Cardiff City and Blackburn Rovers will both be looking to recover from back-to-back losses when they face off in South Wales on Saturday afternoon. The Bluebirds crashed 5-0 to Sheffield Wednesday last time out, while Blackburn were soundly beaten 2-0 by Bournemouth.
Cardiff’s thumping defeat at the hands of second-bottom Sheffield Wednesday was a real shock for the Bluebirds. Cardiff conceded as many goals in their 5-0 defeat to Wednesday as they had in their previous 10 league matches combined. Blackburn come into this one with one win across their last 14 matches.
Rovers have scored just once across their last five games, which has scuppered their chances of a top six finish. Rovers have seen 60% of their home games finish with under 2.5 goals scored, while each of their last nine have seen fewer than three goals. Cardiff’s hopes of going up have all but gone too after failing to score in three of their last four.
The Bluebirds were thrashed 5-0 by Sheffield Wednesday earlier this week, their biggest loss of the season. Darren Moore's side were rampant, racing to a 3-0 lead in the opening stanza before scoring two more goals to deal the Welsh outfit a hammer blow. Even though they remain in eighth position, back-to-back losses have allowed Millwall to close the gap on them. The only thing separating the sides is goal difference.
In 71 meetings between the sides, the spoils are closely shared, with Cardiff winning 24 times against Blackburn and losing another 26. They played out a goalless stalemate earlier in the campaign but the corresponding fixture last year resulted in a 3-2 win for the visitors.
Mick McCarthy deserves huge praise for guiding Cardiff up the table in his three months in charge, but the manner of Monday's loss at Hillsborough would have hurt the Yorkshireman.
City quite simply did not turn up and were three goals down inside 23 minutes en route to what McCarthy described as a "humbling experience" for his players. The five goals conceded against Wednesday was as many as McCarthy's men had let in across their previous 10 league games combined.