Erol Bulut believes Cardiff City's Carabao Cup defeat to Blackburn Rovers will have little influence on Saturday's match at Ewood Park.

Rovers beat the Bluebirds 5-2 at Ewood Park with both managers heavily rotating their sides. Bulut made wholesale changes and altered the formation to give some of his fringe and young players an opportunity.

Tomasson followed suit with eight changes, meaning the two line-ups that take to the field on Saturday will look entirely different. As a result, the Cardiff boss doesn't feel that the previous encounter will hold much weight.

"We have two away games coming up, they won't be easy games," Bulut said. "We played Blackburn in the cup game, we know how they play and we have prepared for that.

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"Tomorrow we'll have a session on that. We have won four games in a row and we believe. We have a fighting spirit and we think we can do that again.

"It was a cup game and we changed the system. I didn't want to use the main XI players so we rotated a lot and used the young players.

"In the end, in the cup game, we shadow-marked the opponents. If you do that, you can't win the game. We have to be sharp, Saturday will be a different game."

Cardiff will welcome back Yakou Meite to their squad after he returned from injury ahead of schedule. Similarly, left-back Jamilu Collins is available despite pilling out of international duty.

Welsh international Aaron Ramsey remains on the sidelines, as is Callum O'Dowda, but the former is making good progress as he recovers from a knee problem. The 32-year-old is ahead of schedule, though Cardiff don't want to rush him.

"Yakou is good, it looks like he will be with us," Bulut said.  "Already he has started slowly to run. He is doing well," he added on Ramsey.

"For Callum (O'Dowda), it can be long. It can be the end of December. Aaron can be earlier. I hope. It looks like it can be earlier. Our medical department is working well.

"He’s now running. I’m surprised it goes so quickly. I hope it continues like this."

Striker Kion Etete, who scored against Rovers in the cup fixture, is out of the match whilst Callum Robinson and Ruben Colwill remain out of favour, with Bulut unhappy with their recent performances.

The Cardiff boss was quite vocal that neither player have shown the attitude to defend for the team which has prevented him from picking them in the starting team despite Ramsey's absence.