By Gareth James
Cardiff City have offered no explanation for Erol Bulut’s no-show after his team’s defeat at Derby County.
The Bluebirds boss swerved the media after his fourth defeat in five Championship matches left his team anchored to the bottom of the table following their worst start to a season in 35 years.
No-one from Cardiff attended the post-match press conference after the 1-0 defeat, an unusual occurrence even for managers fearing they are about to be sacked.
https://twitter.com/BBCSportWales/status/1835014873626861616
Cardiff’s official website made no mention of Bulut’s absence, but plenty of fans were keen to give their verdict on social media.
Bulut was kept dangling for weeks at the end of last season before finally being offered a new contract and chairman Mehmet Dalman’s silence before making a decision to re-employ the Turkish manager has been repeated with further silence over their desperately poor start to this campaign.
It has been left to fans to try and work out what is going on and most are guessing the club are preparing to dump the manager who lifted from relegation candidates to mid-table last season.
Assistant coach Omer Riza did talk to broadcasters at Derby – a contractual obligation – and admitted that the Bluebirds have to “stop leaking goals” if they are to drag themselves off the bottom of the championship table.
#CardiffCity are considering the future of manager Erol Bulut after today’s defeat at Derby. Bulut facing the sack following a fourth defeat in 5 Championship matches this season.
— John Percy (@JPercyTelegraph) September 14, 2024
Kenzo Goudmijn scored the game’s only goal after 28 minutes with a first-time finish from Callum Elder’s low ball into the box, and although the match remained c as the Rams claimed a ninth successive home win in the league.
The visitors spurned a glorious chance to draw level shortly after Derby took the lead as Jacob Widell Zetterstrom kept out Dimitrios Goutas’ effort from close range and Riza admits the Bluebirds need to improve.
Riza said: “We needed to stop leaking goals and we’ve done it again, we’ve conceded a scrappy goal which puts us on the back foot and we’re chasing the game, we need to do more.
“Football is about chances and scoring goals. It can put you on the back foot when you don’t do that. Our aggression around the pitch has got to be a lot better and our intensity to want to get close.
“We’ve made new signings and we want them to be impactful for us. There were some good patches in the game which we need to keep building on and we need the whole squad.
“Now it’s about improving and getting better. We’ve picked up one point from five games, it’s not where we want to be, we want to be winning games, some of the performances need to be better.
“We want to have confidence and momentum and the only way you can get those things is if you win and perform well and we’ve performed well in patches, but it’s not enough.”
I like Erol Bulut and desperately wanted him to succeed here but to take just one fucking point after 5 games coupled with a -10 goal difference is indefensible.
He has to go. https://t.co/zBPzUacxco
— James Davies (@James_TA_Davies) September 14, 2024
Paul Warne revealed his pride in his Derby side and even saw the funny side of Ebou Adams’ incredible miss at the death.
Warne said: “To come away with another win and a clean sheet is still great. The lads are giving it everything they can, they literally gas out. Even if we conceded late on it wouldn’t have detracted from my pride of the group.
“Everybody knows exactly what they’re doing. Sometimes you get cut open by really good play, but I didn’t feel like we did and even late on I felt comfortable. All in all everyone deserves a pat on the back for a clean sheet.”
Adams should have made sure of the points against his former club deep into injury time, only to somehow shoot wide of an empty net after he beat Bluebirds goalkeeper Jak Alnwick to a high ball.
If this is the end for Erol Bulut I’ll be quite sad as I liked him & feel as though he was trying his best. But when it comes down to it some of them players are either not good enough or simply past their best & there are too many areas that need fixing. #CardiffCity#TanOut pic.twitter.com/ZC56l1bCV8
— Rich Lewis (Reg) (@RichLew82) September 14, 2024
On the miss, Warne said: “I thought it was hilarious. My memory is so bad, in years to come people will remember it as the Ebou game, it was like a Ronny Rosenthal moment.
“In fairness to him, he’s the only player on the pitch who would have got that opportunity, no one would have been brave enough to go for the header and no one had any energy left.
“I would have been buzzing for him if he had scored because he thoroughly deserved it, but I have a sick sense of humour so it made me smile as well, but it will go down as Ebou’s game.”
https://twitter.com/CardiffCityFC/status/1835000559201321152