By Paul Jones

Mick McCarthy accused his Cardiff City players of “capitulation” after their 5-1 humbling at Blackburn Rovers made it five defeats in their last six matches.

The Bluebirds boss is under pressure to halt an alarming slump from his team who have lost three Championship matches in succession for the first time since he took charge.

In all, Cardiff have lost four of their last five in the Championship as well as their Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton.

In those six games, Cardiff have scored four goals and conceded 12 and there were loud boos among travelling fans at the final whistle.

The former Republic of Ireland manager insisted: “We started the game well in the first 20-25 minutes and had the best chances. I was really pleased.

“Their goal was offside. That does happen in the game, but what we can’t do is capitulate like we did.

“It sounds like an excuse but he’s offside. It gives them momentum and puts us on the back foot, but what we can’t do is concede again.

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“That could have been avoided, – and then the third goal at half-time could have been avoided as well, and the game has run away from us.

“I had to do something at half-time and changed things up. I thought we got a response but we left ourselves open and we got caught again.

“It’s really difficult. All I can guarantee is we will keep trying and putting our best in.

“When we conceded it gave them impetus and we’ve been opened up. All I can do is make sure we give absolutely everything. We weren’t unlucky, that’s for sure.”

Asked whether, after nine Championship games under the belt, he felt like he still had a squad capable of pushing for promotion, the Bluebirds boss replied: “When we started it looked like that and after the run of results it doesn’t look like that.

“That’s something we’ve got to change and we have to start trying to change it on Tuesday.

“It’s not easy to put my finger on that because we pretty much have the nucleus of the team that we had last year,” he said.

 

Cardiff have travelled 935.2 miles so far this season
233.7 Blackpool
196.3 Peterborough
167.3 Forest
128.8 Coventry
219.1 Blackburn

Fans pay good money to follow their club all over the country. Mick McCarthy is yet to acknowledge our travelling fans once…

Not my manager

— Nath🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@NathCcfc) September 25, 2021

“Maybe teams have worked us out a bit. They’ve changed, played against us, we’ve analysed everything and will continue to do so.

“I haven’t got an answer for you now, that’s for sure.”

The next three matches are likely to have a significant influence over Cardiff’s season – as well as McCarthy’s own future – as they are already five points adrift of the play-off places and eight shy of the automatic promotion places.

They face second-place West Brom at home on Tuesday night, then Reading, again at home, on Saturday.

After the short international break, the third fixture is the first Welsh derby of the season away to Swansea City.

Tony Mowbray praised the ‘extraordinary’ workrate of Ben Brereton Diaz after the striker hit a hat-trick for Blackburn.

Rovers maintained their impressive start to the Championship season by thumping the Bluebirds and Chile international Brereton Diaz was at the heart of it.

Sam Gallagher opened the scoring by slotting his third of the campaign beyond Dillon Phillips before Brereton Diaz doubled the advantage with a superb volley just after the half-hour. And he put the game out of sight by bundling in a third before the half was out.

 

I tweet ‘Mick McCarthy out’ but do the board have the capability to replace him?

Cardiff City need a complete change from top to bottom.

The board leave tonight and so can the manager.

Absolutely embarrassing.#CCFC pic.twitter.com/QfxDLF5ras

— Ben Thomas (@Benfthomas_10) September 25, 2021

Blackburn’s third member of their front-line, Tyrhys Dolan, netted a fourth just after the break with a move that all three forwards were instrumental in, and although Sean Morrison headed a consolation, Brereton Diaz had the last laugh, completing his hat-trick with a confident penalty to make it seven for the season, equalling his goal tally for last season.

Mowbray’s men remain sixth after the stirring performance at Ewood Park and the manager praised his striker’s work rate and development of his finishing.

He said: “The starting point is his work rate. Strikers obviously always get the glory of scoring goals but he’s a kid who works his socks off for this team, up and down, up and down.

“He’s not playing down the middle, he’s not the Adam Armstrong centre-forward who is there to finish things off.

“He’s working extraordinarily hard tracking full backs – or wing-backs as it was today. So the physical output has been amazing really.

“The fact that he’s developing his finishing technique…I saw somewhere this week, he was talking about how hard he works coming in off that left on his right foot and trying to bend balls in the far corner or reverse them back into the near post.

“I’m just delighted he’s getting the rewards for all the hard work he does, as they all do to be honest.”