Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:42 am
Cardiff City legend Danny Gabbidon believes Sabri Lamouchi has to be ruthless with his team selection and substitutions as the season reaches crunch point.
Connor Wickham was not putting the effort in, so Lamouchi hauled him of against Sunderland.
The Easter Monday disaster against Sunderland saw Lamouchi make changes before and during half-time as the Bluebirds struggled to find any rhythm or impart any quality over the course of 90 minutes.
It came after the manager said he was disappointed by Cardiff's performance up at Blackpool on Good Friday, despite a 3-1 win at Bloomfield Road.
"That football club has been a worry for a period of time now," Gabbidon said on EJFOF. "I've been in this situation myself as a player, a relegation fight, and the minimum requirement is that your attitude is focussed and you understand the situation you're in and give 110 percent.
"If there are players not doing that, it's up to the manager to either haul them off or not play them. Their squad is big enough to rotate or make four or five changes if he wants to. Whether he doesn't feel like he can do that because there are certain players he can't trust, or whatever, I don't know.
"We saw the antics of Connor Wickham after the derby, which didn't help things, that's a really poor decision for him. He obviously looks at him and he's not putting in the effort or whatever and he hauls him off (at half time against Sunderland). But if players are not doing it, that's what you have to do. It's up to him to see who is up for the fight and pick the right team."
Gabbidon believes the relegation scrap will go right down to the wire, too.
"You look at the run-in and it's not easy," he added. "I think it'll go down to the last three games; the Rotherham one, Huddersfield and then Burnley. I'm not sure how many points Cardiff will take before that. Watford can be anything, Stoke are decent, Sheffield United will be smarting off the back of what happened at Burnley.
"They have got to find something. There has been a bit of improvement with the new manager. But I thought they could go to Blackpool and I didn't fancy them to beat Sunderland at home, they are just not at that level yet. They are capable of beating some of the teams around them, but when they play the better sides they are not quite up to that level this season to get results.
"Those two games are huge, Rotherham and Huddersfield, if they can get points there it might be enough. If you look at last season, they'd already have enough points to be safe! They've been helped by Reading's six-point deduction as well!"