Dismal Bluebirds

Dismal is the word that springs to mind when describing Cardiff City's season so far. I've attended every home game and two away games so far, and most of the time the football has been drab and dull. To many, our dire season has been a major surprise, with the bluebirds being tipped as title favourites after relegation from the premiership last season.
But after a summer upheaval, we struggled to settle and find  our best team. There were good results with wins against teams such as Huddersfield and Wigan making the start to the season a tad more respectable. But the disastrous 2-4 defeat at the hands off Norwich proved the final nail in the coffin. Tan had seen enough, and Ole lost his job.
The early favourites for the job were the usual suspect: Pulis,Hughton, Steve Clark etc. But instead of a high profile new gaffer to kick us into shape, Vincent Tan appointed the well known name.... Russell Slade. Russell who I hear you ask. You know, Russell Slade, the Leyton Orient manager.
The early signs were good with Slade's first game being the 2-1 victory over then-leaders Nottingham Forest. But since then, everything has gone downhill. The bluebirds slumped to an awful 3-0 loss at Bolton, before following that up with a 0-0 draw at Birmingham. I was one of 2000 hardy souls who sang their hearts out at St Andrews, but to no avail. City looked dis-jointed at the back and there was no rhythm to our play. By then dreams o automatic promotion were slowly slipping away, but I still held the hope of a play off spot. We put a few good results together, beating Reading 2-1 and claiming our first away win of the season in a 0-1 victory over Watford.
However, it was plain for all to see that the performances were still not up to scratch, and if things didn't improve quickly, then city would be losing pace with the play off group.
The point for me when I realised that we were miles off promotion was when we drew at home to Rotherham 0-0. I recall that we had one clear cut chance at home against relegation contenders. Slade didn't know what to do to change things and our attempts  to create chances came from long balls. Many city fans, including myself, booed the team off after the final whistle, because it was a dire display.
Then we slowly slid into mediocrity. We found ourselves 2-0 down at Bournemouth within 20 minutes, but showed a few fighting qualities in a game with we eventually lost 5-3. It said it all that after that match centre back Sean Morrison had overtaken 2 million pound striker Adam Le Fondre in the scoring charts. A 2-3 defeat at home to Brentford was probably on of the worst first half displays I've ever seen by city.  It's a game I don't really want to go into in depth to be honest! And a 1-1 draw at the valley where we let 10 men Charlton come back into the game almost spoilt the Christmas festivities!
An awful result against Watford soon followed, and by this point many fans were calling for Slade's head. Only 5000 city fans decided to turn up for the fa cup 3rd round tie at home to Colchester, where the bluebirds ran out 3-1 winners.
Bun then it happened.  What every city fan wanted. THE RETURN TO BLUE!! I returned home from a  hard day at school to find that my beloved bluebirds were back in our rightful colours. It then came out that Vincent Tan's mother had told her son to make the change, which prompted many comical songs against Fulham the next day. The atmosphere at CCS for the game against Fulham was quite frankly unbelievable. Everyone was in a party mood, however, the football was more of the same. Adam Le Fondre's flick on gave us an early lead, but after that, nothing much happened! Still, it was 3 points.
But after the honeymoon period had finished, it was back to reality. And the reality is that at the moment Cardiff are a very poor side and are going backwards. 4 consecutive defeats at the hand of Norwich, Middlesbrough, Reading (in the cup) and Derby proceeded the Fulham victory, thus putting us in a relegation dogfight.
A slight improvement against Sheffield Wednesday gave us a glimmer of hope, but it soon died down after the dismal 0-0 home draw to Brighton, which was actually painful to watch!
Many fans don't like Slade because of some of his eccentric decisions such as leaving out top scorer Kenwyne Jones for the crucial home game to Derby. But for me, the main concern is the style of play which is clearly not working and is costing us points. It seems as if all the players know how to do is hoof the ball back to the opposition. That might have worked for Slade at Leyton Orient, but what is the point of having technical masters like Peter Whittingham, Craig Noone and Kadeem Harris when the ball is just bypassing them and being hoofed up to the strikers.
Another problem is the fact that we have got rid of a few high profile players ad replaced them with players who you would associate with the lower leagues. Signings such as Lee Peltier, Scott Malone and Alex Revell hardly caught my imagination. Players such as Kim Bo kyung, Javi Guerra, Adam Le Fondre and Guido Burgstaller who promised so much have been let go for nothing. Yes, it cuts down the wage bill, but it doesn't help us going forward. These are gifted players who should  be in and around the first team, not being offloaded to other clubs for nothing.
However, i'm genuinely excited by the deadline day signings that we made. Conor McAleny has a very bright future and will surely help with the lack of creativity at the moment. Eoin Doyle was acquired from Chesterfield and has a proven record wherever he has been. We need him to lighten the burden on Kenwyne and chip in with a few goals.
What's imperative now is that every player that puts on the blue shirt from now up until the end of the season gives there all. That's all we ask for. If it comes down to ability, I will back our players to come out on top and dig us out of the relegation dogfight we found ourselves in.