Erol Bulut: Will Cardiff City's 'wildcard' new manager come up trumps?
- Published
Erol Bulut (centre) is Cardiff City's fifth manager in two years
After weeks of keeping everyone guessing in their managerial search, Cardiff City have played their hand.
"A wildcard" is how the Championship club's chief executive Ken Choo put it, with the newly appointed but still relatively unknown Erol Bulut sat alongside him.
It may have been tough for the 48-year-old to hear given he has Turkish giants Fenerbahce on both his playing and managerial CV, something Cardiff admit they were attracted to when opting for Bulut to replace Sabri Lamouchi.
But there can be no denying Bulut's arrival signified an attempt from the Bluebirds to at least try something different.
As Choo put it: "We are trying to start afresh, this is a completely different direction."
It is certainly different. A manager hired from abroad for a club who - prior to Lamouchi - had gone almost exclusively British.
Zero experience of football in the English leagues. Not cheap either, as the club hierarchy present at Bulut's unveiling were at pains to point out having been accused of doing exactly that with recent hires of either out-of-work or fresh out of the dressing room.
And so for the Bluebirds who burned through three bosses last year - with Bulut the sixth to hold a scarf above his head since Neil Warnock departed three-and-a-half years ago - departure has taken on a different connotation.
"I'm not so sure we have chosen the best managers in the past," admitted chairman Mehmet Dalman, as he offered up a suggestion that a lack of stability was a key factor in Cardiff going from Premier League in 2019 to finishing just above the Championship relegation places last year.
"There are no guarantees. Every manager you bring in is a risk, but it has to be a calculated risk, it can't be a guessed risk.
"And when I look at the pedigree of Erol, I don't believe the risk is that high. Is it exciting? Yes, because it's a new direction for the club. It's a departure for Cardiff, make no mistake about that, but I think we need that."
They certainly need something given their last two seasons have brought two successive survival fights, while a ban on paying fees for players will remain in place this summer.
Bulut, though, was seemingly not put off by such restrictions when he was identified by Cardiff after Lamouchi failed to persuade owner Vincent Tan he was the right man to carry on where he finished off last term.
What is more, Bulut confirmed he turned down offers from Germany to take up the Bluebirds on their offer of an initial year's contract that could be extended to a further two campaigns.
Cardiff City: Tan has seen club go up twice, why not a third time? - Bulut
Relishing the opportunity to provide far more insight to his suitability for the role than the frenetic internet-searching supporters had managed when news of his surprise appointment broke over the weekend, the quietly spoken Bulut was blunt when he needed to be.
Smiling pretty much throughout his media appearance at his new club's Cardiff City Stadium home, Bulut was not put off by questions whether he was a gamble or if he knew how to put right the side's recent failings.
Everything was delivered with a softness, but what was said was punchy.
He said he had seen two games from last season but already had an idea the systems he had in mind and the players he wanted to make it happen.
The existing squad would get a pre-season chance to show their worth, but as many as 10 new players were mentioned, while the paltry six home wins and lowly 41 goals scored last season were deemed not good enough.
Bulut offered up his preferred formations and admitted he has long been told his style of play with his clubs in Turkey was more akin to 'English style'.
"I am not a gamble. I like to win," was his simple philosophy, along with a repetition of the word "discipline" that surely the club's last promotion winner, the aforementioned Warnock, would have nodded along in enjoyment to.
"At the start of last season we were playing some very attractive football, we didn't know how to win games," added Dalman. "Look at Erol's track record: he wins games, he doesn't lose many games.
"His style of football is not far away from our historical way of playing football that I think will suit this club and this division.
"What bored me about the other candidates was that everybody said they'd improve the team, that they'd do better than last season; with due respect you don't have to be a genius to do better than last season.
"We wanted a manager to rip it up and create a team to go out and win."
How Bulut manages that remains to be seen, and there will be no guarantees of time and patience with an owner such as Tan, though it was added that the Malaysian businessman had been a driving force behind the appointment.
"We spoke to almost a dozen managers but he (Bulut) came across as a person who has a fire in the eye, a determination to succeed," said Choo. "They are the same characteristics as Vincent, so we knew they would get along."
It will be down to Bulut to keep Tan in his corner, but that determination was easy to spot as he spoke of the eagerness to prove his worth in British football and - as the first from Turkey to take up such a role in the game here - become a potential trailblazer for Turkish coaches, having seen so many dismiss such credentials as leading Alanyaspor to a Turkish cup final and Malatyaspor to Europa League qualification.
If he does, Cardiff's new deal will have paid off. In the meantime, supporters will have to wait to see whether their wildcard is an ace or a joker.