Warnock: Sloppy stars can still keep the Bluebirds up

NEIL WARNOCK has told his players to “look in the mirror” and stop blaming others for the stupid mistakes that are threatening their chances of Premier League survival.

Horrendous back-to-back home defeats to Watford (5-1) and Everton (3-0) have pushed Cardiff back into the bottom three and forced Warnock to sit down with his players to thrash out a survival plan with 10 games to go.

Once the boss had his say, the players reconvened and held their own private inquest into recent performances. The Bluebirds head to Wolves today.

“I had a chat with all of them and put my point of view forward for the rest of the season. They stayed and had a chat amongst themselves afterwards,” said Warnock.

“They know they’ve been sloppy and it is a case of trying to rectify that. With players at any level, when they make mistakes, they don’t tend to look in the mirror.

“They look around and try to find someone else to blame. But they have to take a look at their own performance. There are a few lads who know they have underperformed and will be desperate to put things right.

“There are 10 games to go and we have to focus on ourselves. We do tend to shoot ourselves in the foot and I can’t remember conceding so many bad goals.”

Still fuming at not being awarded a firsthalf penalty against Watford, Warnock knows it will take a minor miracle to keep his side up.

The midweek defeat to Everton pushed them into the bottom three, two points adrift of Southampton and

Brighton in the safety zone.

“We have been in the bottom three before and don’t want to be there. We will be the underdogs in every game now, but are at our best when we are written off,”

Padded Warnock. “We have got to regroup and go again. We will get relegated if we play like we have done in the last two games. But if we play like we did in the two games before that, then our fans will be talking about getting into Europe.

“Because we have done better than people expected, the expectations have got bigger. My expectations are bigger because I think we should stay up. “It would be a miracle if we could stay up, even more so given what we have had to go through over the last few months. Tragic things have happened and we have to get on with it.”

Warnock was stopped by a club official from weighing into the latest allegations from former agent Willie Mckay about Cardiff ’s handling of the Emiliano Sala transfer and travel plans.

The club has now put the handling of the matter in the hands of a London-based PR company, as world governing body FIFA get involved in the dispute over the payment of a £15million transfer fee to Nantes.

The game at Wolves is one of six on the road in the run-in for Cardiff. They beat Wanderers 2-1 at home earlier in this campaign.

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