Tweet
You won't get many bigger Erol Bulut critics than me and I'll never change my mind that his sacking was overdue. However, as we approch the halfway point in this season, the fact has to be faced that we're finding life much tougher this time around than we did with Bulut in charge last season and it seems very unlikely that we're going to exceed last year's twelfth placed finish and our points tally of sixty two.
So, why is that Bulut was able to take us through a season where relegation was never really a serious issue? Was he a better manager than people like me are prepared to acknowledge? I suppose the first thing to do when trying to answer questions like that is to look at players no longer at the club who haven't been adequately replaced. To be honest, only three come to mind for me, Mark McGuinness to an extent, an in form Ryan Wintle is a bit of a miss and definitely Karlan Grant.
Second, although we're still quite high in the table for set piece goals, there has been a big drop off in the number we're scoring.
A third reason why we were safely mid table through 23/24 for me is luck. The stats show there was a freakish eloment to our high, by recent standards, finishing position and, off the top of my head, I can think of Southampton at home and Sunbderland, Preston, Sheffield Wednesday, Watford and Coventry away where we had luck on our side in picking up the three points.
However, the fact that five of those games I mention were played away from.home points to something that cannot just be dismiissed as luck - especially when you contrast our away record this season with last time around. Those fifteen points were a big reason. why we were never in much danger and I feel they offer some evidence of where we have not replaced Bulut effectively.
At the back end of last season, I heard a podcasrt discussion somewhere about why Cardiff were so high in the table when they consistently played football of a standard that should place them in the bottom third? The answer they came up with was that we had a way of staying in games when the going got tough - so, was what I tend to write off as good fortune a bit more than that?
Nine games in and we're still looking for our first away win, yet I'd argue that we've played pretty well even at Burnley and Hull. we had our rough patches at Swansea, Bristol and West Brom, but did okay and we've played well at Coventry. I honestly don't see much of a difference in our performance level away from home compared to last year and yet results are clearly worse. Would we have conceded within two minutes of going 1-0 up, as we've done on our last two away games, under Bulut? Well, without checking it, I can't think of a single instance of us doing so.
I've written all of the above while being convinced that we'd be bottom with quite a few less points now if Bulut was till manager, but I don't think last season was just a case of making a good start and then hanging on, we still had something that would see us through away games that we don't have now.
So, why is that Bulut was able to take us through a season where relegation was never really a serious issue? Was he a better manager than people like me are prepared to acknowledge? I suppose the first thing to do when trying to answer questions like that is to look at players no longer at the club who haven't been adequately replaced. To be honest, only three come to mind for me, Mark McGuinness to an extent, an in form Ryan Wintle is a bit of a miss and definitely Karlan Grant.
Second, although we're still quite high in the table for set piece goals, there has been a big drop off in the number we're scoring.
A third reason why we were safely mid table through 23/24 for me is luck. The stats show there was a freakish eloment to our high, by recent standards, finishing position and, off the top of my head, I can think of Southampton at home and Sunbderland, Preston, Sheffield Wednesday, Watford and Coventry away where we had luck on our side in picking up the three points.
However, the fact that five of those games I mention were played away from.home points to something that cannot just be dismiissed as luck - especially when you contrast our away record this season with last time around. Those fifteen points were a big reason. why we were never in much danger and I feel they offer some evidence of where we have not replaced Bulut effectively.
At the back end of last season, I heard a podcasrt discussion somewhere about why Cardiff were so high in the table when they consistently played football of a standard that should place them in the bottom third? The answer they came up with was that we had a way of staying in games when the going got tough - so, was what I tend to write off as good fortune a bit more than that?
Nine games in and we're still looking for our first away win, yet I'd argue that we've played pretty well even at Burnley and Hull. we had our rough patches at Swansea, Bristol and West Brom, but did okay and we've played well at Coventry. I honestly don't see much of a difference in our performance level away from home compared to last year and yet results are clearly worse. Would we have conceded within two minutes of going 1-0 up, as we've done on our last two away games, under Bulut? Well, without checking it, I can't think of a single instance of us doing so.
I've written all of the above while being convinced that we'd be bottom with quite a few less points now if Bulut was till manager, but I don't think last season was just a case of making a good start and then hanging on, we still had something that would see us through away games that we don't have now.
Comment