Cardiff City head coach Brian Barry-Murphy has pledged to “surprise some people” upon their return to the Championship after promotion last campaign.

Cardiff are among the bookies favourites to return to League One this season, with some pundits also predicting the same, but the Bluebirds boss is more bullish about his side’s chances.

“We saw a lot of predictions this week which put us in the bottom two or bottom three – it’s not a problem for us to have predictions like that, but we’ll be looking to prove them wrong,” Barry-Murphy said.

“We’re under no illusions about how difficult the season is going to be – we’re not naive, we’re aware of the powerhouse teams we’re going to face.

“But the size of the challenge improves the size of our excitement. The bigger the challenge, the more we look forward to it.”

Perhaps the main reason that Cardiff are tipped to go down is their lack of transfer business this summer.

Barry-Murphy has only been able to bring in Nathan Trott – who was previously on loan last season – and Jack Moylan, with the club continuing to back the young squad that earnt promotion.

“I don’t think so,” said Barry-Murphy when asked if Cardiff were close to a new signing.

“If you start anticipating timings or what may or may not happen, you just waste a lot of your time and your energy.

“Our focus is purely on the game on Monday and making sure that anything that could or maybe would distract us, doesn’t.”

One thing that the Cardiff head coach is keen to stress though is that there are no expectations on his side.

“We don’t know,” he admitted when asked about what would constitute a successful season.

“I think one of the beauties of this season is that, for a lot of us, we’re going into the unknown.

“Our feeling is that we can surprise a lot of people. We have a real hunger and appetite to improve on what we did last season.”

Barry-Murphy said injured Wales forward Rubin Colwill could return for Wrexham’s visit, but fellow international Dylan Lawlor is unlikely to be fit to face the Red Dragons.

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