It’s been a disappointing start to the new season for Cardiff City. The Bluebirds are hoping to challenge for promotion this campaign following their relegation from the Premier League last term, but have lost two of their opening three matches so far.

Neil Warnock's side started the season with a disappointing 3-2 defeat at Wigan and while they recovered to beat Luton 2-1 in their second game, they were beaten 3-0 by Reading at the weekend.

Cardiff face Huddersfield tonight and will be hoping to get their season back on track with three points, against another side who have also made a poor start.

Former Cardiff defender Danny Gabbidon has given his take on the Bluebirds' start to the new campaign, giving an honest assessment of where he thinks the team are going wrong and what they need to do to put things right.

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In a recent interview with WalesOnline, the 40-year-old highlighted Cardiff's defence, the mentality of their players and figuring out how to get the best out of their attacking players as the three main areas that need to be addressed.

The former Cardiff fan favourite is spot on with his verdict, but we're just a few games into the season and there's still plenty of time for Warnock to turn things around.

However, Gabbidon is right. If Cardiff are to challenge for promotion this season, they need to sort their defence out - there's no doubt about that.

When Cardiff won promotion from the Championship in 2017/18, they conceded just 39 league goals and had the joint best defensive record in the division along with Wolves.

Promotion was built around a strong defence and being difficult to beat, but their defence has been anything but solid this season.

Cardiff have already conceded seven goals from their opening three games and this is something that they need to address immediately.

Gabbidon also questioned the mentality of the Cardiff players and suggested that the team could be suffering from a bit of a hangover following their relegation from the top flight.

He could well be right. Just because Cardiff were in the Premier League last season, there's no guarantee that they'll be able to achieve success in the Championship this term.

Last season, West Brom were the only side that came down from the Premier League to challenge for promotion, with Swansea finishing nine points outside the play-offs and pre-season favourites Stoke finishing mid-table.

The Championship is an extremely competitive league and every team is going to lose games, but the manner of the defeat to Reading is what will disappoint Cardiff supporters.

Reading were better than Cardiff in all areas on Sunday, including the physical aspects and looked like they wanted it much more than their opponents - which is not something you can say often about a side managed by Warnock

Perhaps the players need to understand what it takes to win games in the Championship again, but Warnock is a manager who knows exactly what it takes to achieve promotion and will know how to get the best out of his players.

Gabbidon also claimed that Cardiff need to be better going forward and suggested that Warnock needs to figure out who is going to be is regular front three.

New signing Robert Glatzel has made a decent start to his Cardiff career - although he is still looking for his first goal - but there's also Isaac Vassell, Junior Hoilett and Josh Murphy to think about too.

Cardiff have got some very talented attacking players and they will be key to their chances of success this season, so Warnock needs to get the best out of them.

It's still early days yet though and there's plenty of time for Warnock to turn things around. He's an extremely experienced manager and knows exactly what it takes to achieve success at this level, having done it so many times in the past.

A win against Huddersfield tonight would give the team a much-needed confidence boost going into their game against Blackburn at the weekend and despite their underwhelming start, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Cardiff challenge for promotion this season.