Exclusive: What Robert Earnshaw has said about Cardiff City's League One promotion chances | OneFootball

Football League World spoke exclusively to Cardiff City legend Robert Earnshaw about the Bluebirds' promotion chances in League One this season

Cardiff City have been tipped as one of the favourites to achieve promotion from League One in the 2025/26 campaign following relegation last season, which marked a return to English football's third-tier for the first time in more than 20 years.

The Bluebirds, in stark contrast to many promotion rivals such as Huddersfield Town and Luton, opted against sanctioning a flurry of incomings, instead electing to overhaul the squad culture and place an increased emphasis on young, homegrown talents blooded through from within the club's ever-burgeoning academy system.

No shortage of players departed, of course, and Cardiff decided to part with significant experience by letting the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Andy Rinomhota and long-serving captain Joe Ralls leave the Welsh capital following the innovative appointment of former Manchester City Elite Development Squad (EDS) lead, Brian Barry-Murphy.

The Irishman's inclination to trust youth has been evident in what has represented, largely, a positive start to the season for Cardiff — who added just three fresh faces to the squad in Omari Kellyman, Gabriel Osho and Nathan Trott all summer.

Divisive, but ferociously-talented, playmaker Rubin Colwill has relished newfound responsibility after being handed the vice-captaincy and younger brother Joel has completed a first-team breakthrough in tandem, while teenage pair Ronan Kpakio and Dylan Lawlor have both emerged as ever-presents under Barry-Murphy, impressing sufficiently to earn first senior Wales call-ups from Craig Bellamy.

Cardiff enjoyed a blistering start to the League One campaign, winning five of their opening seven fixtures without, remarkably, conceding a single goal from open play.

Their resolve has been tested in recent weeks with consecutive home defeats to league leaders Bradford City and, more shockingly, relegation candidates Burton Albion, and a strong response will be demanded ahead of Saturday afternoon's clash with Leyton Orient in the Welsh capital.

What Robert Earnshaw has said about Cardiff City's League One promotion chances

Robert Earnshaw is somebody who knows better than most exactly what it takes to get Cardiff out of the third-tier. The Bluebirds academy product scored 31 league goals to help Cardiff gain promotion back to the second-tier via the play-offs back in the 2002/03 campaign, and, quite rightly, remains fondly remembered in the blue corner of South Wales to this day.

A 59-cap ex-Wales international, Earnshaw would go on to find the back of the net on 21 occasions the following season before earning a move to West Bromwich Albion, then playing in the Premier League, and eventually returned home in 2011 following subsequent stints with Norwich City, Derby County and Nottingham Forest.

And Earnshaw has urged Cardiff to remain disciplined after encountering their first major blip of the campaign, citing the stumbles in which the promotion-winning Bluebirds of 2003 came across en-route to their historic play-off victory.

Earnshaw believes that Cardiff are "one of the favourites" to achieve promotion this season, having made themselves as much under Barry-Murphy to date, and, in the 44-year-old's view, the Welsh side will be "fine".

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, via BetVictor Casino, Earnshaw explained: "At the beginning of the season, I was the same. At the start of the season, great — unbeaten, doing well, lots of goals, lots of clean sheets.

"We had the same experience in 2002, the last time we went up (from League One) where there were a few rocks along the way, a few stumbles. It was not all plain-sailing.

"But it's about staying disciplined and continuing, and sometimes young players have the tendency to get knocked off completely confidence-wise when they get a couple of defeats and it's been a bad week. But you've got to put that aside.

"I think they'll be fine. I see Cardiff as being minimum play-offs, but actually as one of the favourites to be honest. Especially now, I think they've made themselves one of the favourites.

"That's the really good thing, I don't think a lot of people would've wondered whether Cardiff would really go up as they've been struggling for a couple of years now, but I see them now playing good football, scoring goals, doing well at the back, they've got a solid team.

"I see them as one of the favourites."

Trials and tribulations are to be expected for Cardiff City in League One

For anybody who was, somehow, expecting Cardiff's bid to gain promotion back to the Championship at the very first time of asking to prove a plain-sailing conquest, a jolting shock to the system has been delivered.

It's a notoriously difficult division to get out of, with many historically-sizeable clubs with pedigree from a higher level — such as Cardiff, of course, though the likes of Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland are also strong recent examples — often playing with a proverbial target on their backs, as opposition sides often delve into the 'dark arts', rough them up and sit deep.

That's what Cardiff, who have invariably deployed an enterprising, possession-based brand of football under Barry-Murphy, are up against, and it's down to them to counter it.

We are talking about a squad of young, still-relatively-inexperienced players here — in spite of its undeniable, and much-refreshing ability, potential and endeavour — and while Barry-Murphy is perfectly right to continue favouring the likes of Isaak Davies, Kpakio, Lawlor and the Colwill brothers, with doing so an obvious aid to both the immediate and long-term future at Cardiff, there does need to be an acceptance that bumps and inconsistencies will occur.

It's par of the course.

But, if Cardiff continue to kick on and bounce back from the challenges which they are currently facing, and will continue to face, there is no reason why this Bluebirds side cannot go all the way this season.