Cardiff City's season can be described as a rollercoaster, though it is one that reached its highest point very quickly and continues to descend at an ever-increasing pace, with no upturns on the horizon.
But, unlike a rollercoaster, there is no thrill. There is no emotional sanctum, either. On a rollercoaster, despite the bout of fear, you know that you will disembark in merely a few minutes. With Cardiff, it is impossible to envisage where the interminable torrent of misery ends.
Cardiff's hellish hierarchal history has not been buried in time. Indeed, certain supporters have still not returned to matches following the infamous rebrand from 2012-2015, in which owner Vincent Tan changed the club's iconic blue strip to a wretched red, a lucky colour in his home country, Malaysia. It was a ripping-of-the heart towards Cardiff's cultural and historic traditions. However, not long the collective feeling was that City were finally turning over a new leaf, a leaf of excitement, sustainability and progression.
New beginnings?
Traipse your mind back to the initiation of the campaign. Norwich City, with all their power and pedigree rolled into town, married with a weight of expectation to start their assault on an all-too-familiar promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
In contrast, Cardiff held little expectation.
At that moment, any expectation was to be met with contention, for the exodus of several first-team stalwarts proceeded with the arrival of, at the time, 13 fresh faces, fresh faces with varying short-term and long-term objectives, but fresh faces nonetheless, and ones that were anticipated to inject a refreshing verve of promise and ball-domination into the side.
Collectively, it was a tall order to expect instant success from such a vast, all-encompassing transformation, and while there is a school of thought that Cardiff's performance that afternoon set the bar far too high, it was hard to not be bound with optimism.
New signing Ryan Allsop worried and wowed with his press-resistance in possession, pinging passes and dribbling past onrushing opposition forwards between the sticks.
New signing Cedric Kipre embodied a new-found willingness to start attacking plays from the back. New signing Jamilu Collins scooped the man of the match award with his all-action display at full-back. New signing Callum O'Dowda assisted new signing Romaine Sawyers for the winning goal. It was a marginal 1-0 victory, but it felt like so much more.
It was because it had opposed every footballing normality that supporters had, unfortunately, became accustomed to. Just last season, they had sat through Mick McCarthy's brand of football week-in-week-out, suffering at the viewing of five centre-halves, Leandro Bacuna out wide and, most prominently, a style of play that made it seem as though there was grass in the air.
There was not, of course. Under the tuition of former-manager Steve Morison, Cardiff recognised where the grass really was. It was on the floor, and that was how they wanted to play.
Attacks started with the goalkeeper and defenders playing out from the back. They dumbfounded opponents with dummies and disguised passes. They dictated the tempo of the game and their insistence on maintaining possession made life difficult for the Canaries, who became tiresome from pressing without fruition.
That said, Cardiff were far from occupying footballing utopia, as subsequent results would show.
Defeats away to Reading and Bristol City invited a cautiousness into the capital, a somewhat welcoming sentiment to keep heads level. Unforgettably too was the 3-0 home defeat to League One Portsmouth in the EFL Cup, where, barring the bedazzling individualism of Cardiff's greatest, yet most frustrating soloist, Jaden Philogene-Bidace- also a new signing- next to no attacking poise was provided.
Still, optimism had not veered away into the abyss, and Cardiff maintained the mantra of domination. They outplayed teams on more than one occasion, but even though results were not always forthcoming, the footballing philosophy was, and there was a clear blueprint for the new evolution of Cardiff City.
Out with one, in with the other, and the subsequent sequence of events
Given the strategic developments that had taken steps, it is easy to understand why the City faithful were bewildered on the morning of September 18, 2022.
Cardiff had announced the sacking of Morison.
Morison, a manager who had been given the green light to welcome a total 17 new acquisitions, a manager who had been licensed to completely overhaul the playing squad, a manager who had been entrusted with remodelling the style of football, and a manager who had previously possessed the public backing of the higher-ups.
