Omer Riza reveals why it really went wrong at Cardiff City

Omer Riza reveals why it really went wrong at Cardiff City:


Exclusive Omer Riza interview.

14th May 2026

By Jack Price

Cardiff City's relegation from the Championship at the end of the 2024/25 campaign represented a perfect storm of suffering for the Welsh capital side, who ultimately paid the price and were caught up by years of misery and misalignment both on and off-the-pitch.



A lack of direction and tangible footballing philosophy from the top down led to incessant managerial and playing squad turnovers, each bearing contrasting identities and fingerprints from previous policies.

After the departure of Neil Warnock, who famously guided the Bluebirds back to the Premier League against all odds before leaving the club one year later, divisive owner Vincent Tan would sweep through eight permanent managers in less than six years.

That was, of course, until Cardiff appointed Brian Barry-Murphy following relegation to League One, which has proven to be a richly-inspired decision.

The Irishman has performed a stellar job on all fronts, securing automatic promotion out of the third-tier at the very first time of asking while deploying an aggressive, front-footed brand of possession-based football, capsizing the squad culture and placing an emphasis on promoting young homegrown academy products such as Joel Colwill, Ronan Kpakio, Dylan Lawlor and more.

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Omer Riza reflects on his time at Cardiff City

The Bluebirds stripped through three separate managers during that fateful campaign, which began with Bulut at the helm before a disastrous run of just one draw and five defeats from the opening six matches saw the Turkish boss relieved of his duties and replaced by previous assistant Omer Riza.

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Riza would, remarkably, be placed in charge of the side on an interim basis for more than two months and finally received the job permanently in December, though a failure to sustain initial momentum and a downturn in results following the turn of the year saw Cardiff slowly but surely peter towards the drop.

In total, Riza won ten of his 40 matches in the dugout, drawing and losing 15 apiece, and was dismissed by Tan after Cardiff's fate was all-but-sealed with a 2-0 defeat at Sheffield United, stretching a winless run to five games.

The 46-year-old, who returned to coaching only last month as Ashley Cole's assistant with Serie B outfit Cesena, spoke exclusively to Football League World to offer his account of events and underpin why exactly he feels the club's campaign went up in flames.

Reflecting on his time at Cardiff as a whole, Riza explained to FLW: "For me, it was about trying to stabilise the club as best as possible, to get as many wins as possible, avoid relegation and, while doing that, bed in youngsters that could be ready for the following season, give players the opportunity and try and play a style that could hopefully excite the fans and make them happy.

"I think we had moments of that in the season, then we had moments where the fans weren’t happy with some of the results and performances, and rightly so."


Inconsistency returned to rear its ugly head and dictate Cardiff's direction of travel, and after claiming a 2-1 victory against Derby County towards the end of January, Riza took just two victories from his next 16 matches as the Bluebirds sunk deeper into the depths of a second-tier relegation dogfight.

Riza added: "It was an inconsistent season in respect of all the things we had to manage from January through to the end of the season, and obviously I left three games before the end of the season which was a tough one because I’d have liked to have seen those three games out.”

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Why Omer Riza feels it all went wrong at Cardiff City

It can be easy to forget that a fair portion of Cardiff supporters were confident of their side's prospects heading into what soon played out as a historically-wretched campaign, with the Bluebirds signing a host of high-profile operators in ex-Aston Villa pair Callum Chambers and Anwar El Ghazi alongside talented former QPR winger Chris Willock in a bid to build upon the previous term's steadying mid-table finish.

But City started Bulut's second season in charge in disastrous fashion, and were four points adrift bottom of the league after the opening five matches with just one point - gained in a 1-1 draw away at Swansea - by the time that Riza was hired on an initial interim basis.



There were, as ever, a lengthy range of factors at play. Performances under Riza and his ability to manage the group were both called into question by supporters and the results, for large parts, simply were not good enough, although Riza also hinted at what he described as "inherent problems" relating to out-of-favour players - who have not been named - displaying an unhappiness with their game-time.

Nigerian left-back Jamilu Collins was, mind you, one player who Riza was publicly open to offloading during the season's mid-point, but his departure never materialised and he was absent from the remainder of Cardiff's campaign

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Riza reflected on the situation as being "difficult to manage", though he ultimately believes both inconsistencies and an inability to contend with the pressures of scrapping it out for survival to be the defining reasons behind relegation.


