Cardiff City dressing room rift rumours quashed by Junior Hoilett and Neil Warnock

Cardiff City dressing room rift rumours quashed by Junior Hoilett and Neil Warnock

Cardiff City Stadium

Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock and winger Junior Hoilett have denied claims of a rift within the team.

Three straight defeats for the Bluebirds had led former players Danny Gabbidon and Nathan Blake to question Warnock’s team spirit during a podcast for WalesOnline. In it Blake said that the “special Cardiff team spirit has been splintered”.

But following the team’s 2-0 victory over West Ham United at the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday, Warnock quashed the rift suggestion, saying that the win proved doubters wrong.

He said: “I think even the lads mentioned the ‘split camp’ and the ‘splinters’ and what’s been said this week. But you don’t get a performance like that with a split camp.”

Goals from Junior Hoilett and Victor Camarasa during Saturday’s match gave the Bluebirds all three points and ended a run of three straight league defeats. The result meant Cardiff stayed in 18th place in the relegation zone but are within touching distance of Burnley in 17th place with just a goal difference of seven separating them.

Cardiff as one

Warnock was visibly pleased with the result during the post-match press conference. He said: “I think it was the biggest win of the season just because of how poor we were in the last three matches. The other results are bound to bring the mood down you want them all to lose when you’re in our situation.”

Warnock commented that this result would have busted a few accumulators on Saturday, saying: “But our result will have surprised a few looking at the papers this morning, everyone predicted a 2-0 defeat so it’s great to have the opposite, I hope they all had money on it!”

Warnock was not the only one in a buoyant mood after the result, winger and goalscorer  Hoilett was also delighted at the win. He said:”After the week we had, three defeats, we had to positive and go forward and create more chances.”

Hoilett was also quick to dismiss rumours of a player rift, saying: “There is no rift. We are like brothers in there, you can see from last season, how we fought through until the end and we have continued that this season.

“We think the talks of rifts are nonsense.”

The Canadian winger went onto speak about his love for the club, saying: “I love playing for this club, I give my everything for the team and I hope we can push on and achieve what we want this season.”

Junior Hoilett speaking post match

Fans were also over the moon with victory and were quick to praise their boss. One Fan commented: “Warnock has done a fantastic job for this club and we all had a feeling the rumours in the papers were just rumours. It was annoying that when we do win, Southampton surprise everyone and beat Tottenham.”

Another fan, was quick to heap praise on Hoilett: “That is what Junior, gives us. He is an experienced player and given that Warnock had already worked with him at QPR, you can see that he gets the best out of him.”

Cardiff City now face a three-week break due to the involvement of Brighton & Hove Albion in the FA Cup Quarter-Finals and then the international break. The Bluebirds next fixture is against Chelsea, at the Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday, March 31, KO 2:05pm.

The Cardiff fans give a heartwarming rendition of Men of Harlech before kick-off: