Erol Bulut was hardly a name on most people’s lips when Cardiff City were searching for a new manager this summer, but at the moment, Bluebirds fans can’t stop talking about him.

Social media approval of the Turkish boss went up another notch at the weekend when Cardiff won their fourth successive match in the Championship.

It was enough to lift the club into the top six in the table and leave Bulut expressing his own delight at the team’s current form.

“Perfect” was his description of the four-match winning streak that now includes a 2-0 home victory over Rotherham.

“The last four [league] games, are going really well,” said Bulut. “But we can’t stop. We have to continue to work hard.

“I have said before, everything has to come together. It’s not easy to build something so quickly, and we still have to work.

“Today the opponent was staying tight. They tried not to allow many chances in the first half, and it wasn’t easy to open the defence. But when we got the first goal it was much easier to find some other chances. I am satisfied with the performance of my team today.”

 

The only dark cloud on the Bluebirds’ horizon at present are the injury worries around Aaron Ramsey.

The Wales captain has a knee problem, and Bulut confirmed that tests have shown Ramsey has suffered a ruptured tendon – meaning there will be no quick return to action for a player who has already been ruled out for three weeks.

 

It was a pretty decent weekend for both Welsh clubs in the Championship, since Swansea City made it back-to-back victories with an emphatic 3-0 win at Millwall.

After a winless seven-match stretch in charge, Duff seems to have hit the bottom and started floating back upwards as his team collected all three points in south London with goals from Jamal Lowe, Matt Grimes and Mykola Kukharevych.

The Swans are still only 19th in the table, but it’s a measure of their recent progress that despite that early string of poor results, their goal difference is now in the positive columns and stands at +1.

“It’s probably the best result of my Swansea tenure so far,” said Duff. “I thought we saw a bit more of how we wanted to perform. We played some really good football. The reaction has been good ever since the Cardiff game, where we let everyone down.

“We probably should have had three clean sheets and nine points since then. The players have stuck together through all of it.”

 

Life was a little more frenetic for the two Welsh clubs in League Two, however, with neither Wrexham nor Newport County able to pick up a win.

Wrexham were indebted to veteran striker Steve Fletcher for the late goal which secured a draw and a point at home to Crewe.

The Dragons were trailing 3-2 when Fletcher struck in 95th minute for a home side reduced to 10 men from the 36th minute after the red card shown to winger Ryan Bennett.

Wrexham’s matches certainly don’t lack drama at present, but manager Phil Parkinson would probably settle for a couple of quiet, low-key 1-0 victories for a team who the week before were beaten 5-0 by Stockport County.

“It was a day of immense character shown by the lads,” said Parkinson. “We questioned everything last week, but we answered a lot of those questions. In the second half I thought we were the better team. We had some great chances.

“If we hadn’t got a draw it would have been a bit of an injustice. I’m disappointed we didn’t win the game, even with 10 men, but more importantly for me it was the spirit, the determination, everything we have implemented over the last few years at the club was just great.”

 

Newport’s inconsistent opening to the season continued as they lost 2-1 at Salford City.

They moved back down to 19th in the table, five points behind Wrexham, who are ninth.

Newport manager Graham Coughlan felt his team were wrongly denied an equaliser when Will Evans’ effort was ruled out for offside.

“We’re absolutely fuming. Decisions like that don’t belong in the game,” said Coughlan. “Somebody needs to look at the decision, somebody needs to give us an honest explanation as to why the goal was disallowed.”

 

Achievement of the weekend must go to Wrexham women’s striker Rosie Hughes who scored all five goals as her team hammered Barry Town 5-1 to stay unbeaten in the Genero Adran Premier.

 

Cardiff Met beat Swansea City 3-1 to inflict the Swans’ first defeat of the season.