Cardiff City have lost their way recently and picked up just one point from nine on offer. That after a fanstastic unbeatedn run stretching back to a 4-1 win over Colchester United in December.
The run was well timed and saw Cardiff charge into the top half of the table, some key personnel changes also helped the form improvement with Whittingham recalled and Paul Parry pushed up-field as well as Darren Purse being relegated to the bench in favour of the Johnson/Loovens central defence partnership.
Parry impressed in the emergency striker position, he is the only option to offer real pace in the team and he revelled in the extra space he found, and the improved service from McPhail in midfield who found Parry’s runs effectively.
Parry scored against QPR, Sheffield United and an impressive brace against West Brom and now leads the club’s scoring charts with 7 (+ a cup goal against Chasetown).
However, Parry is finding space tough to come by now as other clubs close the gaps and restrict Cardiff in midfield. It is fair to say that Parry is not a striker, and has less opportunity to run and beat his man than when on the wing.
Cardiff desperately need another stiker, a natural finisher to convert the numerous chances we create. Parry is more a provider, though can be devastating cutting in from the right and shooting. With Peter Whittingham disappointing in recent games, I feel Parry should be switched to a wide role.
That leaves either a 4-5-1 system with Parry (advanced right) and Whittingham (left) supporting the lone striker, or, a previously untried Hasselbaink & Thompson partnership.
Parry’s versatility is a huge asset, and whilst adept as a support striker – it’s time to end the experiment and play natural strikers in attack. We are rather short on those and surely Jones and Co. have been working hard to identify loan targets to fill the void. The wages of Gunter, Byrne and MacLean have all been offloaded – we need our own Ched Evans or similar to change things around and add another dimension in attack.
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… we need a nippy, fast, shoot-on-sight forward in the Earnie / Chopra mold .. what’s happened to Feeney and Green? Did Brown get the trip last night because Feeney and Green have been effectiveky dumped? At least we don’t have to worry over whether we gamble on sending Robbie out any more (just on how much he’s costing us) .. and Jimmy simply does not do enough, provide enough ‘magical moments’ to justify keeping him trundling on .. Joe and Glenn being injured is a short term problem – the BIG problem is we don’t have any shooting, scoring forwards. Wasn’t Fleetwood of Forest Green with us once? Christian Roberts (I know he’s getting on now) scored again last night – a season or so ago he’d have loved to join us. Anyway, I think that we’d better be looking hard for loan forwards – I suppose if we hadn’t signed Jimmy and Robbie we’d have been after Ched Evans ..
parry shouldnt be put back in midfield, your having a laugh you are, scimecas back now, and sinclair is back to theres more creative side of midfield back, the emergancy loan list is opened up and there is a lot of young fresh potential talent out there that could come to cardiff and fire us up.
Very good point gtsutton. Feeney and Green are both injured giving Brown a chance, I suspect both would be named ahead of him. Fleetwood was with Cardiff and showed promise, but was released for not being strong enough. He didn’t really impress too much at Hereford but seems to like it at FGR !!!