Gary Medel in, Craig Bellamy out: The dream Cardiff City XI from the last decade – Do you agree? | OneFootball

Cardiff City have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in 2021 after tailing off down the Championship table under Neil Harris in the first half of the 2020/21 campaign.

The Bluebirds started the season fine but a complete collapse in form led to Harris being replaced by McCarthy in January, just six months after he led the club into the Championship play-offs.

There’s no room for sentiment in football though and McCarthy is looking to take Cardiff back to the top flight, with the club spending two single seasons there in the last decade.

They’re good at getting to the Premier League but not exactly great at staying there, and over the last decade the club have been fighting at the top end of the second tier table if they haven’t been in the Premier League.

It’s a hard one to choose, but a best starting line-up of the last decade has been chosen – let’s see who’s made it.

There’s only one pick here and it has to be the long-serving Marshall.

Still playing in his late 30’s at Derby County, the Scot marshalled the City goal for seven years between 2009 and 2016, and was a regular starter for six of the seven seasons, including their Premier League stint in 2013/14.

Marshall cost the club just £500,000 and he proved to be a real bargain, and also made them a lot of profit when he departed in 2016 to Hull City for a £5 million fee – he made 81 clean sheets in the league for Cardiff in 264 appearances.

McNaughton is a modern day Cardiff icon, playing for the club for nine years and just missing out on a testimonial year.

The Scot was a solid hand for the Bluebirds for so many years, and was a regular for most of the seasons he was at the club but when it came to the Premier League campaign in 2013, McNaughton probably lacked just a bit of top flight class, hence why he went on loan to Bolton.

McNaughton’s career petered out after he left Cardiff in 2015 but for his years of service to the club and his performances, he has to be a shoe-in.

Caulker only played for the Bluebirds for one season, but he made a big impact despite the club instantly being relegated back to the Championship.

Caulker was one of two big-money purchases in the summer of 2013 along with Gary Medel, and he scored five goals for the club in his sole season, proving to be a big threat from set pieces.

He eventually moved on following Cardiff’s relegation from the Premier League to QPR but his obvious class puts him in here ahead of the likes of Mark Hudson and current skipper Sean Morrison, even if the one-cap England international’s career didn’t end up exactly how he would have planned.

Caulker’s partner is a man who would put himself in-front of any ball for the shirt, and he’s a man who skippered the Bluebirds back to the Premier League.

Bamba was an absolute colossus for the Bluebirds in his first two seasons and the second campaign saw the club promoted back to the top flight and the Ivorian played all 46 games and got into the Team of the Year.

He even proved himself in the Premier League to have a goalscoring touch, scoring four times in the 2017/18 campaign before relegation back to the Championship.

Bamba suffered the terrible news a few months ago that he was suffering from cancer, but he’s battling that just like he battles every time he steps onto a football pitch.

There wasn’t a lot to choose from in terms of left-backs here, but we’ve gone with Fabio Da Silva.

The Brazilian joined in January 2014 after he was surplus to requirements at Manchester United, arriving in the Welsh capital halfway through their first ever Premier League season.

They’d of course go on to be relegated however Fabio stayed for the next two seasons to try and get the Bluebirds back into the Premier League, winning a lot of fans with his performances, although he wasn’t always a regular.

He still had that class though which was recognised by Middlesbrough in 2016, who activated his release clause to take him back to the top flight after making 68 appearances for Cardiff.

The Scottish winger played almost all of Cardiff’s games in the league during his time at the club – arriving midway through the 2008/09 season and departing in the summer of 2011.

Burke was a reliable hand down the right side of the pitch, the former Rangers man wasn’t exactly prolific at first but he ended up becoming a big goalscoring threat for the club.

In his first full season, Burke scored nine league goals as Cardiff lost out in the play-off final against Blackpool, and then after another season he switched to Birmingham City.

This place was a fight between Burke and Junior Hoilett, but we went with the former.

This man had a whole lot of top flight class so it is no surprise that his stay in South Wales only lasted one season.

Medel was seen as a bit of a coup in 2013 when he became Cardiff’s club-record signing from Sevilla for £11 million.

The Chilean was like a pitbull terrier in the midfield and despite being Cardiff’s best player that season, his quality alone wasn’t enough to keep them in the Premier League.

Medel showed even more class in the following summer’s World Cup with Chile, and that led to Italian giants Inter Milan taking him for £10 million as there was no way a player of Medel’s quality was going to play in the Championship.

A man who played for Cardiff for nearly all of the 2010’s, Gunnarsson arrived from Coventry City on a bosman in 2011 and was a very important player over the years.

The Icelandic midfielder featured in two Premier League campaigns for the Bluebirds and excelled away with his country at Euro 2016 when still at Cardiff, showing leadership for both club and country and whilst he was never the most prolific, he did score eight times in the 2012-13 season.

Gunnarsson did eventually leave in 2019 to Qatari side Al-Arabi, but he departed as a fan favourite and he edged the likes of Don Cowie and Jordon Mutch out for this role.

A man who’s sadly no longer with us, Whittingham is perhaps the best player to play for Cardiff in the last 10 years.

When you think of the Championship in years gone by, Whittingham is one of the first names that pops into people’s heads in terms of goal contributions.

He joined from Aston Villa in 2007, years before this selection takes into consideration, but his peak years were between 2009 and 2012, where he scored 43 times from 132 appearances from midfield – and provided countless more assists.

Whittingham could play in the centre of the park and out wide and he remained scoring goals at Cardiff until 2017, and then ended his career at Blackburn Rovers.

The strike partnership we’ve gone with is one that played together for a couple of years and scored countless amounts of goals.

Chopra’s first stint at Cardiff started in 2006, but he returned to the club in 2009 permanently from Sunderland after a couple of loan spells.

The Welsh capital is where Chopra played best and in his second stint he banged in the goals, especially in his first season back with 16 goals in 41 outings.

Chopra could never quite get the club into the Premier League, but his goals were always important and if it weren’t for play-off final defeat to Blackpool, he would have tasted the top flight with the Bluebirds.

Hitting double figures in the league in all three of his seasons for Cardiff, Bothroyd has to be in here and both he and Chopra have beat the likes of Kenny Miller, Craig Bellamy and Kieffer Moore to a spot.

Arriving in 2008 for a relatively cheap sum of £350,000, Bothroyd repaid that with goals, scoring 41 times in 116 league appearances with his last season being the most prolific, netting 18 times.

Bothroyd surprisingly received an England cap whilst at the club and he would eventually get his chance in the Premier League after failing to help get Cardiff there – he joined QPR in 2011 and didn’t quite really live up to the standards.

But he was a fine player for the Bluebirds and is more-than deserving of his place in this company.