Cardiff City hailed for "shrewd" Chris Willock transfer decision - Brian Barry-Murphy "loves him" | OneFootball

Football League World's resident Cardiff City fan pundit discussed the early-season impact of Chris Willock

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Cardiff City have embarked upon a blisteringly positive and uplifting start to the 2025/26 League One campaign but suffered a first major blow when they fell to their first defeat of the season at home to Bradford City on Saturday afternoon.

The Bluebirds were well-beaten in an eventual 3-1 rout by Bradford, who had an array of opportunities to extend the deficit further and have left popular head coach Brian Barry-Murphy with plenty to think about ahead of next weekend's trip to Wigan Athletic, which will come after Tuesday's EFL Cup third-round tie at Premier League Burnley.

Prior to the visit of the Bantams, Cardiff had not lost or even conceded a single league goal in open play, such was their near-uninterrupted dominance during the opening month of the campaign. It remains, however, an impressively-strong introduction to life in English football's third-tier, a division in which Cardiff are competing for the first time in more than 20 years, with a number of early-season success stories emerging from within the Welsh capital.

One of those, notably, is the resurgence of Chris Willock, who endured a difficult and disappointing debut campaign at Cardiff after joining on a hotly-anticipated free transfer from QPR.

The experienced winger struggled for both consistency and a regular place under the likes of Erol Bulut and Omer Riza, failing to figure in the latter's thinking and ultimately returning just two goals and two assists from 32 league appearances and 17 starts.

But Willock has embodied redemption thus far this term, becoming an early favourite of Barry-Murphy's and starting five of the Bluebirds' opening eight league encounters.

In that time, the 27-year-old has already equalled last season's production tally and has delivered in particularly key moments, scoring the winner in a slender 1-0 triumph at Luton Town in August and providing the 97th-minute cross for Yousef Salech's dramatic late equaliser away to Stockport County last weekend.

Cardiff City hailed for retaining Chris Willock in League One - Brian Barry-Murphy stance explained

With Willock's encouraging form in mind, Football League World asked our resident Cardiff fan pundit, Matt Hall, whether he believes retaining the wide-man's services instead of trying to offload him following an underwhelming season in the Championship has now proved to be the right call.

Matt labelled that decision as "shrewd", although he admitted that Willock perhaps would not have returned great value considering his difficult fortunes last time out.

However, Matt does believe Willock to be a talented player who "just needed the right manager" and has found exactly that in Barry-Murphy, with the Irishman's emphasis on wide overloads and wingers linking play and inverting to drift into pockets of space in the final third suiting the ex-QPR star down to the ground.

"Regarding Chris Willock, I think it was a shrewd bit of business to keep hold of him," Matt told FLW.

"I think he's one of those players who probably wouldn't have got us that much money back, so when you think about it, would it have been worth letting him go? Not really.

"He has got the talent, he's the sort of player that, for me, just needed the right manager. We had three managers last season and two of them didn't really trust him.

"Erol Bulut played a style of football that needed quick wingers and, for some reason, he signed Willock knowing he was not a quick winger. Omer Riza just didn't trust him one bit, and Aaron Ramsey did and got two of the best games out of him.

"I think Brian Barry-Murphy loves him. All of the reports are that he does, and I think it's testament to Barry-Murphy that he's been brought in as a manager to help with the younger players, but it's one of the more senior in Willock who has benefited the most compared to anyone.

"He's certainly up there.

"I think what Willock provides is a guaranteed good delivery from a cross and creativity against a low block. There are a lot of teams that are going to sit in this season and the creativity he can provide as well as the close link-up play — Barry Murphy loves those overloads in wide areas — and Willock's ability to link up with (Rubin) Colwill with one-touch play is vital.

"He's shown it in the last few weeks just how key he can be and he probably suits the away games on the tighter pitches more. We'll see how he can progress for the rest of the season, but I'm optimistic that he has the ability and is now driven to realy succeed here.

Chris Willock's Cardiff City exploits should be no great surprise

It should be no real surprise to see Willock excelling in League One, a division which is, quite clearly, some way below his skill level.

Willock joined Cardiff with a mixed reputation after his time at QPR, with certain periods at Loftus Road showing the Arsenal academy product to be among the most talented and creative technical wingers in the Championship, though consistency later emerged as an issue.

Something, of course, has gone seriously wrong for Willock — once touted for the Premier League at QPR — to be plying his trade below the Championship at a perceived prime age of his career. However, Willock is now righting his wrongs and appears revitalised under the stewardship of Barry-Murphy, who is cracking the code with the Bluebirds starlet and will hope that his resurgence continues over the course of the campaign.