between Sam Hammam and the Malaysians.

It is my understanding that Dave Jones is still trying to bring in a defender before the deadline at 11pm tomorrow night and as always it depends whether clubs are able to bring in their targets before letting their players go.

S4C televised our recent FA cup replay with Stoke City and I hear they are ecstatic with the viewing figures they achieved, for the match last year in the cup against Bristol City the viewing figures peaked at 500,000 but against Stoke they managed to pull in just over 600,000 viewers.

I described the state of our pitch in my last update and obviously it is bothering the players too as Jay Bothroyd tweeted about the state of our training pitches and the pitch in our stadium 2 days following the update, I have spoken with a club insider and have been told that it would cost £370k to repair our pitch and that the money is not in the budget to do that at this time but in the summer it will be looked at again and also the possibility of buying the lights required to heat the pitch and give the necessary lighting that it requires.

This winter has not just been about the lack of light the pitch receives but also the temperatures that have been so cold has caused another major problem for the ground staff. Only areas where the sun light has hit is where the pitch is healthy and that equates to around 1/5 of the area. Not even if we had a stunning summer would it benefit our pitch due to the amount of light that actually hits the pitch.

In recent weeks I have seen the name of Danny Gabbidon mentioned on many threads and even in the local press about a potential return to the club,as much as I am a fan of Danny Gabbidon as a player, not as a person ( but that is another story ) I would like to see more of our academy players coming through and given the opportunity to stake a claim in the first team, this is one area where I feel Dave Jones is not brave enough to blood these youngsters more than he does, maybe if we did have competitive reserves games then players like centre halves Alex Evans and Steffan Jones could make a claim,there is also Nat Jarvis who has been around the first team but yet to taste the action.

On the topic of our academy, I must point out after reading several posts relating to the House of Sport, it is not owned by Cardiff City Football Club but was independently built at a cost solely to Steve Borley. The money man behind the club Vincent Tan has since bought a share in the House of Sport but it still remains a separate entity to the club. The club does train there for virtually next to nothing and that is a benefit of Steve Borley being the owner and director of Cardiff City.
I have spoken recently about the success of the initiatives under the family stand and I can tell you that there will soon be more Sony PS3 consoles due to the success and popularity of the playing section. I understand the away section of our stadium is the only away end to have got PS3 consoles provided too.

In recent days many will be aware of talk to move season ticket holders in blocks 117/118 of the Ninian stand to the Canton stand to help with raising the atmosphere at the stadium. Through threads on this forum, read by Chief Executive Gethin Jenkins, Julian Jenkins and Wayne Nash regarding the lack of atmosphere the club contacted Annis Abraham to discuss ways in which he could help, through this forum, of achieving a better atmosphere and also finding an alternative for fans currently sat in the said blocks to move to an area they would be happy with, especially if the club are successful in achieving promotion to the Premier League.

At present there are over 2000 empty seats in the Canton Stand and of which 400 seats are actually sat together therefore it would not mean fans who are already season ticket holders in the Canton stand being moved around the stand to accommodate other season ticket holders moving across from other areas. I hope that helps ease certain fans fears that may be moved.
link viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34443

I have been asked by the club to let supporters know that on Tuesday for our game at home to Reading, fans will be allowed to purchase tickets on the night and that there are currently several thousand left to sell. It is important that fans get behind this team and the manager to help in the quest for promotion, the manager has been backed with four new players and possibly one more could be in by the time we play Reading, at the same time we have kept hold of the major players and truly have a great opportunity at succeeding this season.

I will be running 2 coaches to Nottingham Forest away so those who have not added their name can do so at the following link, ticket and travel can be provided. link viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34081

Lets get the tranfer window out of the way and kick on!

Thanks Carl

Nice one Carl.

Good update Carl

I don't get though why everyone keeps mentioning us having injury prone players. We haven't ha anymore injuries than previous years or other clubs.

Cheers Carls, I feel there is something good brewing.............

Thanks Carl, much appreciated as always! Annis has once again, has done you no favours though! Sure he said there would be news of langston being sorted once and for all!! He's such a wind up!

cheers carl,

do you believe we will sign a defender?

i mean its gonna be hard work to get a player down the vale, medical, negotiations etc ..

do you think it might be gabbidon or is that out of the question?

I hate wishing my life away but roll on tomorrow night and no bids for JB . I also feel that £2.5 million is not enough for him.

do the ps3's in the away end get removed for certain fixtures? i cant imagine our cousins down west treating them respectfully?

Jay should still be here then so that's good. Obviously Sam is making some sort of comeback (all good in my opinion) and jonesy could be forced to play some youngster

Cheers carl

Cheers carl

Good update Carl

I don't get though why everyone keeps mentioning us having injury prone players. We haven't ha anymore injuries than previous years or other clubs.

Luke I know that you are a fan of DJ the same as I but even we cannot deny that DJ does tend to get in players with known injury problems and works with them.

Thanks very much for the update Carl lets get this transfer window out of the way and kick on for promotion

Thanks carl! P.S. Answer pm mate Ta.

hopefully none of our first team players are with the same agent as Matthews, wildig and ledley

Good to hear about Sams involvement, and helping with, of certain issues. Glad to see he used to the same words as myself over the Bellamy incident

I hope Jay stays. We need him.

Thanks Carl

cheers carl like to see a defender come in soon!! pitty about woodgate but i can see why we didnt take the chance. get behind the boys on tuesday!!!

thanks carl heard a wisper about michael brown again today is there any truth in it

Nice one carl, cheers mate good update,
seems it was important to others too
621 members on line

nice one fella

Good read again Carl.

thanks carl for the update,,,, drinkwater will never play a major part for man ure,hes a ok player, injury prone, maybe a league 1 player at best?

Good to hear about Sams involvement, and helping with, of certain issues. Glad to see he used to the same words as myself over the Bellamy incident

I hope Jay stays. We need him.

Thanks Carl

He is a fan too Adam and follows this club closely despite his temporary exile.

Cheers Carl!

Nice one Carl

In fairness to Sam, he'll always help those players in bother. Those that'll remember Leon Jeanne(such a waste), Sam bent over backwards to help that lad.

nothing new there then, bit of a let down this time, not upto usual standard of info ,i could of wrote much of that from reading past updates and members posts, looks like it will be sky sports news all day tommorrow uptill 11 pm having to listen to repeat after repeat of all the big premier clubtransfers and a small update of us lesser teams dealings , happy days eh, up the bloobirds , nite nite it,s another day tommorrow happy signings .

In fairness to Sam, he'll always help those players in bother. Those that'll remember Leon Jeanne(such a waste), Sam bent over backwards to help that lad.

He did indeed and that is why he is thought of so highly by players who had the privilege of playing for him.