Cardiff aim to leave Fulham in their wake in surge for promotion
Cardiff City look to take another stride towards promotion as they travel to Sheffield United today.
Neil Warnock’s side have won their past eight games and could move 10 points clear of third-placed Fulham with another victory.
Beating Sheffield United, one of Warnock’s former clubs, would put the Welsh side three points off leaders Wolves, who are not in action until hosting Hull tomorrow.
Nathaniel Mendez-laing, who scored in the 3-1 win over Burton on Friday, said: “We’ve got eight games to go. We just need to keep pushing and see what happens.”
The hosts, who are ninth in the table, will have plenty of incentive themselves as the battle for play-off places heats up.
Just two points separate Derby in fifth from Preston in 10th before the sides meet today at Deepdale.
Derby, contenders for automatic promotion early in the year, are clinging on to a play-off spot after a poor recent run, which continued with a shock 4-1 defeat against relegation-threatened Sunderland on Friday.
“The beauty of football is that we have another game on Monday. We have to put it right,” said defender Curtis Davies. “It’s now eight without a win, and it’s getting a bit boring, having these same boring talks. It’s about time we put a win on the board and started concentrating on this play-off place.”
Preston’s 4-1 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday on Friday was their first away loss since November, and manager Alex Neil realises the significance of today’s match.
“The game is going to be about who handles the pressure, and who can perform under the pressure, as much as anything else,” he said.
“There is very little fear in our squad. We have been the team that has been chasing for quite a while now, so we haven’t got anything in our grasp at the moment that we can let go of. We are still hunting and chasing down the pack.
“When you look at Derby, they are very different, they have spent a lot of money. Gary [Rowett] has come in and got them into a good position, but they have struggled of late in terms of results and they will be looking to try and put that right, and their fans will be expecting them to put that right.”
Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce has not given up on automatic promotion ahead of his side’s game with Reading tomorrow.
“Cardiff have been on an amazing run, but they’ve got some tough games on the horizon, and they have still to come to ours, so you can never say never,” he said. “Unfortunately at the worst possible time, we haven’t picked up enough points so now we’re playing catchup, it’s as simple as that.”
Middlesbrough, Bristol City and Millwall are the other sides firmly in the picture.