'Serious issues on the pitch' - Is Mick McCarthy at risk of losing his job as Cardiff City fall to fourth defeat in five? The verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict’ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Blackburn Rovers emphatically beat Cardiff City at the weekend 5-1, condemning The Bluebirds to their fourth league defeat in five.

A Ben Brereton Diaz brace, and goals from Tyrhys Dolan and Sam Gallagher, fired the home side into a four-goal lead after just 53 minutes, before Sean Morrison pulled a goal back five minutes after Blackburn's fourth.

Brereton Diaz completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot in injury time, inflicting even further damage on the scoreline.

Remaining undefeated in their first four games, Mick McCarthy's side have since picked up a mere three points from their following five games.

Cardiff have now conceded 14 league goals this season, with only Reading, Luton Town, and Peterborough United leaking in more goals.

With Cardiff struggling to pick up points, and after Saturday's heavy defeat, we asked three of our writers here at FLW if Mick McCarthy's job was in any danger...

Ned Holmes

You'd think he has to be.

McCarthy had that initial impressive bounce and then started the season excellently but the Bluebirds have been found out since.

They look too one-dimensional going forward and lacking in some attacking quality, particularly in midfield.

The real concern at the moment has to be the performances of their backline in recent weeks.

You'd expect a McCarthy team to be solid, particularly given the impressive defender, but they look to have come unstuck.

If that doesn't change, you have to feel the owners may pull the trigger.

Jordan Rushworth

This is going to be a major test now for Mick McCarthy over the next few weeks because Cardiff’s form over the last few games has not been good enough and if that continues then things will get difficult for him.

The way that Cardiff fell apart at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday was very concerning and the levels of defending on display were not what you would associate with a side under McCarthy’s management.

Sometimes during a season a team can hit their low point and then really start to improve and kick on again from that. That could well be the case for Cardiff now after their 5-1 defeat at Blackburn.

However, at the moment, the Bluebirds’ performance levels are not suggesting that they will suddenly be able to put a positive string of results together over the coming weeks.

There was a lot of skepticism amongst Cardiff supporters when McCarthy took over from Neil Harris partway through last season, but he won the around initially with a brilliant start to life at the Cardiff City Stadium.

The experienced manager needs to now get a similar response from his players as he did when he first took over if he is going to keep himself away from any pressure in terms of his long-term future.

Ben Wignall

I don't think McCarthy has been helped with a lack of backing this summer - the only money spent was on Arsenal's Mark McGuinness and he's hardly played whilst other signings have been loans and free transfers.

But there's clearly some serious issues on the pitch which has led to the downturn in form, and conceding five goals at Blackburn Rovers made that very apparent.

The one thing you don't expect a Mick McCarthy team to do - especially with solid defenders at the back - is leak an amount of goals like that, so the most recent result is very concerning.

Cardiff showed last year that they're willing to sack a manager after a quick turnaround in form as Neil Harris found out after losing five matches on the spin.

So I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if after a few more losses McCarthy gets the chop - there's definitely a case to go for someone younger and more progressive to try and turn things around.