3 Erol Bulut replacements Cardiff City should be considering ASAP as pressure intensifies | OneFootball

FLW outline three potential replacements for Erol Bulut as the Cardiff City boss comes under increasing pressure.

Cardiff City boss Erol Bulut is under pressure as their poor form continued this season with a 1-0 defeat at Pride Park against Derby County on Saturday afternoon.

John Percy of The Telegraph has revealed that the Cardiff hierarchy could be set to make a change imminently, despite Bulut securing a mid-table finish last season in the Championship.

Piror to Bulut's arrival last summer, the Bluebirds had spent the last two Championship campaigns flirting with the relegation zone, having also burned through four permanent managers within that time, too.

The 49-year-old has since brought stability to the side after taking his first role in the EFL, having been manager of Turkish side Gaziantep FK before the switch to the Welsh outfit.

He has also taken charge of Turkish giants Fenerbahce and was appointed Cardiff manager in June of last year, with many fans hoping he could build on finishing mid-table in his first campaign.

A high turnover of players this summer meant there was a hope that the Bluebirds could push for a play-off place, with ambition shown within the market through Anwar El Ghazi, Chris Willock, and the like.

However, the defeat at Pride Park leaves Cardiff bottom of the table, having picked up just one point from five games, conceding 11 goals already in the process.

Nothing concrete has materialised yet, but with Bulut seemingly under enormous pressure, here we have taken a look at THREE potential replacements for the Bluebirds to consider in the meantime.

Richie Wellens

Despite a difficult start of their own this season, the job Richie Wellens has done at Leyton Orient has been incredibly impressive.

Orient play an effective and functional brand of football and have put in some exceptional performances in the past year, despite the fact they are reasonably new to the third tier.

Already having promotions on his CV from his time at Orient and Swindon Town, Wellens would be a very shrewd appointment for a number of sides at the top end of League One or even a risk worth taking at Championship level for a team with aspirations of pushing up the table.

Whilst his current side have been slow starters, they lost plenty of their best players this summer, and Wellens could be looking at the league above for a big enough club to be tempted by a move away from East London with better resources available to him, and a higher ceiling than his current side in terms of where they could end up in the coming years.

The 44-year-old may still feel he has something to build on at Brisbane Road, but an offer from Cardiff would give Wellens something to think about if he thinks that he has taken Orient as far as he can at this point, which early evidence may well be pointing to.

Scott Lindsey

The current Crawley Town boss should have his pick of Championship jobs in the future, having guided them into League One despite being one of the favourites for relegation to the National League in 2023/24.

Lindsey has simply worked wonders with the Red Devils over the last year, as they made the play-offs and demolished MK Dons in the process to make it to Wembley. They have done so playing attacking, attractive football.

Bulut's style of play could be classified as somewhat attritional, which Lindsey would help to remedy and he would relish players of Chris Willock and Anwar El Ghazi's quality, amongst others.

Crawley won promotion before selling a number of high-quality players this summer, but that has not stopped them from defying the odds already with seven points from five games.

Most League One supporters expected them to struggle, but he continues to work miracles and make teams greater than the sum of their parts, which Cardiff could do with right now.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

The Norwegian hasn’t been in work since leaving Old Trafford in 2021, when his three-year spell in charge of the Red Devils came to an end after a series of defeats to start the 2021/22 campaign.

Of course, his previous spell at Cardiff ended in disaster, but it's clear thar Solskjaer was a young coach learning more by the game and developing his methods, so could be a shrewd appointment if they were keen to revisit it, albeit a fairly ambitious one after some strong but inconsistent performances at Mn United.

With a focus on pressing structure and stability out of possession, Solskjaer could be a good fit for a Cardiff side in a dog fight, even if many Bluebirds wish to see them back playing expansive football with plenty of goals and to take risks in possession.

It would be a bold choice for different reasons to Wellens and Lindsey, but one that makes plenty of sense on paper, if Cardiff fans can get on board with a reunion with the Norwegian, who would command enormous respect in their dressing room.