By Graham Thomas
According to some business theories, there are three types of management crisis: responsive, proactive and recovery.
There’s a fourth, though – Cardiff City.
This is a state of permacrisis where the management is changed, the faces alter, the name plates in the car parking spaces are updated, but the crisis goes on.
It matters little whether the manager is Erol Bulut, Sabri Lamouchi, Mark Hudson, Steve Morison, Mick McCarthy or Neil Harris – that’s six in less than four years for those counting – the crisis endures, and the incumbent does not.
Erol knew he was in peril long before the axe fell last weekend following a lifeless 2-0 home defeat to Leeds United.
He knew it because he had seen the failure of all those who had gone before him and still he took the job in the belief he could buck the trend.
Similarly, such is the nature of football management that there will be plenty of managers willing to step into Bulut’s shoes.
They will know their life expectancy in the job is probably around 12 months, 18 if they’re lucky.
But they will take it in the knowledge that whatever happens, judgement on their tenure will be viewed, and tempered, through the lens of working for owner Vincent Tan.
They will move on – usually downwards or at best, sideways – but there will usually be another place to park the leased club Range Rover.
Vincent Tan Turns Up The Volume After Silence For A Month Over Erol Bulut’s Cardiff City Future
The people who remain are Tan, chairman Mehmet Dalman, chief executive Ken Choo, and the long-suffering Cardiff supporters.
In a normal business world, there would be a shareholders’ revolt. They would look at the poor performance of the trio in charge – or at least the two salaried employees – and get rid of them.
But that is not how football ownership works. All three not only remain in position, but they will be the brains trust who will decide on who comes next.
It’s long been pointed out by columnists, pundits, ex-players, podcasters, YouTubers and not least the Cardiff City Supporters Trust, that the Bluebirds have no strategy, no established identity, and no football expertise in the role of a football or sporting director.
Instead, they rely on the whim of Tan, combined with the hunch of Dalman, followed by the administration of Choo.
To be frank, it’s not proved a winning combination.
Vincent Tan Turns Up The Volume After Silence For A Month Over Erol Bulut’s Cardiff City Future
Aside from two brief seasons of uplift under Malky Mackay and then Neil Warnock, Cardiff have generally gone around in circles, like a runway aircraft with one wing.
As Trust board member Phil Nifield – a man used to dealing with crisis as a former local government editor of the South Wales Echo – put it: “We must be one of the few clubs who don’t have a director of football or some similar decision maker at board level.
“Unfortunately, the owner doesn’t want to go down that road and in the end that has cost him a lot of money.
“We hope the owner now will finally get the message that doing the same thing, as he has done over the last few years, results in the same thing, which is having to change managers so often.”
Down the road at Swansea City, the club have a sporting director and a clearly defined playing strategy.
When they moved away from it, they had their fingers – and a lot more – burnt with Michael Duff, but in general it has worked well enough to have provided seven seasons in the Premier League, two Championship play-off appearances, and they currently sit seventh in the table, compared to Cardiff, who are rock bottom.
For the moment, Cardiff are unlikely to move away from their tried method, however untrusted.
That means the likes of early bookmakers’ frontrunners James Rowberry, Mark Hughes, Nathan Jones and Freyr Alexandersson must ask themselves if the risks outweigh the reward.
Cardiff City Owner Vicent Tan: I Had No Choice But To Sack Neil Harris
Do they think the doom loop is breakable?
Rowberry – the 11/4 favourite with DragonBet – already has a job with the FAW as head of coach education and a new role as one of Wales manager Craig Bellamy’s assistants.
Would he really want to give up on those and risk a repeat of his brief and difficult experience in charge of Newport County?
Jones is doing a good job in charge of League One Charlton, following turbulent times at firstly Stoke City, then Southampton.
Alexandersson has declared he will stay in charge of Belgian club KV Kortrijk, which also happens to be owned by Tan.
That leaves Hughes, who offers the less complicated option since he is out of work after being sacked by Bradford City last year.
Hughes has already managed seven clubs, so he knows the drill.
There would be an unveiling, talk of how the Cardiff “project” excited him, perhaps a modest signing or two.
After that, who knows? The only thing you can say with much confidence is that he will eventually depart much sooner than those who make the appointment.