Cardiff City: Time To Turn To Taiwo ?!?

Cardiff City manager Dave Jones has hinted that he could make wholesale changes to the line-up tonight as the Bluebirds prepare to face Reading. Our main problem over the past few games has appeared to come from midfield – a familiar story to Bluebirds fans and unsurprising since we have failed to change things in the engine room even when obviously causing problems.

Gavin Rae and Joe Ledley have been the chosen partnership of late, and when things are going well – they are energetic, find space and look a decent bet. However, if opposition teams chose, they can easily nullify our threat by closing down space at which point we become turgid, cumbersome and lacking any momentum or ambition.

We added one central midfielder to our squad over the summer, with Solomon Taiwo arriving from Dagenham & Redbridge. According to Dave Jones, both Riccy Scimeca and Stephen McPhail are desperately striving for re-calls but Riccy would be a massive gamble while McPhail has failed to establish partnerships with either Ledley or Rae.

Many fans are hoping to see Taiwo in action, after he impressed against us in the Carling Cup -in fact he bossed our midfield from start to finish! He is powerful and adds presence, he does not appear the type of player to be phased and has impressed in training with his work-rate and ability.

Dave Jones confirmed Taiwo was in contention for tonight`s game, he told BBC Wales Sportstime:

“Solomon`s done well, and he`s knocking on the door. There`s two defeats on the bounce, and I can do what I want – the players know that. One or two didn`t come up to the standard we expect on Sunday.”

Despite Jones` comments, it would be a surprise if he handed a league debut to Solomon Taiwo. Historically, Jones shows great faith in his players and would be inclined to turn to McPhail should he decide on a re-shuffle. A change in centre-midfield could see Rae drop to the bench, or, Peter Whittingham make way on the left for Ledley to assume a wide role – this would be preferable given the reluctance of Capaldi to overlap, and the preference of Whittingham to drift inside.

For the record, Vital Cardiff`s team would be:

Marshall, Quinn, Gyepes, Gerrard, Kennedy, Ledley, Burke, Rae, Taiwo, Bothroyd, Chopra.

Likelihood??. <5% !!!