It is nonsensical to grant an individual with the keys to incorporate so much change, and then to not grant him the premium of time. It had only been ten matches, and despite Cardiff's lowly league position, they had still collected positive results, they had still preserved a positive project towards how they played the game, and they were still merely a few points away from the play-off places.
One of the aforementioned signings elucidates the notion that Morison required more time. Callum Robinson, a Republic of Ireland International with over 70 goal involvements at this level and two separate Premier League stints on his CV, had been picked up from West Bromwich Albion for just under two million.
He was the beacon of Cardiff's transfer window. The cherry on top, if you like- and rightly so. Amid the technical enterprise of the bulk of the acquisitions, he came as a source of goals, a facet that Morison had previously lamented as the separation between controlling games, and winning them.
Morison only had three games with Robinson, in which he recorded two assists in a chaotic 3-2 victory at Middlesbrough before missing a penalty in the decisive defeat against Huddersfield Town, a showdown that would prove to be the former-Millwall striker's final in the Bluebirds dugout.
Do you see where this is coming from now?
This is not simply a late rant about why Cardiff should not have fired Steve Morison. That would be a monotonous humdrum as it is one that has been scripted by supporters relentlessly. Though, if you need another reminder of why the decision was flawed, you can read all about it here.
And Morison did have his shortcomings. Notoriously fierce-tongued, his nature in press conferences and his shooting-down of prospect Isaak Davies in the wake of a 3-0 hammering at the hands of Bournemouth earned rightful criticism and concern. He also was not a huge admirer of maverick academy graduate Rubin Colwill, which, in this corner of the world, can be treated as a sin of the highest order.
In hindsight, additional questions can be raised towards the viability of embedding endless personnel into the team. Is it conducive to cohesion? How long would it have taken for these new signings to truly gel and produce results?
These are all valid questions, but ones which will eternally remain without answers. The fact of the matter is that, in spite of the persistence and patience needed amid inconsistency, these fortunes were collectively preferred to those of the present.
What followed was an appointment that served to showcase the simplistic nature and the lack of adventure from the board, with Mark Hudson receiving the step-up from his role as assistant manager. It was an appointment that made little sense, and unsurprisingly, it was an appointment that did not bear fruit.
Make no mistake about it, Hudson was and still is a legend of the club, having been captain during their first top-flight promotion in 2013. But sadly, that influence did not correspond to the same sort of impact when given the managerial reins. The stylistic regression was clear from the offset, illuminating little on-pitch direction to find form and move up the table and in terms of having a foundational platform to build upon, at least, performances can sometimes prove more telling and promising than simply results.
Neither of these bases were covered.
In the 18 games that he managed, only four were won. This saw Cardiff collect just 18 points from a possible 51, and collect an 18.2% win percentage, alternating the reality from potential progression to definitively being entrenched within a relegation battle.
The threat of League One is looming large, and those fears were sent into the stratosphere on Saturday when they lumbered to a 1-1 home draw with fellow strugglers Wigan Athletic, who had lost by four goals to one in each of their last three fixtures.
It contrasted to the defeat of Norwich in every single way imaginable.
There was no such aura of positivity. There was no buccaneering, branded football on show. There was nothing to feel good about, to be quite honest. Shrouded in winter darkness, there was no light to be seen and that was symbolic of Cardiff's current situation.
The game was bleak, and it appeared played out by two teams who could very well be playing out the same game of football in the third-tier next term.
It also turned out to be the end of Hudson, who quite clearly was not the right man for the job but he never should have been in the job. He was out of his depth and saw himself thrown into the deep end due to mistakes made higher up.
The hierarchy
There is a reason why, despite his limitations, the fanbase did not meet Hudson's departure with elation. There is no vision from the club's hierarchy, at least, not one that is present externally, and the revolving door continues to persist with six managerial appointments in the last four years.
