Football Season Guide

The Bluebirds secured return to the top flight, with Cardiff doing that thanks to their physicality in the air and hard-working squad. Both these things are directly linked with the influence of coach Neil Warnock, who will be 70 later this year. Warnock is not bothered to use old-fashioned root-one tactics, which hardly wins Cardiff many supporters from the wide audience. This is the main reason why all his summer transfers in so far were of players that spent most of their careers in the lower leagues of English football. Despite spending nearly £30 million already on 4 players all of them joined in from other Championship squads and if one looks at Cardiff’s squad there is not much top flight experience in it. On deadline day two inner midfielders were signed on loan, both with a bit more experience in top flight football, but still Cardiff’s squad list looks to be missing squad members gifted technically. The Bluebirds trust 4-2-3-1 as their main formation and it seems that the recently signed Reid and Murphy will be regular starters as part of the trio behind the lone striker. Zohore was Cardiff’s main goal scorer last season and the tall, but lacking technical skills, forward should remain the main choice. Cardiff have as many as seven other forwards in their ranks, but again they have never been part of Premier League teams and even in the lower divisions their scoring records were far from impressive. Hoping to earn points with their physicality Cardiff will definitely be launching many high balls forward and also their centre-backs are bound to join the forward action for set pieces. Morisson, Manga and Bamba are all giants, but this is a drawback for them when it comes to their main duties as lots of teams in the Premier League use quick strikers and Cardiff struggled to deal with such type of players defensively even in the lower division. Trusting Warnock early in the season is inevitable, consequence of the surprised promotion, but Cardiff might be the first side to change managers according to many as even inside the club there are already many critics that think it unwise to spend so much money on players from lower divisions.