With My Little Pick and Shovel - A Cardiff City Story

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ROSSITER JOINS CARDIFF
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Liverpool midfielder Jordan Rossiter has joined Cardiff City onloan until the end of the season

The 18 year old's first game for Cardiff could be against Liverpool rivals Everton, who City face in the FA Cup 3rd Round on Saturday

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who's side sit 12th in the Premier League, said "It's important for Jordan to get some game time and I believe Cardiff to be a perfect place for this"
​
 
Love the work you're putting into this story. Keep it up man.
 
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KEANE JOINS CARDIFF
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Cardiff City have announced the signing of English striker Will Keane from Manchester United for £625,000

The 23-year-old striker spent 7 seasons at the Premier League giants but failed to make an appearance for the club

He has been brought in on a wage of £10,000 to provide competition for the 2 striker spots

Cardiff are still believed to be in the market for more players, they have been linked heavily with Welsh goalkeeper Danny Ward at Liverpool and Nigerian international Tiago Ilori​
 
Nigerian international Tiago Ilori
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Portuguese and one heck of a signing if you manage to pull it off.

The season has been quite the rollercoaster so far and you've avoided getting the boot (for the time being at the very least), but hopefully the team will be able to get some stability with these signings and start making its way up on the table, right where it should belong.

Good luck and have patience with your boss... you'll need it for sure.
 
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BUSY NIGHT IN THE CAPITAL
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Its been a very busy night at the Cardiff City Stadium as Cardiff City completed 4 transfers on Deadline Day, bringing 2 in and selling 2

The first player to leave the club was goalkeeper Simon Moore, believed to be on £16,000 per week at the Welsh club, the 23-year-old keeper was sold to Burnley for £100,000
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The ex-Brentford man was mainly used as a backup this season and manager Hawkins felt £16,000 per week was an absurd wage for a backup keeper in the Championship

The other player leaving Cardiff was defender Matthew Connolly who joined Championship rivals Preston North End for £425,000 Connolly, like Moore, was a backup at Cardiff and was taking home £17,000 per week
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The defender left under a cloud following a dispute with Hawkins and the rest of the squad, who sided with their manager over the English centre-back

Both signings made by Cardiff City on Deadline Day were loans, the first of which being 22-year-old Welshman Danny Ward from Liverpool to cover for David Marshall
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The goalkeeper, signed by Liverpool from Wrexham for £300,000 in 2011 is said to be looking forward to returning to Wales and hopefully getting some game time in the capital

The second loanee is 22-year-old centre half Tiago Ilori, also joining on loan from Liverpool until the end of the season
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The Nigerian international, born in London, is going to compete with Ben Gibson and Sean Morrison for one of the two centre half slots in the Cardiff City first team​
 
JANUARY
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A month of transfers and another cup to sink our teeth into, will the league fall by the wayside?

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 0-0 Blackburn Rovers
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Marshall, Gunter, Morrison, Gibson, Malone, Gunnarsson, Williams, Ralls (Lawrence 63), Immers, Vokes, Saadi (Healey 63)
A solid result against 2nd placed Blackburn to extend our unbeaten run to 5 games

FA CUP THIRD ROUND
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Cardiff City 3-3 Everton
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Marshall, Gunter, Morrison, Gibson (Turner 90), Malone, Gunnarsson (Ralls 76), Immers, Williams (Whittingham 86), Noone, Saadi, Vokes
What. A. Game. We took a lead just before the half hour with a goal from Idriss Saadi before Everton scored 3 in 9 minutes to make it 3-1 to the Toffees. Saadi then bagged a second 11 minutes into the second half before sealing his hat-trick with a well placed volley to equalise 4 minutes from time

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Hull City 1-0 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Morrison, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls, Immers (Lawrence 60), Vokes (Healey 60), Saadi
16 shots, 59% possession, do we score? Of course not, just one of those games as we succumbed to a defeat on Humberside

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-5 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter (Peltier 83), Gibson, Turner, John, Gunnarsson (Rossiter 69), Whittingham, Williams, Pilkington, Immers (Vokes 63), Saadi
The legend of Idriss Saadi continues! 2 hat-tricks in 3 games taking his tally for the season to 11 goals, he joined Peter Whittingham on the scoresheet who scored in a rare start for him, Saadi completed the scoring on 89 minutes.

FA CUP THIRD ROUND REPLAY
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Everton 2-1 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Morrison, Gibson, Malone, Gunnarsson, Ralls, Pilkington, Immers (Vokes 70), Duelund (Lawrence 64), Saadi
Two goals in 5 minutes were enough for Everton after we took the lead through a screamer from Joe Ralls, could have won this on another day, Everton were surprisingly poor

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 2-1 Rotherham United
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Marshall, Gunter, Morrison, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls, Immers, Vokes (Lawrence 45), Saadi
Back to winning ways! A simple 2-1 victory over Rotherham puts us back on track at the end of the month

LEAGUE TABLE
I forgot to do a screenshot but we're in 14th, the top six is:
Wednesday
Burnley
Fulham
QPR
Blackburn
Forest

And the bottom 3 is:
Wolves
Huddersfield
Charlton​
 
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Zlatan Lumic said:
Portuguese and one heck of a signing if you manage to pull it off.

