Erol Bulut Q&A: Cardiff City cannot lose Joe Ralls this summer and why next season’s planning must start
Everything the Bluebirds boss said ahead of the club’s clash with Preston North End
Cardiff City manager Erol Bulut spoke this afternoon ahead of the club’s clash with Preston North End this Saturday.
The Bluebirds will hope to continue their momentum this weekend after beating Watford at Vicarage Road last time out. With the new players having had a week to bed in, Bulut hopes City fans will see more quality from them at Cardiff City Stadium this weekend.
Q. Is Perry Ng OK?
Perry Ng is OK but we have a small problem with Macca (Mark McGuinness). He has a small pain, so we will see if we can have him on Saturday with us.
Until now, our centre backs we had only two, they played all the games, 90 minutes. We have been lucky we didn’t get injuries before. Now there are a lot of games and he is still young, only 22, he has played a lot of games and had a really good season. I hope it’s not something serious.
Q. Good thing Nat Phillips is here now then?
Yeah. Nat came here and he had a bit of a problem last week, but he is feeling well and will be with us.
Q. Ralls back?
Joe Ralls trained today with us without any problems. We have to check again tomorrow, but I think he will be OK.
Q. Callum Robinson?
He started sessions on the field with the physios, he is running and doing well. But he is not yet with us.
Callum O’Dowda is with the physios and training. He is not yet with us, training.
Q. How different has it been this week on the back of a win?
This win has given us a lot of confidence. We needed it. When we see the last few games, the players were frustrated. We didn’t have enough players, we had injuries and some players could not be replaced. They were waiting for a few transfers to come in for a better squad.
I said it many times in press conferences and now we have the players in who have good quality for that price that we had – the limit – we got good players in.
They helped us last week against Watford in the second half, this week they will get minutes and will give more, because last week some of them have only had one or two days training and a lot of travelling for them.
Q. Ethan Horvath available?
His visa is fixed so he will be available for us.
Q. Cardiff fans, will they see a different team this Saturday?
We have to see the opponent. We play against Preston, they are a team who press high with good speed and are physically a good team. We can’t forget our first game up there. We have to be good against them, physically and tactically.
There can be a different shape on Saturday against them.
Q. Aaron Ramsey itching to start?
He was expecting a few minutes (against Watford) – but the game was not the game for him. This weekend it can be different.
Q. Rubin Colwill, he’s produced some moments of real quality, he’s reacted to your comments earlier in the season?
He is trying. It is not easy for an offensive player to focus on defence. We need everyone in defence and attack. We spoke many times with Rubin and he is doing well, he is trying. Still last week, he jumped a little bit out and tried to make too many things. You need your energy at the right moments, not to waste it so easy. If he can manage to use his energy well at the right moments, he will be much, much better.
Q. A lot of options there now…
We have Rambo, David (Turnbull), Rubin. Now we have a few players that we can use in that position and we can rotate, to not get injuries, so one player doesn’t play three or four games in a row. February is now really tight, we have five games until the end of the month. Every three days there is a game so we can rotate.
Q. What does Turnbull bring?
First of all he had three years at Celtic in a big team, the Scottish league. He is 24 and also experienced. He played many games and scored and assisted many goals. In the offensive part he will bring us attempts to try and score or score himself. He can read the game and has quality with his passing accuracy and ability to keep the ball. He can make it quick and slow when we need him to be. He can do both sides. He will be really effective for us.
Q. Will signings have to be patient?
For sure. We can not expect Saturday for the new players to come in and expect everything from them. We are training one week together, but you can’t expect everything from them. But we have to help them. We have to be patient.
