Cardiff City: Pundit warns Vincent Tan against potential Erol Bulut action | OneFootball

EFL Pundit Carlton Palmer has exclusively offered his verdict on Erol Bulut's future as Cardiff City manager to Football League World...

Pundit Carlton Palmer has warned Cardiff City against taking any potential action regarding the future of under-fire manager Erol Bulut despite an abysmal start to the 2024/25 Championship campaign.

Bulut was appointed as Cardiff manager the previous summer and guided them to a 12th-placed finish in his debut season, despite having inherited a squad which had, by and large, battled against relegation to League One in the two seasons that preceded his arrival.

The Turkish boss signed an initial one-year deal at the Cardiff City Stadium although, after much delay, the Bluebirds' top brass eventually elected to hand him a two-year contract earlier in the summer, with expectations considerably higher heading into this season.

Cardiff attracted a host of big-name acquisitions to the Welsh capital across the summer window, including the likes of Anwar El Ghazi, Callum Chambers and Chris Willock. Coupled with the exciting young arrivals of Alex Robertson, Jesper Daland and Will Fish, fans had been expecting the side to compete for a top-ten finish if not challenging towards play-off contention.

However, Cardiff have started the season in disastrous form by losing three of their opening four encounters, leaving them bottom of the league table heading into the international break.

They have failed to score a goal in the games they have lost so far, with their only strike coming through Callum Robinson to salvage a point in last month's South Wales Derby at the Swansea.com Stadium.

Carlton Palmer issues bold Cardiff City, Erol Bulut verdict

Saturday afternoon's turgid 2-0 home defeat to Middlesbrough provoked a turning of the tide among Cardiff supporters, who now find themselves asking serious questions regarding Bulut's immediate future in the dugout.

These questions are only natural given the high managerial turnover not only at Cardiff but across the game, and there is little getting away from how poorly they have started the season despite heading into it with fair expectation.

Nonetheless, Palmer has urged Cardiff to avoid making any early decisions on Bulut's tenure as manager just yet, believing that his future should be assessed after the ten-game benchmark.

Palmer exclusively explained to Football League World.

"Cardiff City, and in particular Erol Bulut, did absolutely fantastic last season with a 12th-placed finish in the Championship - remarkable turnaround. But it's been a difficult start to the season, they had a thrashing at Burnley by losing 5-0, they got a draw at Swansea then they lost to Southampton in the Carabao Cup and got beaten by Middlesbrough at home.

"It's been a difficult start to the season but there's no need to panic, the table won't look like that come the end of the season. We're only four games into the season, when you give a manager the opportunity to bring in the players that he's bought in the pre-season and that time to work with the players, I think you've got to hold your nerve.

"I don't think there's anything needed to be needed. For me, no manager should be looking over his shoulder unless you've lost all ten of your opening ten games because the table doesn't take shape until then.

"As a chairman you've got to keep your nerve, of course you don't want to get relegated from the Championship and you want to do as well as you can. It's all about a transition.

"Cardiff remaining in the Championship next season would be a fantastic achievement. You look at Coventry City, they've only got four points at this moment in time and I expect them to be in and around the play-offs, so it's all about having a bit of patience and time.

"I don't think he should be looking over his shoulder but of course, we know the game is the way it is."

Erol Bulut must change Cardiff City's start to the season - and fast

Palmer rightly alludes to the nature of the game, which sees managers often afforded scarce latitude when it comes to early-season form,

However, that does not necessarily mean that Cardiff would be wrong to part ways with Bulut if he proves incapable of turning around their miserable start to the season and making inroads to meet the expectation that he himself has pedaled somewhat.

The past is the past, and Cardiff's expectations must now surely much higher than simply remaining in the second-tier. They are some way off promotion, admittedly - and the failure to recruit more than one striker for the first-half of the season at least - will play some part in that, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that Cardiff should be at least threatening to attack the play-off positions with the squad at Bulut's disposal.

While the results have been simply abysmal in isolation, the nature of Cardiff's defeats and Bulut's reluctance to hand any league starts to mercurial playmaker Rubin Colwill have really prompted the change in stance of supporters.

Although Cardiff have been one-footed and lacking in any attacking strategy or invention, Bulut has used Colwill from the bench this season despite his undoubted star quality and the poor early performances from Cardiff's starting attacking options - and the fans have every right to be growing unsettled.

Derby County and Leeds United represent Cardiff's next opponents following the international break and, it must be said, it would be difficult to envisage Bulut staying on with the club if results do not drastically improve in a short space of time.