\n Reading FC academy graduate Rinomhota has returned to the club after a turbulent three-year spell with Cardiff City.\n<\/p>\n
\n The move saw the midfielder play 82 games for the Bluebirds across the Championship, the FA Cup and Carabao Cup – whilst also going out on loan to Leam Richardson’s Rotherham in the Championship.\n<\/p>\n
\n Speaking with the Reading Chronicle, WalesOnline’s Cardiff City correspondent Glen Williams gives his insight into Rinomhota’s time with the Bluebirds.\n<\/p>\n
\n “His time at Cardiff was strange,” Williams said, “during his first season, he was a regular, however it was a bad season for Cardiff and not many players came out of that year with much credit.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The second season, new coach Erol Bulut brought in Manolis Siopis, a Greek international whom he adored and filled the same role Rinomhota might have expected to fill.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Cardiff fought off a lot of competition for his signature, so for him to be sent out on loan having not really grabbed his opportunities during his second season was a disappointment.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Despite suffering relegation last season, Rinomhota, in an unfamiliar right-back role for the most part, was one player who came out of the campaign with credit from some supporters.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Coventry City’s Jack Rudoni (right) and Cardiff City’s Andy Rinomhota battle for the ball during the Sky Bet Championship match at the Cardiff City Stadium. (Image: Nigel French)\n<\/p>\n
\n Last season, Rinomhota played 34 games under three managers for the Bluebirds – Erol Bulut, Omer Riza and Aaron Ramsey.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was an absolute disaster of a season for Cardiff City, which saw them relegated to League One, with nine wins, 17 draws and 20 losses in the Championship.\n<\/p>\n
\n When analysing Rino’s defensive attributes, as the midfielder predominantly played as a right-back for Cardiff, Williams said: “Defensively, he was very astute.\n<\/p>\n
\n “There was a time last season when he was arguably Cardiff’s best one-v-one defender.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Clearly, Rinomhota is limited in attack, but once the supporters understood what he was going to bring to the team then he was welcomed.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Cardiff City’s Andy Rinomhota (left) and Watford’s Kwadwo Baah battle for the ball during the Sky Bet Championship match at the Cardiff City Stadium. (Image: David Davies)\n<\/p>\n
\n Andy Rinomhota won the Players’ Player of the Season award for the 2024\/25 season, clearly having made an impact on his teammates.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Players’ Player awards often goes to players whose influence is perhaps unseen at times and that’s what I suspect this award was for,” said Williams.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Players were likely happy to see his redemption arc, for want of a better phrase, having gone from being surplus to requirements at the start of the season under Bulut, to a mainstay in an unfamiliar position for the remainder of the campaign.\n<\/p>\n
\n “A dependable performer who, while never likely to rip up trees and who has his limits, adds value to any squad at this level of the football pyramid.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Cardiff City were relegated to League One after five consecutive seasons in the Championship after only amassing 44 points in 46 games.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rinomhota’s contract came to an end in the summer and, to the surprise of many, the 28-year-old’s contract was not extended with the Bluebirds.\n<\/p>\n
\n When asked what the reason behind this was, Glen explained that Cardiff were looking for a “hard reset” and to focus on developing academy players.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said “Cardiff got rid of more than a dozen players in the summer as they looked for a hard reset.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The club has gone in a totally different direction, culled a lot of the older, more experienced players, and have packed the starting lineup with exciting academy players in a new direction under Brian Barry-Murphy.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Extending the contract of Andy Rinomhota would have stymied the progress of the likes of Joel Colwill, Dakarai Mafico and Eli King.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Rinomhota also doesn’t really fit into the style of football Barry-Murphy likes to play, either.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Cardiff City are currently 5th in the league hoping to bounce straight back into the Championship – They face the Royals at the Select Car Leasing Stadium on April 18.\n<\/p>\n
\n Glen Williams is the Cardiff City correspondent for WalesOnline and abreast of all things Bluebirds. He previously worked as a sports reporter at the Daily Mail, MailOnline and Mail on Sunday, covering football, rugby and cricket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading FC academy graduate Rinomhota has returned to the club after a turbulent three-year spell with Cardiff City.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-37727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}