Russell Slade admits his future as Cardiff City boss is in the hands of owner Vincent Tan after their hopes of snatching the final play-offs spot were left in tatters by Sheffield Wednesday.

The Bluebirds chief must hope billionaire Tan will give him another crack at promotion although whoever is in charge will need funds to improve the squad.

The loss of top scorer Anthony Pilkington and centre-back Sean Morrison to injury at Hillsborough on Saturday did not help, but City never looked like denying the Owls.

And though a seventh-place finish is an improvement on last season, Slade’s chances of seeing his 18-month reign extended rest on Tan.

Slade, 55, said: “We’ll look towards Birmingham on Saturday and it will be a tough game but it will be nice to finish with three points in front of our fans.

“We’ll take what happens next from there. We’ll probably sit down after the Birmingham game and talk about my future.

“We’ve made progress and it’s my job and the team’s job to try and take it forward even further.

“We are going the right way, but we’ve had a bad day at the office today and we have to get over it.

“You always have to take setbacks and it’s how you react. Given another pre-season under our belts I’m sure we can try and make progress.

“We’ll see whether I’m in charge. At the end of the day it will be the owner’s decision.”

Gary Hooper – the sort of Championship goal-getter City have lacked – scored twice and set-up the third which was credited as a Lee Peltier own goal after dispossessing David Marshall.

The Bluebirds rarely looked like scoring with Kenneth Zohore’s inexperience showing after Pilkington was forced off early on.

Slade added of the defeat: “It hurts.

“You’re disappointed whenever you lose a football match. For half a game we were still in it but we’re very disappointed with the second-half and, in particular, the goals we conceded.

“It’s a frustrating afternoon when we lost Pilkington early on and Morrison, who I thought was excellent.

“It was frustrating we never kicked on. If you stay in the game the pressure would have mounted on them but we weren’t able to apply that and we weren’t a great enough threat in the second-half.

“We tried whatever we could, bringing on bodies and we had three up front and three at the back by the end but you have to say we got beat by the better side.

“We need to finish on a positive note, we’ve been strong at home, we’ve made progress from where we were.

“Last year we finished in the top-half and if we can finish seventh it’s progress, just not quite enough.

“It’s been a difficult season and today sums it up losing a couple of players in the second-half when things were going okay – okay not fantastic.
“I have enjoyed the season, up until today. I still believed we could win and take it to the last day, but we’ve only managed to take it to the 45th.

“We’ve fallen short away from home.

“Our form at home is as solid as Wednesday’s but away from home we’ve not always performed for 90 minutes – look at the Fulham and Brentford games – and five wins away from home are not good enough.”
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