WARNOCK ALL SMILES AS CARDIFF KICK ON

NEIL WARNOCK has confidence coursing through Cardiff City after securing their place at the top of the Championship with a club record-breaking start to the season last night. Cardiff breezed past Sheffield United with goals from Sean Morrison and Nathaniel MendezLaing to make it three wins from the opening three league games for the first time in their history. This is a vastly different side to the one Warnock picked up from the relegation zone back in October and this was an assured victory. ‘When we turned up last year in October we had eight points, and now we’ve got that in a week,’ Warnock said. ‘We’re really pleased.’ Cardiff’s opener arrived just before half-time with captain Morrison — who seemingly won every ball in the air all night — rising the highest at Joe Ralls’s corner to power home a bullet header. Billy Sharp swept a first-time shot just wide for the Blades but it did not shake their dominant hosts. Warnock’s men kept piling on the pressure and were brilliantly rewarded by Mendez-Laing’s stunner on 55 minutes. The 25-year-old, a free transfer from Rochdale this summer, had been forced wide on the left but turned back on himself before curling the ball into Jamal Blackman’s bottom-right corner from 25 yards — his fourth goal in three games. Cardiff last played in the Premier League in 2014, and in his 50th year in football, Warnock has fans at his latest club excited about a potential promotion charge again.