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Russell Slade’s reign in charge of Cardiff City initiated back in October of 2014 and Vincent Tan is already looking for alternatives as Slade is under intense scrutiny after having sustained a number of disappointing results that has turned the future of Russell Slade in serious doubt.

The managerial contract of Slade expires in the summer of this ongoing year and it seems extremely unlikely that he will be offered a contract extension. The supporters of Cardiff City want to see Russell Slade gone and replaced by a new manager as soon as possible and now the owner of the club, Vincent Tan is starting to look at what options he has at his disposal.

Vincent Tan was the man who selected Russell Slade as the new coach of Cardiff City back in 2014 but his time is reaching it’s end and even with the support that Vincent Tan has displayed towards the English manager, it might not be enough for Russell Slade to keep his job.

Cardiff City suffered a 0-1 FA Cup defeat against ShrewsburyTown back in January 10 and this result was a huge blow for Russell Slade as the pressure around him continued to escalate even further after having performed at such a mediocre level.

Even if Russell Slade somehow manages to push Cardiff City into the playoff’s and snatch a promotion spot that would allow the club to compete in the upcoming season of the Premier League, it’s believed and rumored that Slade is still going to be removed from his managerial position as the pressure that the fans of Cardiff City are building is just too much for Vincent Tan and the Malaysian businessman has to make a change happen in next season in order to regain the trust of the fans and help build a better future for Cardiff City and attempt to secure a manager who can get more consistent results with the team.

Dimitar Berbatov has been one of those players who have been rarely sent off in their careers.
But, the Bulgaria international suffered that punishment while appearing for PAOK in the top division Football in Greece last week.

Berbatov, who had come onto the ground only after the half time break, was considered the guilty of deliberately hurting one of the opposition players with his elbow by the referee.

The rules in Greece Football say that in case of a red card, a player can’t take part in the following three games that his team plays.

It means the next game that Berbatov can play now is the Cup game against Panionios which will take place on 11th of February.

As Berbatov is not quite used to these red cards, it was normal for him to be frustrated by that and after the game, he did something which was quite strange.

In a post on social media, Berbatov asked the questions to himself as if he was some media person and then, answered the questions himself too as a player.

He did so reacting to the criticism that had been happening of him after the red card.

In his answers, Berbatov refused to admit that the commitment had been lacking on his part as some people had been saying.

According to Berbatov, he always represents his club with full passion and to blame him for insufficient commitment is quite stupid.

However, Berbatov was of the view that he could have reacted better in that particular situation and possibly could have avoided the red card, but, his nerves got better off him at that point.

The last time that Berbatov had been in a red card scenario was more than a decade back when he was playing for Bayer Leverkusen.

Cardiff City have struggled for consistency in the Championship but it has been down to the absence of many important players over the course of the season.

One of them is striker Federico Macheda, who was expected to make a significant change in the title race. However, he has featured in only two games in the Championship. Restricted due to injuries, the striker recently made a successful comeback to the first-team. It may have been only a minute’s appearance in the 2-2 draw against Burnley, but it is a good start nonetheless.

Macheda says that he is glad to have put his injury owes behind him and wants to concentrate on scoring goals for Cardiff. The former Manchester United striker has struggled with injuries throughout his career. It was one of the primary reasons behind United letting him go even though he made one of the best debuts for the club in recent memory. Even though there was a positive in the form ofMacheda, the result was certainly not good for Cardiff. Despite leading the game with a two-goal advantage, they allowed themselves to get pegged back. The draw certainly does not help lift the mood around the club.

Even though these were two more dropped points, Cardiff will remain hopeful of returning to the play-off places.”Personally, I’m feeling good. I had my operation around 12 weeks ago now and finally I’m through it and feeling great. I’m looking forward to getting even fitter and contributing to the team.I had a run-out with the development team ahead of getting out in front of the fans for a few minutes against Burnley. It’s always a great feeling getting back after injury – I was very pleased with that. We were disappointed after Burnley as with five minutes to go we were 2-0 up,” saidMacheda.

Yannick Ferreira Carrasco scored his second league goal for Atletico Madrid in the 2-1 win over Valencia. Later, he thanked manager Diego Simeone for helping him find his scoring touch that had gone missing until now.

Atletico are very keen on rediscovering the winning form in the league. Their title defence mounted to nothing last season andSimeone has been backed with a large amount of funds in the summer in order to reclaim the league title. Carrasco is one of the several signings made in the summer by the Spanish club.

