Cardiff City should address contract concern amid January business

Cardiff City boss Erol Bulut’s contract is already coming towards an end after a relatively impressive first campaign in South Wales for the Turkish boss. Bulut was a left-field appointment ahead of this season, but he has surprised many in his first spell in Championship management.

On limited resources, he has managed to take Cardiff from relegation candidates to playoff outsiders, and they currently sit just three points outside the top six. The progress has been significant, but much of it could be lost of the Bluebirds don’t get a move on with contract talks.

Bulut was only appointed on a one-year deal ahead of this season, meaning he is out of contract this summer, and he is likely to be an attractive option based on the work he has done this season.

A new contract seems like an obvious move to most, but as Bulut detailed last week, talks have not been forthcoming. “I cannot make any plans for the new season. My plans can only be until the end of the season,” said Bulut.

“For future, I cannot make plans. It’s difficult to speak when I don’t know for the future if I’m here or not. I said I’m happy here. I think the fans know that because we’ve had many meetings together. I’d like to continue to make changes here, work together. We can make many changes, add many things to the club. It’s not easy to change everything from today to tomorrow but we’ve changed many things from the start of the season until today.”

He added: “We can see also that’s not enough for me. We have to continue to work, we have to invest to bring in quality players and bring young players through the academy to make a really good structure. For that to work, we need a plan. To make a plan work, we need to work together. My contract ends at the end of the season. We’ve not had any talks yet. It’s not up to me.”

Good managers are hard to come by, as Cardiff have found over recent years. This is one piece of business they should address urgently if they want to remain on an upward trajectory.