Cardiff plan friendly and Robinson return during break

Cardiff City will play a behind-closed-doors friendly this week as Omer Riza looks to make the most of his international window down time.

That will include hoping some key players begin to return to fitness, top scorer Callum Robinson among them.

The Bluebirds slipped back into the bottom three of the Championship as a result of Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat by Blackburn Rovers.

Question marks remain over whether interim manager Riza is offered the job permanently, with the 44-year-old admitting he does not know if he will remain in charge by the end of the break from league fixtures.

The 44-year-old said he would “prepare as I normally would” during the window as Cardiff look ahead to the tip to Sheffield Wednesday on 23 November.

With only three players – Rubin Colwill (Wales), Callum O’Dowda (Ireland) and Manolis Siopis (Greece) – away from the training base over the next fortnight, Riza admitted: “(The window) won’t impact us too much - we have three players away and we’ll prepare this week; we’ll be training Monday and Tuesday, we have a friendly on Wednesday and after that we’ll look at a couple of days’ rest ready to come back in ahead of the Sheffield Wednesday game.”

The wait for the next fixture also provides a chance for players to return with captain Joe Ralls set to be back after the international fixtures having missed the last six games with an unspecified leg injury.

Robinson, meanwhile, has been nursing an achilles problem that caused the five-goal striker to sit out at the weekend, but Riza said: “He now has a good 10-12 days to get himself back to a suitable level to start playing again.”

Callum Chambers was also absent against Blackburn because of illness, with Jesper Daland filling in. Riza added that the Norwegian’s lack of recent games after recovering from an ankle problem showed in the defeat, but would have benefitted from the minutes.

And despite at one stage hoping to have Wales captain Aaron Ramsey back by now, Riza said the midfielder is “two, maybe three” weeks away from returning to the squad.

“We will have more to select from, it’s not all doom and gloom,” the former Watford coach added. “We’ve come from so far behind to get where we are now, it is credit to the boys.

“It is a hard task to climb off from one point. Yes, we’re in a position where you lose a game and you can drop back in, but that’s why I can’t look at the table. I have to look at results, performances and us believing what we’re doing – that is still there and is not going to change.”