He signed a five-year contract after coming from Monaco, but many doubted the possibility of the Belgian international becoming a success in the Spanish league. He took a long time to score his first goal in the league. It came in the game against Real Sociedad a few weeks ago. This goal, however, seems to have given him a large amount of confidence. It has taken him only 90 more minutes of action to add another goal to his name.Carrasco also created one goal in the Champions League game against FC Astana. After being one of the best players on the pitch for the last two consecutive matches, the 22-year-old is fast becoming a first-team regular.

“At first it was hard for me. I continue working and I hope to play the whole championship. Simeone has given me the confidence and told me I had to [shoot] to score goals like I did today. People sing my name and I’m happy. [It] was a nice goal.The last 30 minutes were very difficult for us. Valencia came with confidence, they had to score, but we played the game and we did well,” said Carrasco. This victory means Atletico remain two points behind Barcelona and Real Madrid after nine matches.

Following the conclusion of the English Championship season, Cardiff City’s Russell Slade has had a number of meetings with the head chiefs of the club including the chairman, Mehmet Dalman and with the owner of the club Vincent Tan.

These talks that have been held were established with the purpose of discussing the summer plans as well as the transfer budget that will be given to Russell Slade so he can improve his squad and hopefully earn a promotion spot into the Premier League.

Vincent Tan and Mehmet Dalman have already been very clear in their desire of pushing Cardiff City back to the Premier League but in order for this to happen, Russell Slade and his team will have go through a consistent season with positive results but they are aiming to make it happen in the next season which kicks off on August 8.

Cardiff City has been linked with a number of players that might be signed in the summer including: Johnny Russell, Nathan Byrne, Albert Ellis and Daryl Murphy just to name a few of the players who are linked with the English Championship League club.

Russell Slade was given the permission to sign at least 3 players in the summer and they are expected to be: a winger, a forward and a central midfielder as those are the positions in the squad of Russell Slade that have seemed to be in most need of having an upgrade.

The 32 year old forward of Ipswich Town, Daryl Murphy scored 27 goals for his club in the previous season and Cardiff City displayed interest in signing but the English Championship League club seems to be no longer keen on signing the veteran forward as Ipswich Town want at least €4 million and Cardiff City has started searching around for another player who can be signed at a cheaper price.

Queens Park Rangers earned their promotion spot to this season of the Premier League after having finished in the 4th spot of the English Championship League as they qualified for the play-offs and eventually had to play against Wigan Athletic in the semi-finals. QPR defeated Wigan Athletic and advanced to the finals where they emerged as the victorious side after claiming a 1-0 triumph over Derby County in the finals.

This was enough for QPR to progress from the Championship League and into the Premier League.
Their promotion to the Premier League has not been a memorable one as QPR is located in the bottom spots of the top tier league of England and relegation is edging closer and closer for the team of Chris Ramsey.

The captain of Queens Park Rangers, Joey Barton believes that one of the main reasons of why his squad has been performing so disastrously in comparison to how they did in the Championship League is due to a poor pre-season and not being able to sign good enough players.

Joey Barton said: “The thing that you have to do in between getting promoted and getting back to the Premier League is to have an incredible pre-season and recruit really well.For all the effort in the world, sometimes you come up short.’’

Even though Joey Barton is the captain of QPR, Barton himself is uncertain if his squad will be able to survive for another season in the Premier League as the upcoming opponents of QPR are not going to be east for the team of Chris Ramsey to secure points.

Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Leicester City are the remaining opponents of QPR and they have to collect points in order to continue competing in the Premier League for another season.

Cardiff City manager Russell Slade has risked the wrath of the supporters by suggesting that they should not expect play-offs this season.

After getting relegated to the Championship last season, the club have been struggling to live up to the early-season expectations. Even after the appointment of Slade midway through the campaign, results have not improved. The club are now struggling in the 16th position with no victories in the last five matches.

This poor run of form is threatening to pull their club in the opposite direction with relegation becoming a distinct reality.

The club are only six points away from Millwall in the final relegation spot, but Slade says that he is confident that the club will not be pulled into a relegation battle at the end of the season. There were a number of departures from the club during the January and it appeared to be a sign of the club accepting defeat in their efforts to return to the Premier League at the end of the season. After falling 16 points behind the final play-off spot, Slade has accepted defeat stating that Cardiff will now try to end the season on a high. The acceptance came after the 0-0 draw against Brighton, who are struggling at the bottom of the table.