Riza reflected on the situation as being "difficult to manage", with those at the top,though he ultimately believes both inconsistencies and an inability to contend with the pressures of scrapping it out for survival to be the defining reasons behind relegation.


“Obviously, when I took over, we had to try and close that gap, which we did, but inconsistent months and performances were an issue and I think it was down to the pressures of where we were in the league.

"There weren’t internal problems, but some players weren’t happy at not playing and in January, those players should’ve potentially gone out to other clubs and they didn’t. So they were in the building and, obviously, that can be difficult to manage at times when some players should’ve been off and carrying on with their careers at other clubs but weren’t.

"Sometimes, that can breed inherent problems throughout the course of the four to five months you’ve got until the end of the season."

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Riza revealed to FLW his frustrations at being prevented from recalling Ryan Wintle, who was on loan with Championship rivals Millwall at the time.

Wintle, having been sent out by Bulut the previous summer following two-and-a-half years as a mainstay in South Wales, was in and out of the Lions' team under Alex Neil, but the midfielder has since returned to orchestrate a vital role in Cardiff's promotion campaign by making 40 league appearances and winning both the Player's Player and Supporters' Player of the Year awards.

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"I think we recruited well in January," Riza reflected.

"We brought in Yousef Salech who has been a key player for the club and I’m proud of that. He’s gone on to be a key player, and will continue to do so if they don’t sell him.

"There were other two were loans in Will Alves and Sivert Mannsverk, I wanted to bring a player back in from Millwall which was Ryan Wintle but I wasn’t allowed to do that. Little things like that really, which I think could’ve helped with the situation but didn’t, and we had to find ways around it.

"There’s five or six games where we should’ve won - Coventry away, Coventry at home, the Stoke game when we had a chance that Isaak (Davies) unfortunately missed and they went down the other end and scored a goal from a throw-in or handball, whatever it was. So there were little misfortunes in the season as well, which proved quite difficult to manage."

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Awful manager and a deluded prick. Cared more about his Instagram Story than anything else.

The worst manager I’ve seen at Cardiff City! Others will say there was worse than him, but they were probably before my time.

He's deluded and towards the end he lost the plot mentally.

At first I wanted him to do well and I tried to build him up but I lost any respect left for him when he had a go at the fans in a press conference towards the end.

He is not a manager because he can't handle any sort of scrutiny or pressure.

He's deluded and towards the end he lost the plot mentally.

At first I wanted him to do well and I tried to build him up but I lost any respect left for him when he had a go at the fans in a press conference towards the end.

He is not a manager because he can't handle any sort of scrutiny or pressure.

Agreed. One of the most deluded individuals I’ve seen. The day we went down at home to West Brom he was hashtagging himself all over instagram, calling himself an elite coach.

Then on the opening day against Peterborough, he said he would have kept us up whilst on as a guest on Sky Sports.

https://youtu.be/299Ss29YTb0?si=oLDXFz4e0fICW4Xc

Awful manager and a deluded prick. Cared more about his Instagram Story than anything else.

The worst manager I’ve seen at Cardiff City! Others will say there was worse than him, but they were probably before my time.

In My 53,years of following City, he’s up their as I. Our Top 2 Worst ever Managers, Durban the other.

Awful manager and a deluded prick. Cared more about his Instagram Story than anything else.

The worst manager I’ve seen at Cardiff City! Others will say there was worse than him, but they were probably before my time.

Makes Alan Durban look like Alex Ferguson.

He was out of his depth but not the reason we got relegated. The Board should have taken him out of his misery after we got bumped at Elland Road , but he was allowed another 8 games or so , by which time we were gone .

Everything shit that has happened to this club over the last 10 years can be traced back to our clueless Board and owner .

I know we got promoted this year but the soul of this club was left at ninian park as far as I’m concerned.

Awful manager and a deluded prick. Cared more about his Instagram Story than anything else.

The worst manager I’ve seen at Cardiff City! Others will say there was worse than him, but they were probably before my time.

In My 53,years of following City, he’s up their as I. Our Top 2 Worst ever Managers, Durban the other.

Not sure on that one, just under Tan we've had a lot of stinkers. Why on earth he was given all that time I'll never know

Doesn't take the slightest bit of responsibility.

Think he crashed out a bit after the passing of his Dad.

Was in a job that was ultimately an opportunity that he is never going to come close to having again so on one hand I don’t really blame him for clinging on to it

I can reveal why it really went wrong at Cardiff City

1. They appointed Omar Riza
2. They didn't sack him soon enough.