It's sadly becoming all too familiar a story so little wonder some Cardiff City followers are openly questioning if it is a deliberate ploy by the club to hoodwink us into believing they're willing to splash the cash and are ambitious but bad luck prevents their plans rolling out.
The club seem quite happy to allow some targetted players to be revealed in the media, one or two of them will be the subject of supposedly significant bids yet City never seem to end up spending any money or capturing any of the targets. Still time to go but, for now, this are the players mentioned in dispatches.
Rangers declined a £2.5M bid for Kris Boyd, a player who himself turned down Risdale, Jones and City just two seasons ago in jumping to Rangers in the same style that Chris Killen replicated for Celtic last season. This time, Rangers declined the bid and City, despite suggestions otherwise, never raised their bid whilst the £2.5M kitty sees to have been misplaced too.
With Boyd out of the reckoning, City turned to his team-mate Daniel Cousin. A £1M fee was mentioned but there has been no confirmation any such bid was made or that City are progressing an enquiry.
All summer long, Michael Chopra and Ched Evans have been cited as loan targets. Chopra's still needed at Sunderland and appears to have been another 'red herring' while Cardiff are believed to be one of ten Championship sides chasing Evans. Sources say this remains very active but there has been only gossip, not news
Marcus Bent is the latest striking target. Cardiff have bid £1M for the striker who scored 7 on loan for Wigan in the Premiership last term on loan from Charlton but the Sarf Londoners want more and we wait to see if City do that.
Another media-trailed would be capture was Dutch midfield player Remco van der Schaaf. Peter Ridsdale only too happy to confirm Cardiff were close to capturing the man with Champions League experience. But after Cardiff turned up the heat, they quickly cooled it down talking about a major stumbling block. A couple of days later, the player signed a 3 year deal at mighty ... wait for it ... Burnley. Suspicions are that City didn't want to offer that length of contract but it doesn't look good yet again to trailblaze a player we lose to a lesser club.
Speculation also circulated that Cardiff were looking at the Crewe duo of midfielder Gary Roberts (£150,000) and promising striker Nicky Maynard (upto £2M) but, for once, Ridsdale moved to deny this rather than allow the stories to persist with a comment of "it is pure rubbish".
Meantime, one striker who many fans would like to see at Ninian Park as well as the player himself is Welsh international Freddy Eastwood. Cardiff were rumoured to have made enquiries about him and Wolves midfielder Jay Bothroyd but that has now fallen away with Jones also commenting with some arrogance, or perhaps confidence, "we're looking at better players than Eastwood".
What is clear is that Cardiff don't have the players in place yet that they'd like and probably need to sign at least one striker and two would be better before heading to pre-season camp in Portugal. They really need to move fast.
It remains to be seen whether Peter Ridsdale's latest quotes of City having just that by Tuesday comes to fruition. I don't think I'll be holding my breath over it.