“I wouldn’t say it’s gone but it’s looking unrealistic.We’ve got to put some real consolidated run together to get us up there.It doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It can happen, teams have done it before.At the minute we don’t look like we’re capable of doing that. We need to be picking up wins. I think we have enough ability, collective togetherness, character and desire to look upwards and get us up to the top half of the table. All I can say is to finish as high as we can and accumulate as many points as we can,” said Slade.

Marcelo has been in line with Brazil’s tradition of attacking full-backs and it was not surprising that he started in all but one of Brazil’s World Cup 2014 matches.

The arrival of Dunga as the replacement for Luiz Felipe Scolari has had disastrous consequences for the Real Madrid left back. Marcelo has since not featured for the Brazilian national team since Dunga became the new coach in July 2014. When quizzed about his absence, Dunga stated that the 26-year-old was not offering enough solidarity in the defence since he is concentrating much on attack.

Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti, though, does not seem to have any problems with Marcelo’s attacking instincts. The defender continues to remain as part of the first-team plans at the Santiago Bernabeu. He has already featured in 21 matches across three different competitions. Even though he is yet to score this season, Marcelo has already contributed six assists which is an impressive figure for a defender.After the embarrassing 7-1 defeat against Germany in the World Cup semi-final, Brazil have been focusing on a solid foundation at the back. Dunga has recalled a number of former players like Kaka and Robinho since taking over.

His first competitive matches do not start until the summer when Brazil play in the Copa America.”How many times did Marcelo go into attack [at the World Cup]? Twenty. How many goals did he score or create? None. How many times were we caught out with balls going over our defenders’ backs? Three or four.You don’t have to be a genius [to see the problems]. It’s not that I don’t like players who attack. But you need to score to win. It’s not a question of Marcelo, it’s everybody. You have to be efficient,” said Dunga while explaining the continued absence of Marcelo.

It seems like the time of the manager of Cardiff City, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is reaching its end as the Norwegian coach is going through serious pressure and after picking up successive defeats in the Championship League, rumors are making their way through websites and newspaper all over the globe claiming that Gunnar Solskjaer could be sacked within the next few days.

Cardiff City faced successive defeats in the Championship League against Norwich City and Middlesbrough and has been struggling trying to keep themselves away from the bottom spots of the English League. Last season Cardiff City managed to perform in the top tier league of England at the Premier League but suffered relegation and was dropped but the head officials of the club want to return to the Premier League, this objective will not be achieved if they continue on losing matches.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer knows that his time at Cardiff City is ticking down as the Norwegian revealed details about the current situation of the club.

The Norwegian manager said: ‘’If you don’t get results of course you are under pressure. We didn’t expect to be sitting where we are after seven games. We knew there were some tough fixtures in there but we expected more of a return than one point from four games. You have to be confident. I’m responsible and I should get better results than this; [better] than what we’ve had in the first seven games. I won’t sleep a lot after this because the performances and where we are in the league hasn’t been good enough’’

Vincent Tan is the owner of Cardiff City and he will be having meetings and personal discussions with Ole Gunnar Solskajer where the future of the Norwegian manager is going to be examined and it will later revealed to the public if whether or not he will remain in charge of Cardiff City for the remainder of the season or if Tan decides to appoint someone else as the new coach of the Championship League team.

Fabio Da Silva has claimed that he believes that Cardiff city have enough quality in the ranks to be able to achieve promotion in the first attempt. The club were relegated from the Premier League after just one season in the top flight. Fabio, who spent last season on loan at the club, made the move permanent from Manchester United in January 2014. This is the first time he will not be with his brother Rafael Da Silva during the pre-season. Despite this, Fabio is hoping that Cardiff can return to the top flight as soon as possible.

Cardiff looked like being able to survive in the top division midway through the campaign, but their season was thrown into a lot of confusion after Cardiff owner fell out with manager Mackay. This led to Mackay being sacked despite results having been acceptable. The arrival of the inexperienced Solskjaer meant that the club were unable to prevent relegation. The off-season, though, has been promising so far after the club has made key signings like Federico Macheda. The Italian striker, who comes on a free transfer from Manchester United, says that the presence of Solskjaer was crucial in coming to Wales.

The Italian striker has proven to be a good goalscorer at this level and his presence may help Cardiff achieve their dream of promotion back to the top flight. “I believe in the plan they have for our future here. Everyone in the team wants us to bounce back and I really hope we will bounce back this season. When I’m back home in Brazil I always play [football] with friends. I still keep on working so I feel great. Every game I have to impress the manager and work hard every day because that’s what pre-season is about,” said Fabio Da Silva.