The season has been quite the rollercoaster so far and you've avoided getting the boot (for the time being at the very least), but hopefully the team will be able to get some stability with these signings and start making its way up on the table, right where it should belong.

Good luck and have patience with your boss... you'll need it for sure.
Click to expand...
Thanks mate, strangely enough Ilori is a Nigerian international in the game, having made his début for Nigeria against Turkey on the 9th of October 2015 (In game of course)
 
...Odd choice (he's been a regular in Portugal's youth national teams and even played an U20 World Cup with them in real life) but it seems the most likely one if he wants to get international football on a regular basis (as I can't imagine him being a regular with neither England nor Portugal's senior national squads).

Sometimes FM sure knows how to catch people off guard, gotta love these lil' quirks ^^

.P.S.: Great result against Everton, you lost in the end but forcing the Toffees into a replay match is quite the feat.
 
Zlatan Lumic said:
...Odd choice (he's been a regular in Portugal's youth national teams and even played an U20 World Cup with them in real life) but it seems the most likely one if he wants to get international football on a regular basis (as I can't imagine him being a regular with neither England nor Portugal's senior national squads).

Sometimes FM sure knows how to catch people off guard, gotta love these lil' quirks ^^

.P.S.: Great result against Everton, you lost in the end but forcing the Toffees into a replay match is quite the feat.
Click to expand...
Thanks mate, it surprised me too

Another strange quirk (In my opinion at least), is that I now have 3 central defenders who are all Nigerian internationals despite all 3 being born in London (Ilori, Oshilaja and Ajay)
 
FEBRUARY
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Can our new signings help us kick on in the league?

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Huddersfield Town 0-3 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson (Oshilaja 83), Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls (Gunnarrson 72), Pilkington (Duelund 60), Noone, Saadi
A convincing way away to strugglers Huddersfield, a brace from Idriss Saadi and a screamer from Jonny Williams were enough to beat the Terriers in front of just 10,000 at the John Smith's Stadium, we played a counter attacking style and it worked brilliantly

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 1-0 Milton Keynes Dons
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls, Immers (Gunnarsson 64), Vokes (Turner 85), Saadi (Keane 64)
Sam Vokes' powerful header off of captain Chris Gunter's floated cross was enough to beat MK Dons here in a game that was tighter than it should have been

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Charlton Athletic 0-0 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls (Gunnarsson 72), Noone, Pilkington, Vokes (Saadi 59)
A very frustrating draw at The Valley as a poor Charlton side just defended all game, we deserved a win but it wasn't forthcoming, disappointing

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Middlesbrough 1-0 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Gibson, Ilori, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls, Noone (Saadi 45), Pilkington(Whittingham 66), Vokes
David Marshall had a 9.1 match rating and bagged the man of the match award which says it all really, we didn't turn up tonight and it could have been worse than 1-0 if Rhodes had beaten Marshall from the penalty spot

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 1-1 Preston North End
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls, Lawrence (Gunnarsson 45), Saadi, Vokes (Keane 72)
Another frustrating result, Preston were incredibly dirty and didn't deserve any points but we should have converted our chances

LEAGUE TABLE
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13th and only 6 points off the play offs, is it on?​
 
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Championship is a tougher league than Premier IMO
talk about your tactics philosophy if available
keep it up!
 
loklokno123 said:
Championship is a tougher league than Premier IMO
talk about your tactics philosophy if available
keep it up!
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Cheers mate :)

I'll talk about tactics at the start of next season as I feel it'll be more settled then :)
 
15/16 YOUTH INTAKE

We've had our yearly intake of youth players, and this is how it came out
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Not the greatest intake but some ok players in there, here are the top 3

Danny Sampson - Striker
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Danny is a 6ft tall target man which is good because we play with one, 16 acceleration is also promising for such a tall youngster, poor determination but has the potential to challenge Vokes

Macauley Greene - Striker
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Another striker but this time a more "defensive" forward, whatever that is, not as good as Sampson, don't expect to see him any time soon

Rhys Cook - Winger
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Rhys can play anywhere on the right side but is primarily a winger, quite good stats all round for his age, could break into the first team with the right guidance​
 
MARCH
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Could we continue our play off hopes with a good month as we reach the tail end of the season?