It is painstakingly obvious, then, that a greater internal support network towards future managers is a necessity, but alarmingly, Tan does not see it this way.
The Malaysian millionaire, who once criticised goalkeeper David Marshall for "not scoring enough goals", has consistently rebuffed the opportunity of recruiting a Director of Football to help with the sporting operations, clearly feeling that the correct footballing structure is in place to fuel his dying dream of not only overseeing a third promotion, but to oversee consolidation back in the promised land.
The truth is that this is something that Cardiff have been unable to do on two separate occasions under his ownership, and something that looks even less likely now as they find themselves in a more strenuous predicament than ever before. As of present, they are only one place above the Championship relegation zone with a mere three point advantage over 22nd-placed Huddersfield Town, who have a game in hand against Blackpool in 23rd. They are also the lowest scorers in the division, having only found the back of the net on 21 occasions.
Such deficiencies display the need for reinforcements in the January window, however, this has become increasingly harder over time, too.
With the club unwilling to pay the first instalment owed to Nantes for the payment of Emiliano Sala, a transfer embargo was temporarily placed by both the EFL and FIFA, restricting them from recruiting any new players. Though these restrictions have since been lifted following the payment of the initial instalment, there is still a looming technicality that presently prevents utilising transfer fees, meaning that free agents and loans are the avenues that will be explored for now.
In reality, the purse-strings have been tightened and coughing up transfer fees, embargoed or not, has proved to be a mammoth task as of late. The club have spent recklessly over the last few years, eventually losing millions upon millions as a result.
Josh Murphy was signed from Norwich in 2018 for a fee of £11M, one of the highest in Cardiff's history. Initially impressive in the Premier League, the winger soon fell out of favour and, after a loan spell at Preston North End failed to reignite the previous spark that had made the expenditure look a bargain, he was promptly released over the summer as part of the vast clear-out eventually joining Oxford United in League One.
In fairness, it would be harsh to just single out Murphy. Alex Smithies was signed for a fee believed to be in the region of £4M that same summer, and although he was the team's goal custodian for a while, he seldom truly exhibited performances matching that price tag and was also released at the end of last season.
Robert Glatzel's signature was secured for £5.5M upon returning to the second-tier, but he was sold back to Germany for a nominal fee, where he has since enjoyed the best form of his life with Hamburg. Fairly sizeable fees were shelled out for Aden Flint and Will Vaulks, both of whom had their moments but began to slip down the pecking order towards the end of their time in south Wales. Marlon Pack and Bacuna, too, but the list of failed transfers at the Cardiff City Stadium could go on forever.
Looking at the here and now, Cardiff's relegation rivals have gained a head-start, with Blackpool, Huddersfield and Wigan, the three current occupants of the bottom-three, all strengthening thus far.
Indeed, Blackpool have made a particularly strong start to the January window by bringing in promotion-winning-midfielder Tom Trybull, formerly of Norwich, along with the loan captures of exciting Manchester City forward Morgan Rogers and Josh Bowler for a second spell, who had previously starred at Bloomfield Road before making the switch to Nottingham Forest.
Make no mistake about it, this is a factor that will worry Cardiff as the clocks of both the window and the season itself continue to tick on, and their competitors continue to flirt with the opportunity of improving and progressing away from trouble.
As such, it is quite simply imperative that Cardiff must, by hook or by crook, do everything possible to propel away from the bottom end of the table.
Relegation to League One would erupt apocalyptic consequences across the club, with future payments to Nantes still required, a squad roster littered with big names that would, unsurprisingly, be unwilling to play football at a lower level and historically, teams with ownership issues do not tend to return swiftly after succumbing to relegation, either, as the likes of Bolton Wanderers, Charlton Athletic and Portsmouth can testify for.
That mission needs to take place now. It all starts with incomings at the top, with the right advisories needed to make sure that there is a correct, and thoroughly-analysed thought process towards the new manager, and future incomings to keep the club's Championship status away from jeopardy.