Cardiff City’s never-ending season, that has plumbed new depths, is finally drawing to a close and we can soon all set about trying to block most of it from our collective consciousness. It wasn’t without some rare pleasures, but suffice to say, the negatives snuffed out the odd positives.
By Scott Johnson
Thursday 5th May 2022
It was one of those campaigns that feels like three combined. If you can remember as far back as August, it actually started quite well. Cardiff took the lead in their opening game against Barnsley through Marlon Pack (remember him?), before being pegged back by the Tykes. Seeing as Barnsley had finished in the top six a few months earlier, it felt like a decent point, but little did we know that they were on their way towards plummeting back to League One.
Cardiff then won at Blackpool, with a lovely winner from a floated Ryan Giles cross, powerfully headed home by Kieffer Moore (remember them?). Aden Flint soon took charge, scoring four in the next two games, briefly winning over plenty of non-believers in the process. Then came the first and probably least painful of four derby defeats and a failed Moore transfer to Wolves right at the end of the window, from which he never appeared to recover.
The other side of the international break saw the fully-formed emergence of Rubin Colwill, who popped up to net the winner at a now barely recognisable Nottingham Forest. If anything, this was the year where Cardiff turned to their academy and the pick of the litter did not let them down.
From then on, though, not so great. Eight consecutive defeats, in complete contrast to an initial 11-game unbeaten run when he first took charge, proved to be the end of Mick McCarthy’s time in charge and his tenure really should have been ended three games sooner. It was a run that included a 3-0 thrashing at Swansea City and five centre-backs fielded for a 4-0 hiding against West Brom, which was a statement of intent that he was never going to recover from.
Steve Morison was promoted from the under-23s and given no chance of landing the job permanently by chairman Mehmet Dalman, but with Cardiff unprepared for McCarthy’s collapse, Morison impressed enough on an interim basis to be given a contract until the end of the season.
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