Cardiff City’s 23/24 season comes to an end, not with the last game being the climax to a relegation cliffhanger that many expected it to be (there were those who thought the relegation issue would have worked out badly for us before it got to the last game as well). Instead, we go to a team that had their relegation confirmed weeks ago and, according to Erol Bulut in his press conference yesterday, have an injury crisis to match our own. Therefore, the prospect of us finishing in the top ten cannot be ruled out and, although regular readers of this blog will know that I’m not the manager’s b ..read more

Following the very good win over Southampton seven days ago, it’s been a week where those who want Cardiff City manager Erol Bulut to stay in the job for next season have been able to put their case almost unopposed. Straight after the Southampton match, Bulut was serenaded by choruses of “we want you to stay” as he and his team took the plaudits for what I reckon was our best home win of the season. The Monday night podcast that I’m in the habit of listening to has been anti Bulut for most of 2024, but this time the four man panel was split on what City should next, but this was as of nothin ..read more

The first thing to say about this amazing match at Cardiff City Stadium this afternoon where Cardiff City dealt a possibly fatal blow to Southampton’s automatic promotion hopes with a 2-1 win is that on another day, they could easily have conceded half a dozen goals. Stuart Armstrong, a real class act at this level who was stretchered off in the dying minutes with what looked a serious injury, hit the post in five minutes to set the tone for a first half where the visitors had so many chances to add to the one goal they did get and the pattern continued through the third quarter of the game ..read more

Cardiff City will face Southampton in their penultimate home game of the season with a side missing as many as twelve first team squad members tomorrow. A combination of illness and injuries had Erol Bulut fearing that Jamilu Collins, Josh Bowler and Callum Robinson could join those ruled out for the final weeks of the season in missing the match against a team which must be quite fancying its chances of making the top two after all, given the mess Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich are making of things lately. Bulut confirmed that Perry Ng, who has been carrying some sort of niggle for weeks, has ..read more

It must have been during one of City’s relegation fighting seasons in the early to mid seventies that I formed one of the beliefs which I have carried through my football supporting life. If your team is in a promotion or relegation battle, the best sort of sides you can face in the closing games of the season are ones that are in mid table with nothing to play for as they will not have the same stomach for the fight as you. That’s a view I have held for half a century or more, an awful lot of football has been played in that time and I wonder if it proves my theory right? It needs some stude ..read more

All of a sudden, the three teams that it’s been assumed the two automatic promotion winners would come from are looking vulnerable and Southampton, who must have resigned themselves to the Play Offs after their late, late defeat at Ipswich in what may well have been the Championship’s match of the season, are thinking they are in with a sniff of a top two finish. None of Leicester, Leeds or Ipswich managed a goal, let alone a win, in their midweek games, with the first named, who must have been believing they were over their recent wobble, going down to a single goal defeat to a Millwall side ..read more

Once again Cardiff City showed they are a better side when they play away from home as they dropped Birmingham further into the relegation mix at St. Andrew’s tonight with a 1-0 win courtesy of a goal by Josh Bowler midway through the second half. Apart from the 4-0 win at Huddersfield, I think I’m right in saying that all of our away wins have been by 1-0 or 2-1 and the closeness of the scores offers a big clue as to the nature of the matches – they have tended to be battles involving a lot of defending as we have shown that a perhaps unheralded virtue of ours is the ability to soak up susta ..read more

When Huddersfield led 1-0 at Deepdale last night, it was all making for a very tense atmosphere at St. Andrews for tonight’s game between Birmingham City and Cardiff City. As it is, despite Preston overwhelming Huddersfield by 4-1 in the end, you would expect nerves to be frayed among Bluenose fans as they play their game in hand over many of their rivals while still in the bottom three. Last night’s results made mathematically certain of something that had been clear for weeks, if not months – City would be staying up this season. Therefore, we are now officially the sort of team that those ..read more

I think I’ve mentioned before on here that I do some voluntary work for Cardiff City Supporters’Trust. One of my duties is to prepare and send out e-mail messages to members and today I was asked to send this one out. “Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust Board today issued a statement because of growing uncertainty over the future of manager Erol Bulut. The Board said: “We are reliably informed that the decision on who shall be the club’s manager for the 2024-25 season, and on what terms, has been solely in the hands of club owner Vincent Tan for some time. “The Trust Board understands that as of ..read more

I read somewhere online this week that there were three nominations for Championship manager of the year for the 23/24 season. Two of them were very predictable, serial Championship winner Daniel Farke of Leeds and Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna, who would be my choice for the award. The third nomination came as a total surprise. Now, I think Liam Rosenior is a good, young manager who was an impressive contributor on Sky when he used to work with them regularly on their EFL coverage, but, for the life of me, I don’t understand what he’s done this season to be thought of as one of the best three man ..read more