With a mammoth two-and-a-half weeks until Cardiff City's next game and the finish line just over the horizon, it provides an opportunity to reflect on the season as a whole, and what a weird season it has been!
For the third consecutive year, Cardiff started the season with high hopes, having made a strong finish to the preceding campaign, but for the third year in a row, things felt very wrong almost immediately. Neil Warnock, Neil Harris and Mick McCarthy were all relieved of their duties midway through the season after collapses in both form and confidence.
McCarthy, who immediately steadied the ship when he arrived, identified a formation that optimised the options at hand and with a mixture of calm and experience, propelled Cardiff up the table and earned a new deal. Those strengths soon became weaknesses, as his favoured shape became more of a straightjacket and culminated in fielding five centre-backs, which felt akin to a letter of resignation.
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Steve Morison was in the right place at the right time and despite vocal reluctance from the board, not only made it work but has thrived and continues to impress. His longer contract is just reward and once again, there is positivity with a view to next season.
In terms of rounding out this year though, who should be Cardiff’s player of the year?
Lots of players have made an impression, but there has been what has felt like a perpetual turnover of staff. Ryan Giles made an immediate impact, but was recalled too soon. Tommy Doyle and Cody Drameh look like stars in the making, but only joined in January and are sadly passing through.
Even the senior players have been in and out of the side. Take Marlon Pack, who was largely an ever-present and has played the sixth highest amount of minutes this season. He was seemingly dropped a few weeks back and can no longer get anywhere near the squad.
It ends up being a process of elimination and when you do that exercise, you are left with four names; Alex Smithies, Mark McGuinness, Perry Ng and my choice, Aden Flint.
You could make a case for all four. Perry Ng, for example, has proven adept in two positions this year, holding his own at right wing back and proving a revelation as a right-sided centre-back. He took to the Championship like a duck to water when he joined last year and initially struggled to match those standards this year, but having moved inside to make way for Drameh, he has been instrumental in Cardiff’s recent transformation.
Having someone with genuine passing ability in the back three, as exemplified by his brilliant through ball for Mark Harris on Wednesday, has made a big difference. He has become prone to the odd clanger, but has the benefit of the doubt while he learns a new role and in general, he has been one of Cardiff’s best players this year.
Smithies has seen off the challenge of Dillon Phillips and is back to his very finest form, which usually involves at least one extraordinary save every game. McGuinness, surely McCarthy’s finest contribution, has been fantastic since joining. Not a name that would have been familiar to many, he made an immediate impression and has become integral to Cardiff’s defence.
It’s easy to forget that McGuinness only recently turned 21 because he plays with the authority of a 30-year-old, 10-year veteran. He looks a future captain in waiting and should be the template for Cardiff’s signings this summer. He could do with a break after a long, challenging season and should be a shoo-in for Cardiff’s young player of the year. For me, only one man has topped him.
Flinty is not a player who many were especially excited to see arrive. He was seen as expensive, too similar to Sean Morrison and too close to 30. All valid arguments, yet he has just had his best season for the club and surely one of the best of his career.
Flint started the season like a bat out of hell, bagging two goals in consecutive games against Millwall and Peterborough in August. Remarkably, he still remains Cardiff’s joint second highest goal scorer with five, but that tells its own story. He also has recorded the most minutes this year and will soar past 3,000 in the next game.
This is a player who in the not-too-distant past was ostracised by Harris and sent on loan to Sheffield Wednesday. McCarthy revived his Cardiff career and Flint has not looked back since. With Morrison a long-term absentee, Flint has become the leader of the Cardiff defence and since the turn of the year, they’ve looked far more organised and well-drilled.
Flint can’t lose the yard of pace he never had and with his long hair and hairband, he gives this Cardiff side a continental feel, despite being from Derbyshire. In an increasingly youthful whole, Flint’s experience has been invaluable, but whether that continues to be the case remains to be seen.
There is the very real chance that the Cardiff defence will soon be shorn of both Flint and Smithies. Both now 32 and high earners, they soon head out of contract and I don’t fancy their chances of getting new deals. You can argue both sides, but after the seasons both have had, it would certainly be a blow to see them walk away in the summer.
In terms of individual accolades, these things are subjective and part of the fun of being a football fan, but Flint has my vote. For both player of the year and a new deal, and that is not something I would have expected to be saying at the start of the season.
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