Cardiff boss Bulut vows changes after poor start

Erol Bulut managed clubs such as Fenerbahce before joining Cardiff in 2023

Cardiff City manager Erol Bulut has vowed to make changes to his team after a winless start to the season which has left the Bluebirds bottom of the Championship.

Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at home to Middlesbrough was Cardiff’s third loss from their opening four games of the campaign, and a third match from four in which they have failed to score.

Bulut had surprisingly stuck with the same line-up which had started so poorly during last weekend’s south Wales derby draw at Swansea City, but his patience is now wearing thin.

"There will be changes for sure after the international break and everyone has to accept it," he said.

"Maybe we have to speak now about statistics of individual players. We don't have consistency."

With Championship football now taking a break for a period of international fixtures, Cardiff will not be in action again until they visit Derby County on Saturday, 14 September.

Having lost their opening two matches to Sunderland and Burnley at an aggregate score of 7-0, the Bluebirds had been outplayed in the first half at Swansea before fighting back to draw 1-1.

On that occasion, Bulut’s substitutions had a big impact, with three of them – Rubin Colwill, Ollie Tanner and Callum Robinson – all combining for Robinson’s equaliser.

It was expected that at least one of those players might have done enough to earn a starting role against Middlesbrough but all three had to make do with a place on the bench again.

“Everybody was expecting that I started with two different players, maybe with Rubin and Ollie Tanner. Nobody knew Callum Robinson only trained with us once this week. He had an injury on his Achilles (tendon),” Bulut explained.

“Everybody speaks but they don’t know what is happening. We are with the players every day. We have to think about everything.

“I told those players I need consistency from them. If you continue to show it, then you will play from the first minute, but I need to see a performance from the first minute to the 90th minute. We are thinking differently.

“Four games we’ve played. Now I will look at the statistics. We will analyse them and there will be changes.”