Leandro Bacuna has branded Neil Warnock's style of football as 'old fashioned' and believes Neil Harris has made Cardiff City a more threatening team.
Warnock enjoyed three good years as Bluebirds boss, dragging them from Championship stragglers to the Premier League in a little over 18 months, and is thought of incredibly highly in South Wales.
However, Warnock faced his critics over the style of football his Bluebirds team employed, often being dubbed 'route one' or 'too direct'.
It clearly worked for Cardiff, as Bacuna also points out.
But the City midfielder said: ""I personally think it's a bit old fashioned," although he stressed: "It still works for him and I enjoyed playing under him."
Bacuna's comments will certainly stoke the fire ahead of the crucial Championship clash between Warnock's Middlesbrough and Cardiff this weekend.
"He has been successful at what he's been doing - it's his type of way of playing football and it's worked," said Bacuna, who feels Harris deserves a lot of credit for taking Cardiff up from 14th into the top six.
“He has come in and changed the way we are playing," Bacuna said.
“Beforehand, we didn’t really have a shape to our defensive play. Now we are working on a real good shape on the pitch. We don’t play man for man like we used to and running all over the gaff.
“That’s helped us. Getting patterns going forward.
“He has just settled down the team a bit and given everyone a bit of confidence that everyone can still play football – it’s not all about playing long balls.”
There certainly appears to have been a slight shift away from the reliance they once had on set pieces.
Harris has sought to redress the balance of the City attack and find different means of scoring goals and it has certainly resulted in some aesthetically-pleasing goals since football began.
And Bacuna thinks that has been a big positive of Harris' tenure.
"We haven’t really scored from a set piece, which was one of our strengths!," the City player added.
“We have been scoring goals from open play. It’s a different way we have been playing but it’s successful."
There are just two fixtures left of the regular season and the Bluebirds find themselves in a very strong position - two points ahead of nearest challengers Millwall in seventh place.
With the narrative of Warnock facing his old club threatening to overshadow the fixture, however, Bacuna's eyes remain squarely focused on the bigger picture.
He said: "We have got two games left and if we win the game on Saturday against Middlesbrough, we will make a very, very good step into the play-offs.”
