With Neil Warnock newly anointed as chief can Cardiff begin their comeback against Bristol on Friday evening?

Having finished in a respectable 8th place last season Cardiff could have quite rightly expected to push for promotion this year. Instead they already find themselves embroiled in the Championship’s relegation battle, taking a paltry 8 points from a potential 33. A 2-0 away loss against Burton Albion was the final straw, causing Paul Trollope to be booted out of a job he only got over the summer. Lower league specialist Warnock has been airlifted in, then, to prevent Cardiff’s calamitous start form turning into a full blown crisis.



The Robins, on the other hand, have been the mirror image of Cardiff. After finishing in 18th place last season expectations were hardly high ahead of 2016/17. Yet Bristol find themselves in 5th place and only 3 points away from one of the automatic promotion spots, the seeds Lee Johnson sowed in the second half of last season coming to fruition. They also have the Championship’s most in-form forward, with Tammy Abraham, on-loan from Chelsea, scoring 8 goals in 11 games (with an added 3 in the EFL Cup).

Given that the international break has provided Warnock with around 10 days to work on rescuing his new charges fans will be expecting some signs of improvement on Friday. However, it’s unlikely to be enough, with Spreadex offering a Bristol City/Cardiff (h) Goal Supremacy spread of 0-0.2 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.4-2.6.

Warnock isn’t the only manager making his re-debut this weekend. No, after abandoning Hull over the summer Steve Bruce is back in business, his new task trying to stop the rot from spreading at Aston Villa, who host Wolves on Saturday afternoon. Villa haven’t been quite as bad as Cardiff; however, for a once great Premier League club, 1 win, 3 losses and 7 draws is an awful return, bad enough for Roberto Di Matteo to be given the chop on Wednesday.



Luckily for Bruce Wolves have been middling at best themselves. Walter Zenga’s side have struggled in the past couple of weeks, with back to back losses against Wigan and Norwich. They have, however, pulled off a few big wins this season, most notably a 2-0 victory over Newcastle at St James Park. Our traders feel that the presence of Bruce should be enough to lift the spirits at Villa Park on Saturday, offering an Aston Villa/Wolves Goal Supremacy spread of 0.45-0.65 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.45-2.65.