Potential Cardiff City key emerges in spirited Sunderland victory: Opinion | OneFootball

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So, just how do you accentuate Cardiff City's remarkable recent ascension during the early stages of the 2023/24 Championship campaign?

For the first time in what feels an eternity, Bluebirds fans are in unison, bound by excitement and optimism as to what beckons on the renewed horizon.

No longer is the emphasis upon firefighting for another season, narrowly staving off the Armageddon of relegation to League One only to fail to learn lessons and do the same all over again.

No longer do supporters scan in through the turnstiles expecting defeat week after week either, merely attending to socialise and fill the weekends as opposed to genuinely believing they'll see the football warranted from their consistent hard-earned payments to the cause.

And no longer do Cardiff struggle to find their identity.

They've definitely had an identity crisis over the years, paling in comparison to their rivals down west in Swansea City with an all-too-transparent philosophy that routinely came up trumps in the one-sided South Wales Derby showdowns that were contested for some time.

On that front, the guard has notably shifted this term as explicated through Cardiff's tide-turning triumph a little over a week ago cementing Ollie Tanner as a hero in these quarters and simply cementing Aaron Ramsey's legendary status.

It was a welcome change given that Cardiff had been unable to unearth their own distinction for far too long.

Under Neil Warnock, an unlikely promotion was clinched that was bliss in the moment before the football became wearisome; Steve Morison's style was more progressive - though results were anything but - Sabri Lamouchi contrastingly went direct to keep Cardiff in the league last season, and the less said about Mick McCarthy the better.

Meanwhile, Neil Harris and Mark Hudson, both of varying degrees of success it must said, were somewhere in between you feel, further underlining Cardiff's characteristic failings.

As far as philosophies on the pitch go, they appear to have finally cracked it with the appointment of highly-regarded Turkish boss Erol Bulut, who has pulled no punches and pulled up plenty of trees ever since arriving in Wales.

What is Cardiff City's style of play under Erol Bulut?

The Bluebirds have arrested any associations with a negative brand of football by deploying a more intricate modus operandi that sees them often strive to build from the back, control the tempo with the ball in midfield and disassemble opposing defensive lines not with long balls, but instead with pacey and precise passing into small pockets of space.

Most importantly, though, they're now a dynamic, front-footed attacking outfit.

Gone are the days of Cardiff's wide players being too afraid to take a man on - young underdog Ollie Tanner has set the example for others to follow in that regard, and equally etched in the past is the lack of dynamism, thrust and real spark of creativity in the midfield engine room that often prohibited them from being progressive and fluid in their forward plays.

Another important factor is that we're now finally seeing the very best being juiced out of some of Cardiff's finest operators, too.

As you'd expect, Aaron Ramsey is the side's creative orchestrator and has thrived in an attacking midfield role with wingers often drifting inside to support, and very minimal defensive responsibilities that would've most likely been amplified under previous management.

Meanwhile, Manolis Siopis provides the perfect complement to Ramsey's incisive and inventive talents.

A real Duracell bunny of a midfield player, his unwavering willingness to break up play and screen the defence has come up trumps ever since moving from Trabzonspor, but he's also got a knack for helping the team advance upfield on and off the ball due to his energy, and his passing range enables Cardiff to stretch the pitch more and ultimately make them the expansive outfit Bulut wants them to be.

But crucially, Bulut's also realistic enough to know that they won't always be that side as he showed in Sunday's win up at Sunderland and that already seems yet another significant turning point in their campaign to date.

What did Cardiff City find out in their victory over Sunderland?

Cardiff's latest victory away at Sunderland - their third on the bounce, no less - underlined a multi-faceted side with vital variation to their play, and while it bears three points once again, it feels like something much, much more.

The old saying goes that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and Cardiff did just that while reverting from the tactical structure that has been embedded across the summer.

On the face of it, Cardiff didn't deserve to win, with Tony Mowbray's Sunderland dominating proceedings across the board by totalling 66% possession, 585 accurate passes - over 300 more than Cardiff - 16 shots at goal and a subsequent xG of 1.21, which was markedly higher than Bulut's side prior to late missed chances from Ryan Wintle and Tanner.

But calling Cardiff's victory unjustified would just be a much more basic and unconscious way of summarising a side that showed they have more than one string to their bow.

They may have faced a real onslaught, but that was not unexpected - they simply planned for it.

Cardiff travelled to the North East fully aware of what the Mackems would throw in their direction; speed, precision, attacking verve, a more-refined emphasis upon maintaining the lion's share of possession and notably, a vociferous home crowd of no less than 41,000, too.

You simply can't underestimate the impact of that.

But ultimately, Cardiff prepared for what they faced by deploying a low block, where they successfully soaked up the pressure by putting more bodies behind the ball and taking fewer risks with - instead waiting for the right chance to present itself.

It did, through a set-piece - another aspiration of improvement of Bulut's - and the 500-strong cohort of hardy Bluebirds fans who made the daring trip up to Wearside were left in raptures when Mark McGuinness reigned supreme in the air to head in Wintle's corner delivery in the 87th minute.

Further chances were carved out in counter-attacking situations in the dying embers of the game, where Tanner's directness and the creative cross-field passing from substitute Rubin Colwill just enabled Cardiff to open the game up that little bit more.

And so Cardiff returned from the Stadium of Light with more fire in their bellies than ever before.

The aforementioned Derby Day triumph over Swansea restored bragging rights and incited natural celebrations of pure, unbridled euphoria while highlighting the potential turnover in Welsh club football, but Cardiff's last two matches were always going to be strongly definitive and indicative.

Cardiff had initially struggled to chalk points on the board amid a nightmarish selection of fixtures to kick-start the season which encompassed daunting trips to Leeds United, Leicester City and Ipswich Town in their first five games, but those fixtures always felt like more of a free hit and were never going to tell you all that much about Cardiff given what they were up against. Barring an even more drastic and unprecedented upturn in fortunes, sides of that calibre appear untouchable for Cardiff.

As such, then, facing up and locking horns with two sides that'll also be harbouring the objective of finishing in and around the premises of the play-offs in Coventry City and Sunderland supplements a much-fairer barometer to measure the level that they're at.

So too does the fact that Cardiff have now showed their ability to switch up the style when circumstances dictate and still come home with maximum points, something that really is easier said than done.

Contrary to popular belief, many teams at this level indeed lack a 'plan b'; for evidence, just look at the current state of play with Southampton, whose early-season struggles against all odds are underlined by either an unwillingness or sheer inability to change their approach under former-tormentor-in-chief Russell Martin.

His heavy possession style often obliterated Cardiff in the formidable battleground of the South Wales Derby but he's been unable to optimally incorporate it as of yet, with his strongly-assembled Saints side enduring evident teething problems with the demands of playing out.

That could yet change, and it's not directly relevant to Cardiff, but it does go some way to emphasising the sheer importance of having a secondary strategy on the pitch - which the Bluebirds proved at Sunderland.

Mind you, there'll be plenty of games this season where they'll dominate proceedings and take the game to their opponents, and their upcoming hosting of Rotherham United presents a good chance to do just that yet again.

But there'll also be times where, as aforementioned, circumstances dictate and they're unable to stamp down Bulut's blueprint courtesy of playing against stronger opposition, so finding what feels very much like tactical insurance holds so much gravity for what they could achieve this year.