By Tom Prosser Cardiff City’s Will Vaulks admitted the style of play under previous manager Mick McCarthy made it difficult to “dictate” play from midfield and “wasn’t the style that was required”. The Bluebirds are currently on a nine game winless run and will be hoping to get back to winning ways at home to QPR on Wednesday evening. “Let’s be honest about it, under the previous manager, the midfield was bypassed a lot,” explained Vaulks.

By Paul Jones Ethan Laird enjoyed a successful loan spell at MK Dons playing under Russell Martin last season and he is now delighted to be playing a similar style of football again in South Wales.  The wing-back – on loan from Manchester United – has made a big impression early in his stint with the Swans, and teed up Jake Bidwell for the opener in the weekend win over Peterborough. Martin’s side have won plaudits for seeking to display a possession-based style, and they have dominated the share of the ball in the majority of their games so far this season.

By Paul Jones Gareth Bale is “raring to go” and on course to win his 100th cap for Wales after being named in Robert Page’s squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Belarus and Belgium. Bale has been out since 8 September after sustaining what was described by Page as a “significant hamstring tear”. But the Real Madrid manager, Carlo Ancelotti, says the forward may be involved in the La Liga match against Rayo Vallecano on Saturday and Page has named the 32-year-old in a 28-man squad for Wales’s vital double-header.

Jake Bidewell insists Swansea City will go from strength to strength after finally getting to grips with Russell Martin’s style of play. The Swans eased to a 3-0 home win over Peterborough on Saturday with goals from Bidewell, Joel Piroe, and Olivier Ntcham. They now travel to fourth-placed Coventry City on Tuesday night, looking to make further inroads into the narrow four-point gap between themselves and the play-offs.

By Tom Prosser Cardiff City’s Mark Harris says his side “Shouldn’t be down the bottom end of the table” as the Bluebirds look to build on their fightback against Stoke by ending their nine-game winless run against QPR on Wednesday. “Coming back from three-nil down is a much better feeling,” explains Harris. “Obviously, I’m disappointed with the offside goal at the end. That would’ve topped it off.

By Paul Jones New Newport County manager James Rowberry admitted his start to life as a manager has gone better than he could have dreamed of after a 5-0 home win over Stevenage maintained his 100 per cent record in the job.  After a 3-1 victory at Bristol Rovers in his first game in charge, Rowberry enjoyed a dominant display from his side in his first match in the dugout at Rodney Parade.  Dom Telford hit a hat-trick to take his tally for the season to 10 goals in 10 games, while long-range strikes from Courtney Baker-Richardson and Finn Azaz completed the rout. 

Tens of thousands of Welsh fans will flood into Cardiff over the next month to watch the nation’s football and rugby teams in action. Robert Page’s men will play two crucial World Cup qualifiers while Wayne Pivac’s players complete the four-match autumn series which kicked-off against New Zealand at the weekend. With so many high profile matches in the space of four weeks, the age old debate of whether Wales is a rugby nation or a football nation is sure to rage in the capital’s pubs and bars.

Russell Martin insists Swansea City are far from perfect, but they are moving in the right direction as well as up the Championship table. The Swans head coach saw his team win their fourth home game in a row with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Peterborough. Three first-half goals from Jake Bidwell, Joel Piroe and Olivier Ntcham were enough to move the club up to 13th in the Sky Bet Championship table.

Cardiff’s caretaker manager Steve Morison reckons being in charge of a team that had lost eight games in a row is “fun and exciting. Not quite fun enough yet for Morison to claim he fancies the job long term, but if the man in temporary charge can get his players to show the same spirit they found in adversity at Stoke City then he must be in with some sort of a shout. Cardiff salvaged a point in dramatic fashion against Stoke in a 3-3 thriller at the bet365 stadium.

