"Mess" - Exclusive: Don Goodman drops concerned Cardiff City, League One prediction | OneFootball

Sky Sports' Don Goodman spoke exclusively to Football League World about Cardiff City's promotion ambitions in League One next season

Cardiff City will be preparing for life in English football's third-tier for the first time in more than 20 years after finishing the 2024/25 Championship campaign in dead-last position.

It's a step into the unknown for the Bluebirds, who have not actually played in League One since its rebranding.

There is understandable concern about how the Welsh club may fare following a historically dismal season in the Championship, which saw three separate managers in situ in Erol Bulut, Omer Riza and caretaker boss Aaron Ramsey, and disconnect between supporters and the club's hierarchy is at an all-time high amid numerous fan-led protests over the course of the season.

Cardiff, who were relegated alongside Plymouth Argyle and Luton Town, are the only one of those three sides to not currently have a permanent manager in place, with renowned global sports agency Wasserman assisting the club's search for a successor to Riza.

Just as concerning is the estimation that the Bluebirds had the Championship's seventh-highest wage bill last season, and even though chairman Mehmet Dalman has insisted the club will not have to asset strip this summer with a number of "core" players committed to staying put, a squad rebuild still awaits ahead of City's most daunting period of transition and reset to date.

Don Goodman issues concerning Cardiff City, League One prediction

Sky Sports pundit Don Goodman is concerned about how Cardiff could fare in League One next term. In Goodman's view, the Bluebirds are in no fit state to compete for automatic promotion at this moment in time owing to the managerial situation and additional uncertainty regarding both the budget and just how many players will depart.

Although Goodman recognises all of those factors are subject to change and clarity, he believes that the situation is "all a bit of a mess".

"I would say, at this stage, it's probably going to be hard to back Cardiff City to get promoted or be in contention in League One next season under these circumstances," Goodman explained when speaking exclusively to Football League World.

"They don't have a head coach, we don't know which players are staying, which players are going. We don't know what the budget is for them to bring players in, it's all a bit of a mess really.

"It would be very, very hard to predict that they will be automatic promotion contenders at this stage.

"Maybe as the summer goes on and we find out who the head coach is and how many of the better players are staying.

"But at this point, it's hard to say."

Cardiff City need to get it right in 25/26

Cardiff may well be preparing for their biggest season in the club's recent history. Notoriously, sides who drop from the Championship - particularly those of a strong standing such as Cardiff - tend to get stuck down in League One for some time after failing to escape through the promotion trapdoor at the first attempt, and the Bluebirds simply must avoid suffering a similar fate.

It's easy, of course, to see exactly why many are fearing that precise outcome, which intensifies the urgency for Cardiff to finally get it right on all fronts. That need is all-encompassing; the importance of appointing the right manager after having nseven permanent bosses since the start of 2021, approaching the squad rebuild correctly and recruiting the right players and characters for both immediate and longer-term success and, perhaps most fundamentally, addressing the perceived chronic deficit in footballing nous, knowledge expertise and strategy at boardroom level all cannot be understated.

There is significant pressure upon Cardiff's key decision-makers, perhaps more so than ever before, to finally learn from past mistakes, with the current predicament allowing for next to no margin for error.

In an ideal world, Cardiff could have the requisite tools and resources to achieve promotion. It's a talented squad littered with young, high-potential players from both the academy and sourced externally in an increasingly youth-centred recruitment drive of recent years, while one would suspect Cardiff to have a strong budget by League One standards and a natural pull power above many of their peers.