Cardiff City are preparing for a new season under Mick McCarthy with the former Ireland boss making an impression in his first three and a bit months as Bluebirds manager.

McCarthy was basically working with Neil Harris' squad and he did a good job with it, but he will be looking to put his own stamp on things to try and get the club into the Championship play-offs.

Amongst things like trying to find new players, McCarthy will be trying to hatch a plan to try and stop certain players who seem to play well against the club.

Every club has certain opposition players though that just for some reason get the better of them on the majority of occasions - even if they hop from club to club they always just seem to have a great showing against them.

Cardiff are no different - let's look at 10 players that have seemed to save some of their best showing against the Bluebirds in years gone by.

One player who has done well against Cardiff recently and will face them again next season is Meite, who is still a Reading player after five years.

Meite wasn't prolific in his first season with the Royals and spent his second year on loan in France, but he's now had three consecutive Championship campaigns in double figures, and in the six times he's played against the Bluebirds in all competitions he's netted four times.

An interesting fact is that Meite has never been on the losing side when facing Cardiff - in those six outings there's been two league wins, two league draws, an FA Cup draw and a win on penalties in the replay, so whenever they face Meite and co there's never a winning ending.

Another player who Cardiff could come up against next season is a proper 'McCarthy player' in Matt Smith - a tall, powerful target man who scores goals when given the ammunition.

You'd expect Smith to be a bit of a bench player for Millwall next season but he has penned a new deal and he will be ready to try and score again against the Bluebirds.

In his eight appearances against Cardiff for the Lions, QPR and Fulham, Smith has scored four times and bagged two assists which is a very good record and it shows that he's definitely effective against certain clubs.

A player who had a pretty brief spell in the Football League, Ryan Sessegnon was always destined for the top flight following his breakthrough at Fulham.

It's surreal to think that it's been nearly five years since Sessegnon made his debut for the Cottagers, and just weeks later it was against Cardiff where he scored his first goal for the club.

Sessegnon went on to score another four goals in five appearances against Cardiff for the London club, including when they both were promoted to the Premier League and in their first encounter of the season at the Cardiff City Stadium, Sessegnon bagged the equaliser to make it 2-2.

A nemesis of many Football League defenders during his prime, Ebanks-Blake was in his prime when playing for Plymouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers and his powerful presence caused a nightmare for the opposition.

All of Ebanks-Blake's nine appearances against Cardiff came in the Championship for the Pilgrims or Wolves, and five goals were scored as well as two assists.

Blackpool were the only club that Ebanks-Blake scored more goals against during his career than Cardiff, so they were probably glad to see the back of him when his career hit a bit of a downturn in 2013 after departing from Wolves.

Continuing the trend of free-scoring Football League attackers to do well against Cardiff, Jonathan Walters always seemed to show up against the Bluebirds.

It was when he was playing for Ipswich where he first started scoring and performing well, netting twice in a 3-1 victory for the Tractor Boys in 2007, before then scoring against them in 2009.

The goals continued when Walters moved on to Stoke City as he bagged a brace in a 2011 FA Cup replay at the Cardiff City Stadium, proving to be the club's nemesis once again - if he came out of retirement tomorrow he'd probably be guaranteed a goal against them next season.

A proper target man of an EFL striker if there ever was one, Steve Howard played for three different clubs against Cardiff - Luton Town, Derby County and Leicester City - and always seemed to show up.

It wasn't his performances for Luton but more so Derby where he showed his best form - in two 2006-07 season matches against the Bluebirds he scored three times and grabbed an assist before moving on to Leicester City.

Two goals and two assists came for Howard when at the Foxes - and both assists came in that famous play-off semi-final in 2010 which is perhaps more known for the Yann Kermorgant chipped penalty that didn't quite come off.

Delving into Cardiff's Premier League days now and it is no surprise to see a top class individual like Eden Hazard make this list.

The Bluebirds were in the Premier League for two seasons - the 2013-14 campaign and 2018-19, and in both matches at Stamford Bridge between the Blues and Cardiff Hazard was just in unstoppable form.

Hazard scored twice and bagged an assist in a 4-1 victory for Chelsea in 2013 and then in 2018, the Belgian banged in a hat-trick in yet another 4-1 success early on in the season.

Cardiff don't have to play against players the class of Hazard anymore - and it's probably for the best as they never seemed to get to grips with him.

Another player that had great success against Cardiff in the Premier League is Gerard Deulofeu, who breached the Bluebirds defence multiple times for both Everton and Watford.

The Spaniard was never on the losing side in four games against the club, scoring in a 2-1 victory for the Toffees back in 2014 before exploding against the Welsh club for the Hornets in the 2018-19 season.

At Vicarage Road he scored and notched an assist in a 3-2 win and when Watford battered Cardiff 5-1 in South Wales in 2019, Deulofeu scored a hat-trick.

Cardiff fans will have been delighted to see the winger move on last summer to Italian side Udinese instead of facing them in the Championship as no doubt a similar occurrence would have happened.

Like the aforementioned Howard, Dave Kitson is a real Football League veteran, although he did dabble in Premier League football for a few seasons.

Kitson played against Cardiff for three different clubs, but it was only during his days at Reading where he was a nemesis for the Welsh outfit.

In five matches for the Royals against the Bluebirds, Kitson scored five goals, with all but one of those games resulting in a Reading win.

It was during a time where Reading were building a squad fit for the Premier League, and in that 2005-06 campaign where they were promoted with 106 points, Kitson netted three of his goals against Cardiff so they were probably glad to see the back of him!

Ironically, the highest-scoring player against Cardiff in recent years is a former Bluebird himself in Cameron Jerome.

Jerome departed Cardiff for Birmingham City in 2006 but he never scored for the Blues against his former club - in-fact he didn't score against them until 2013 in the Premier League when playing for Crystal Palace.

The striker had a great run of form for Norwich City though against Cardiff, scoring in four successive games between 2014 and 2017 against them before netting his final goal - for now at least - for Derby County in 2018.

The scoring may not have stopped there though - now a veteran in this game Jerome has signed for Luton Town and could come up against Cardiff next season to extend his goal tally even further.