Seething Erol Bulut vows to make big Cardiff City changes and makes deadline day admission
The Bluebirds boss spoke after the 2-0 defeat by Middlesbrough
Erol Bulut vowed there would be big changes after the international break after Cardiff City's defeat by Middlesbrough represented the fourth Championship game in a row without a win.
Saturday's defeat means Cardiff will remain rooted to the bottom of the table for the next fortnight. It's not the start Bulut envisaged after signing his new deal in the off-season and making eight summer additions.
Cardiff's league record now reads four games, zero wins, 10 goals conceded and just one goal scored. It's not pretty at all. And this latest defeat against Boro has some fans calling for major changes in their next game, against Derby County, and it looks like that will be the case.
"We didn't take our chances to score," he said. "I think first half it was a game where both sides didn't create chances. Second half, first 10, 15 minutes we had three or four positions to score. Then if you concede a goal from a set piece, then an own goal, which is unlucky, but when we get a chance to score you have to score, this is a problem we have right now.
"How we spoke always about statistics, because statistics are nothing, we can speak about statistics and then everything is different. You have to score goals. And if not you have to run to get the result. And it's not easy against a quality team.
"We have to ask the players individually (why they can't score). Now we have to maybe analyse the statistics of individual players. We can speak about details. There will be changes for sure after the international break and everyone has to accept it.
"Ollie Tanner was good, he did well when he came in. Rubin (Colwill) tries a lot but still we cannot have it from only two or three players. Everyone has to be involved. Sio [Manolis Siopis] had a lot of work today and with a yellow card he managed it well, but he needs support. Maybe we have to speak now about stats of individual players. We don't have consistency."
Some supporters are perhaps understandably questioning why Bulut opted for the same starting XI which began the game so poorly against Swansea was fielded against Boro, particularly when Tanner, Colwill and Callum Robinson did so well in that game.
Quizzed about his team selection, Bulut said: "Everybody was expecting that I started with two different players, maybe with Rubin and Ollie Tanner.
"Nobody knew Callum Robinson only trained with us once this week. He had an injury on his Achilles. Everybody speaks but they don’t know what is happening. We are with the players every day. We have to think about everything.
"I told those players I need consistency from them. If you continue to show it, then you will play from the first minute, but I need to see a performance from the first minute to the 90th minute. We are thinking differently."
When asked if certain players who are given a chance every week are producing performances 90 minutes which warrant their selection, he simply replied: "Four games we’ve played. Now I will look at the statistics. We will analyse them and there will be changes."
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