Football League World
·18 October 2024
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·18 October 2024
The Bluebirds player believes the interim boss can take over on a full-time basis.
Cardiff City's interim boss Omer Riza has been publicly backed by current player Callum Robinson to take the currently vacant permanent managerial position at the club.
It was reported not long after Erol Bulut was dismissed from his position as Cardiff boss that the Bluebirds weren't going to rush into any decisions to replace him. It's been almost a month now and the Welsh outfit don't appear to be much closer to securing the Turkish manager's successor.
Plenty of names have been linked with the role in the weeks following Bulut's departure. Charlton Athletic boss Nathan Jones admitted that he would "love" to manage his boyhood club one day and has been further linked with the position since.
Former Sunderland and Birmingham City boss Tony Mowbray has been reported to be another potential option for the Bluebirds, as per The Mirror. The 60-year-old has been out of management since leaving Birmingham due to health reasons earlier in the year.
The club's chances of landing ex-West Bromwich Albion man Slaven Bilic are also unlikely, according to Paul Abbandonato, due to pre-existing commitments that will keep him occupied until the new year.
Amid all those rumours, plus plenty of other ones, interim boss Riza has been leading the team, albeit they still sit where they were when Bulut left (at the foot of the Championship table).
Even so, the 44-year-old is being backed by current Bluebirds attacker Robinson as a potential option for the club's hierarchy to consider.
The 29-year-old Irish international forward has described Riza as one of the better coaches he's worked with, and has said that he hopes the ex-Leyton Orient boss gets an opportunity to lead Cardiff on a permanent basis.
Robinson said, via Wales Online: "If you don't get given a chance... there's no point going out there getting a young coach who hasn't been a manager, I think it would be disappointing, because I think he's probably up there with one of the better coaches I've worked with.
"The care and the detail he’s put in, you have to back it. The results we've picked up, we've picked up two results out of three.
"For me, not just because he’s playing me, even the lads who aren’t playing he speaks to and helps them, tells them to take their chance, and that goes a long way.
"In the Championship you have so many games, you need everyone. Even if you're not in the starting XI, you feel like he's cared enough for everyone. Hopefully it can continue."
Sometimes, when clubs sack their manager, the person who temporarily fills in for them until a long-term option is found does quite well. This, on occasion, leads to them getting the job themselves. That's not quite happened with Riza though.
Their form has been slightly better - they've picked up one win, one draw and one loss since Riza took over - but it's not been so impressive that he has made himself a real contender for the job.
Now, if Cardiff struggle to find somebody that they think is a really strong option, they may opt to go with the current interim for the sake of convenience.
However, that wouldn't be a guarantee that his spot at the top of the coaching table would be a safe one, unless the results continued to pick up.