WITH an attacking line-up to rival some Premier League sides, it's no surprise to see Cardiff City again looking a decent bet for promotion.

Victory against the Iron tomorrow would move the Bluebirds into second place in the Championship ahead of Sunday's showdown between QPR and Nottingham Forest – the only two sides currently above them in the table.

Looking to bring top-flight football to the Welsh capital for the first time since 1962, City have 17 games left to decide their fate.

With the likes of Craig Bellamy, Jay Bothroyd and Aaron Ramsey to call upon, understanding why Cardiff fans will go into each of those games confident that picking up points is easy.

Sadly for Dave Jones' side, the biggest battle the Bluebirds will have to overcome is in the mind.

Missing out on a top six finish by a single goal two years ago, the Welsh club went two steps further last season – only to lose to Blackpool at Wembley in the play-off final.

And while again shrugging off those setbacks to push for promotion, there are signs of another spectacular collapse, according to former City striker Nathan Blake.

Individual talent, it seems, is not always a cure for mental scarring.

Despite their good form on their travels, the Bluebirds have been much less clinical in front of their own fans.

Preston North End, Sheffield United and Crystal Palace – the three sides in and around the relegation scrap with struggling Scunthorpe – have all left the Cardiff City Stadium with something to show for their efforts this term.

And that is why Blake, now a radio pundit, thinks all is not as well as it should be.

"I'm a great believer in the mind, I think it is the body's most powerful tool," said the former Wolves and Bolton front man, who played 131 games, scoring 35 goals, for the Welsh club in the early 90s.

"The management and staff have to work on the players psychologically after what has happened previously.

"It's not about sitting down with a shrink game by game, it's the way you talk, what you talk about and when you talk about it.

"That's going to be the biggest thing given what's happened during the last two or three years, when ultimately they have failed.

"They've had squads that have been good enough to get promoted and been in a position of strength to do that. But each time they've fallen back down the ladder.

"The fact they've only drawn at home against the struggling sides sums that up.

"You can't say Cardiff are going into those sorts of games thinking they're going to breeze it because they haven't won as many games at home as they have away.

"Psychologically, Cardiff do have a problem at home at the moment."

To read Blake's views on how the Iron should go about getting a result at the Cardiff City Stadium, see a four-page match preview in  Friday's Scunthorpe Telegraph.