Brian Barry-Murphy is cracking the code with Cardiff City star - League One should be scared | OneFootball

Cardiff City winger Chris Willock has been a driving force behind the Bluebirds' electric start to the season under new head coach Brian Barry-Murphy

Cardiff City have enjoyed a blistering start to the 2025/26 League One campaign, underlining their intentions of achieving an instant Championship return following relegation by taking five victories from the opening six to surge to the summit of the league table.

The Bluebirds, it must be said, have not faced any teething issues, despite heading into the club's first third-tier season in more than 20 years with a remarkably young squad, under the tuition of a principled and demanding head coach in Brian Barry-Murphy, whose unrelenting and aggressive possession-based style of play has received instant buy-in and adaptation.

Indeed, Cardiff's stalemate draw away to newly-promoted Port Vale in matchweek two remains the only slight hitch to date, with the promotion hopefuls boasting an otherwise-perfect record after beating Peterborough United, Rotherham, AFC Wimbledon and, perhaps most impressively, Luton Town and Plymouth Argyle - who both suffered relegation too, but finished above the bottom-placed Bluebirds in 2024/25.

What's more, Bradley Ihionvein's penalty for Peterborough on the opening day, in a fixture which Cardiff would win 2-1 courtesy of second-half strikes from Rubin Colwill and Ronan Kpakio, is the only goal they have let in too, with none yet to come from open play.

Nathan Trott, one of just three signings made by Cardiff in the summer along with Gabriel Osho and £19 million Chelsea wonderkid Omari Kellyman, has kept five clean sheets in as many matches and is yet to concede, and the Bluebirds' promotion ambitions have only been strengthened since by the fact they have been able to retain stars such as Rubin Colwill, Kpakio, Dylan Lawlor, Alex Robertson and Yousef Salech following the conclusion of the summer window.

The Colwill's — Rubin and younger brother Joel - Kpakio, Lawlor, Trott and Ryan Wintle have emerged as particular standouts from Cardiff's early, dominant throes — but another star is blossoming.

Chris Willock's strong start to the season at Cardiff City

The future of Chris Willock felt like it hung somewhat in the balance prior to the start of the season, with the winger having endured a difficult and disappointing debut campaign in the Welsh capital after completing a high-profile move from then-Championship rivals QPR last summer.

Willock failed to enforce himself as a frequent fixture in a historically-dismal Cardiff side, and just 17 of his 32 league appearances were starts as he contributed a less-than-convincing return of two goals and two assists apiece. Alas, Barry-Murphy preached the importance of handing clean slates to each and every player he inherited, though, and Willock is quickly proving to be a key beneficiary of that mentality.

The ex-QPR winger notably struggled in the aforementioned draw at Port Vale, receiving no shortage of criticism from supporters as a result, but an encouraging cameo from the bench in Cardiff's 2-1 EFL Cup first-round victory over Swindon Town was followed up with a vital impact in their dramatic, last-grasp win away from home against AFC Wimbledon, where, having been hauled on in place of the injured Ollie Tanner, Willock's dangerous cross into the area found its way to Isaak Davies, who made no mistake with the finish and handed the travelling Bluebirds all three points in the second minute of additional time.

Willock went one better the week after, though, inspiring the 1-0 win away to Luton Town by firing past Josh Keeley with just over twenty minutes to spare after evading a host of Hatters challenges and sitting down ex-Bluebirds defender Mark McGuinness with neat, delicate footwork to open up space to release his match-winning effort.

And the 27-year-old, evidently liberated and brimming with confidence of late, proved instrumental once again in Cardiff's latest scalp, scoring one and setting up another to aid last weekend's commanding 4-0 win against Plymouth.

Brian Barry-Murphy is cracking the Cardiff City code with Chris Willock

Impressively, no more than six games into the new campaign, Barry-Murphy — a renowned developer of technically-proficient talent — is achieving something that both of his predecessors, Erol Bulut and Omer Riza, fell some way short of doing last season.

That, of course, is getting the best out of Willock, a player who was never really fit-for-purpose in Bulut's pragmatic, one-directional system and could not force his way into Riza's thinking on a consistent basis.

Indeed, Willock has often been hampered by inconsistency throughout his career; the winger was once regarded among the Championship's very best wingers after registering seven goals and 11 assists for QPR in the 2021/22 term, working in tandem with Moroccan playmaker Ilias Chair to routinely ignite Loftus Road, but he flittered away in his final two seasons in West London and is yet to return to such heights.

Now, however, he is threatening to do so. Barry-Murphy's system, which obsessively emphasises keeping hold of the ball but demands it to be moved quickly when openings are presented, is perfect for Willock, who has been entrusted as Cardiff's starting left-sided winger.

There, Willock is regularly handed the license to cut in onto his stronger left foot and receives encouragement to work the ball into the box or shoot at goal, which is why he has already equalled last season's tally after just two games. Never one to work hyper-diligently out-of-possession, those shortcomings are compensated for by the conservative presence of Joel Bagan at left-back, while star playmaker Rubin Colwill often likes to drift out to the left-hand side to support Willock and help the wide-man double up on his opposite number.

Quite simply, Barry-Murphy has cracked the code.

His system is designed to optimise technical talents such as Willock, while he has handed the divisive winger confidence, freedom and a new lease of life, which was sorely-needed after such an underwhelming start to life in South Wales.

Willock, at his best, has proven himself to be near-unplayable at Championship level. The regularity of that, of course, has been the issue, but the translation of that talent to League One is yielding the expected results and, should the consistency begin to follow, the rest of the division may just be seriously frightened.