Steve Morison has laid it on the line to his Cardiff City players ahead of their tough trip to Stoke on Saturday – “we can’t go nine from nine.” The former Wales striker was handed the hospital pass of taking charge for the next three games by the Bluebirds board after the departure of Mick McCarthy in the wake of last weekend’s 2-0 home defeat to Middlesbrough. That made it eight defeats in a row, and 19 goals conceded with none scored in the last five games. More worrying is the fact they are now only two points off the relegation zone in 21st place.

By Rob Carbon Steve Morison claims he hadn’t even been in the manager’s office at Cardiff City before he was handed the interim reigns for the next three games last weekend. Now the Bluebirds Under 23 coach has the job of trying to stop the rot at the Welsh capital club after eight successive league […]

By Lucy Rees In front of a record crowd of 5,455 people, Wales secured a 4-0 win and now sit second in Group I. Wales manager, Gemma Grainger says the campaign has been a “really strong assessment” so far. Wales were 1-0 up at halftime with a lovely finish from Angharad James. Helen Ward secured […]

Sophie Ingle has admitted not so long ago she would never have believed Wales could stand on the threshold of a record crowd by means of a fixture against Estonia. But that is exactly where Wales are poised to be for Tuesday night’s qualifier for the Women’s World Cup which is taking place at the Cardiff City Stadium. The Football Association of Wales are confident that the current highest attendance for a Wales women’s international match – the 5,052 who saw Wales play England at Rodney Parade in 2018 – will be eclipsed.

Of all the strange revelations given to Cardiff City supporters groups last weekend in a meeting with chairman Mehmet Dalman, surely the least surprising was that owner Vincent Tan has a preference for “a direct style of football.” Of course, he does. This is a man, lest we forget, who told the players when he met them back in 2016 to “shoot more”. Providing secretly mined data previously unknown to club coaches and analysts throughout European football, the Malaysian billionaire said: “If you shoot 30 times you’ll get three goals, 40 times will be four goals, 50 times and you’ll get five goals.

Chris Wilder has been installed as the bookies’ favourite to become the next manager of Cardiff City following the sacking of Mick McCarthy. The 54-year-old Wilder has not taken up a new managerial role since leaving Sheffield United in March, when the club were bottom of the Premier League. Middlesbrough’s 2-0 win over Cardiff on Saturday spelt the end for McCarthy, who had suffered a club record eight straight defeats.

Under fire Cardiff City boss Mick McCarthy admitted he rang up Steve Bruce before his 1,000th game as a manger because he wanted “to speak to someone who is feeling worse than me”. For Bruce it was 1,000 and out after the 3-2 home defeat for Newcastle United against Spurs and McCarthy could well follow him onto the dole queue if his side suffers an eighth successive defeat to Middlesbrough on Saturday. “I spoke to Steve the week before and I actually rang him because I thought I’d find someone who is feeling worse than me. He was top of my list,” said McCarthy.

By Lucy Rees Wales manager Gemma Grainger has warned her players Slovenia could be the dark horses of their World Cup group. Grainger heads into a tougher World Cup qualifying match in Lendava on Friday night after two successful results last month against Kazakhstan and Estonia. However, Slovenia could prove a far more difficult contest […]

Neil Warnock has told angry Cardiff City fans: “Be careful what you wish for.” The Bluebirds’ former manager returns to his old club for the first time with fans in the ground since he was sacked almost two years ago. Warnock brings his Middlesbrough side to the Welsh capital with many home fans having regularly called for current boss Mick McCarthy to be fired.

By Lucy Rees Sophie Ingle’s team sit second in the Group I table after two wins over Kazakhstan and Estonia last month, but preparations are well underway as they take on Slovenia on Friday night, in their 200th match and Estonia on Tuesday, hopefully in front of a big crowd. The women’s World Cup qualifying […]

By Tom Prosser Cardiff City lost their seventh straight league game last night away to Fulham and manager Mick McCarthy admitted that his future at the club is in serious doubt. The defeat marked the Bluebirds worst run of form since 1933. “It leaves me on the back end of a really horrible run of results,” said McCarthy. “And if football is true to its usual stuff then we know what happens.