What’s wrong with Fulham and Cardiff’s Championship campaigns?

As is customary with relegated Premier League sides sliding into the Championship, Fulham and Cardiff were placed at the top end of the betting to win the second tier this term.

However, after seven games of the campaign neither side sits higher than 17th in the table, with winless Fulham rock bottom, and both bosses facing increasing pressure.

So calamitous has the pair’s start to the term been that the former Premier League strugglers are now 25/1 and 4/1 to gain promotion respectively, prices that leave them way short of Norwich, the market leaders.

At Fulham, Felix Magath has perplexingly clung to his job despite winning four of the 20 games he’s overseen since taking over in February.

The German, widely known through football for his dictatorship methods as a manager, has adopted a bemusing strategy for the Cottagers’ would-be title bid. Nearly every experienced squad member at the club was sold or released and restocked from the youth team.

26 different players have started Fulham’s seven league games thus far and there seems no release from their downward spiral.

Cardiff at least have two wins to cheer them up, yet seem certain to axe their manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, before their next league outing with Derby, which they’re 3/1 to win.

Consecutive home losses, to Norwich and Middlesbrough, seem to have plunged the nails into the Norwegian’s coffin, who has never really managed to put a stamp on the Bluebirds squad despite being backed with nine summer signings.

Dundee manager Paul Hartley is the surprise front runner to replace the former striker should he be shown the door, with the Scottish international sure to be tasked with bridging the eight-point gap to the promotion places should he accept the challenge.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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