Cardiff City Player-By-Player Review: M Oakes

Vital Cardiff City reviews the season on a player by player basis. Today it’s the turn of now departed goalkeeper Michael Oakes

Michael Oakes
Goalkeeper
Free transfer, Wolverhampton Wanderers



Michael Oakes was a free transfer signing from Wolverhampton Wanderers and was expected to be number two this season and challenging Ross Turnbull for the goalkeeping position. However, Turnbull`s erratic form and lack of confidence handed an early chance to Oakes to stake his claim.

Oakes made his debut in a 2-2 home draw with Preston North End and was beaten by two excellent strikes from Callum Davidson. Over the next few games, Oakes was solid if unspectacular and proved a preferable option to the released Turnbull.

However, City were always going to bring in another goalkeeper and he arrived in Kasper Schmeichel on loan from Manchester City. Kasper went into the first team and impressed making some superlative saves and making a strong impact consigning Oakes to further bench duty save for a useful performance in a 2-1 defeat to Liverpool in the Carling Cup (Schmeichel was cup-tied).

January saw Schmeichel opt to return to Man City, handing Oakes the number one jersey again, this time with a more confident and functional outfit ahead of him and the good form continued until consecutive defeats to Stoke City and Norwich City ended the run, and effectively the play-off challenge.


I don`t remember any howlers from Oakes, and he made few real mistakes but he was unwilling to leave his line and often preferred the ‘safe` option whereas a more dominant or confident keeper could have helped his defence more. Oakes has been released by Cardiff City and has most recently been linked to Shrewsbury Town.


Season rating: 5



To see the ratings of the entire squad, select Squad Review 2007-08 from the club menu tab at the top of the screen.