Bluebirds upsetting

LEICESTER City, they said, couldn’t win the Premier League. They can’t keep it going, richer teams will soon haul them in in. But they did. And the others didn’t. Relevance? You kind of sense something similar is happening with Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City in the Championship this season.

For most of the campaign, right up to Tuesday night, the Bluebirds’ promotion prospects have been pretty much written off by the football world at large. Pundits and fans have spoken about the Premier League credentials of Wolves, Aston Villa, Fulham, even Middlesbrough. The bookies tipped the big-spenders.

Neil Warnock’s Bluebirds? They are that little irritant who just keep hanging on in there, punching above their weight but bound to fade away at some point.

Only they’re not fading, are they? Brentford are another scalp. Suddenly, with just nine games to go, Cardiff are seven points clear of Aston Villa and eight ahead of Fulham. CARDIFF City opened up a sevenpoint lead over third-placed Aston Villa this week after extending their winning run to seven matches by beating Brentford 3-1 at Griffin Park while Steve Bruce’s men suffered a shock 3-1 loss at home to Queens Park Rangers.

Wolves stay three points clear of the Bluebirds after beating Reading 3-0 at Molineux, and Fulham also remain in the hunt for an automatic promotion spot having won their last four Championship games in a row.

So with just nine league games left to play, there’s still everything to play for.

Here’s what managers of the sides

That’s a record equalling seven wins on the trot for the Bluebirds. Matches are running out for the Championship fat cats to catch them.

It must be demoralising in particular for Aston Villa and Fulham. Between them those two juggernauts have won 21 of their last 27 fixtures, yet every time they check the other results the notice Warnock’s aces have in the hunt for automatic promotion have said about the race for the Premier League this week...