Erol Bulut needs to issue Cardiff City reprieve following 12-goal season: View
Cardiff City’s attackers seriously struggled in front of goal during the 2023/24 Championship season.
Despite coming 12th in the final table, the Bluebirds finished 16th in the overall second-tier scoring charts and relied on goals from across their squad, with 18 different players netted league goals throughout the campaign.
Erol Bulut has Callum Robinson, Yakou Meite and Kion Etete as his main in-contract centre-forward options for next season (although Robinson has featured more often than not in the number 10 role under Bulut), but none impressed last season as they netted a combined seven goals in the league.
That poor record means Bulut is likely to be in the market for a striker, as he was when bringing in Meite, Ike Ugbo and Karlan Grant on loan last summer, but the answer to his striker issues could be an existing player that is set to return to the club.
Isaak Davies has been on the Bluebirds’ books since 2008 and made his professional debut in October 2021, playing a peripheral role in the squad until last summer, when he joined Cardiff’s sister club K.V. Kortrijk on a loan deal until the end of the season.
The former-Wales U21 international seriously impressed in his nine-month Jupiler Pro League spell; so much so that he must have forced himself back into Bulut’s plans for next season in the Championship.
Isaak Davies has revitalised himself at Kortrijk
After four goals and three assists in 42 appearances across two seasons as he first became a regular in the Cardiff squad, it would have been understandable if there were initial reservations over Davies’ loan move to the Belgian top-flight as he got to grips with playing in a new environment.