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 3-2 Brighton and Hove Albion
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Marshall, Gunter (Harris 59), Ilori, Gibson, Malone (Turner 59), Rossiter, Williams, Ralls (Pilkington 45), Immers, Vokes, Saadi
We made this much tougher than it needed to be, 2 goals up and cruising twice only to let them score and make the ending to the match a lot more nervy than it should have been, Saadi popped up with another brace and Sam Vokes scored the rebound of his missed penalty to give us the win, an injury to Gunter meant we ended with a 3-1-4-2

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Bristol City 0-2 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams (Gunnarsson 75), Ralls, Pilkington, Duelund, Vokes (Saadi 75)
A solid victory over play off chasing Bristol in my first away Severnside derby, we deployed a 4-1-2-3 formation today and it worked beautifully, Sam Vokes' goal just after half-time knocked the stuffing out of Bristol and we should have had more

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 1-0 Leeds United
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Marshall, Gunter (Gunnarsson 27), Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls (Whittingham 67), Immers, Vokes, Saadi
Another solid victory, this time over Leeds, Sam Vokes' early header was enough to beat Leeds and get us all 3 points, unfortunately Chris Gunter suffered ankle ligament damage which will keep him out for 6 weeks

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 0-1 Ipswich Town
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Marshall, Peltier, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls (Pilkington 71), Immers (Gunnarsson 60), Vokes, Saadi
For some reason we just couldn't break down the manager less Ipswich, who currently lie in 17th, a poor performance from our attackers who just didn't have their shooting boots

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Reading 0-1 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunnarsson, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls (Immers 45), Pilkington (Noone 70), Duelund, Vokes
A real 6-pointer against Reading who were 8th heading into this game, we had 3 clear cut opportunities and only 1 found the net, but that's all that matters as Sam Vokes' glancing header sealed us all 3 points, Oliver Norwood's red for a 2-footed challenge killed the game off and the last 20 minutes was keep-ball

LEAGUE TABLE
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PROGRESS! We are now 8th, tied on points with 6th placed Nottingham Forest who are only above us on goal difference, imagine where we'd be if we didn't have that horrendous 9 game run without a win earlier in the season​
 
APRIL
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A HUGE month as we chase the play offs, we have 7 games this month including games against Wednesday (1st), Bunrley (2nd), Fulham (3rd), QPR (4th) and Derby (6th)

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 1-1 Derby County
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Marshall, Gunnarsson, Ilori, Turner, Malone, Rossiter (Pilkington 45), Williams, Whittingham, Immers, Vokes (Keane 64), Saadi
An even game between us and Derby, Sam Vokes' early header put us ahead just 10 minutes in but Tom Ince's wonder strike in the 72nd minute got Derby a deserved point

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Burnley 2-0 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Peltier (Whittingham 45), Morrison, Turner, Malone, Gunnarsson, Williams, Immers, Noone (Duelund 88), Pilkington, Vokes (Saadi 64)
We were annihilated in the first 45 minutes by promotion chasing Burnley, they scored early on through Andre Gray which encouraged them to attack our makeshift back 4, the game petered out in the second half as Burnley stopped pushing

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Fulham 0-0 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunnarsson, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Immers, Pilkington (Saadi 78), Duelund, Vokes
2 evenly matched teams as we played yet another promotion chasing side, neither team could break through each other's defence despite some immense attacking talent on both teams

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 2-1 Queens Park Rangers
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Gunnarsson, Williams, Whittingham (Ralls 64), Noone (Pilkington 56), Vokes (Saadi 56), Immers
A hard-fought victory over QPR to get us our first win of the month, Joniesta gave us the lead with a sublime strike but Philips matched it with his goal, Idriss Saadi scored a real poacher's effort to bag us an important 2 points to get us out of our slump

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Brentford 0-1 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone (John 72), Rossiter, Gunnarsson (Ralls 72), Williams, Noone, Pilkington, Vokes
Another hard fought victory as we grab 3 points at Griffin Park in front of only 10,000. Sam Vokes' goal in the 35th minute was enough to win it in a game where there were 33 shots, with only 11 on target

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Cardiff City 1-0 Bolton Wanderers
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter, Williams, Ralls, Noone (Gunnarsson 80), Pilkington (Duelund 80), Vokes (Saadi 80)
Better late than never! Mikkel Duelund scored his first goal for the club since joining from FC Midtjylland in dramatic fashion to beat Bolton 1-0 and continue out good form, we created nothing of note until around the 80th minute following the substitutions and that's when Mikkel struck, winning us the game in the 2nd minute of added time

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
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Sheffield Wednesday 1-2 Cardiff City
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Marshall, Gunter, Ilori, Gibson, Malone, Rossiter (Whittingham 62), Williams, Ralls (Gunnarsson 61), Pilkington, Noone, Vokes (Saadi 75)
We faced 1st placed Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in our toughest game of the month and, once again, created nothing in the first half, allowing them to take a 1 goal lead through Lucas Joao 10 minutes in. An inspirational team talk *ahem* motivated the players at half-time however and that was obvious as we ripped into Wednesday, spurning many chances before winger Anthony Pilkington headed the ball into the Wednesday net. Substitute Peter Whittingham grabbed an unlikely victory 11 minutes from time as he popped up with a calm finish to win us the game. Legend.

LEAGUE TABLE
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SIXTH! We are SIXTH! We hold the last play off spot as we go into the last game against 19th placed Birmingham City at home​
 
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