After a bright start to his Cardiff City career, about a year ago Perry Ng's confidence took a nosedive.
While everyone thought last season was simply tapering off after fizzling brightly initially under Mick McCarthy's management, for Ng there was more going on beneath the surface. He can even pinpoint the moment that happened.
"When I came in, I was loving it," he said back in November. "But I think it was after the injury, after we beat Swansea [last March], it just turned and I lost my confidence very quickly. It was difficult to get that back."
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The South Wales derby defeat signalled the end of Ng's initial bounce and he, like the team, began a slow decline. The Bluebirds won only five of their next 24 games, a run which stretched into this current season and culminated in a dreadful stretch of eight successive defeats.
While it spelt the end for McCarthy, there was collateral damage. Players were unable to recover and had to haul themselves out of the mire. Ng, again back in November, opened up on that.
"I was low on confidence and not putting in the best performances, I know that myself," he said of his own form. "It was horrible. It wasn’t a nice place to be. Everyone was low on confidence and no one knew which way to go or how to play. We were all in a middle ground and it wasn't a nice place to be involved in.
"Now we are over that and we have got a win under our belts and it’s time to kick on. With [Steve Morison] coming it, it's a breath of fresh air and I'm just excited about the future now."
He was right to be excited about the future, because he has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the managerial change. Importantly, it has brought about a positional change and Ng is thriving in his new role on the right of a back three.
It typifies the direction in which Morison and his coaching staff want to travel. They want a ball-playing centre-half to aid their passing game, to evolve the football and be more in line with teams who have enjoyed recent success in the Championship. It's worlds away from the five centre-back McCarthy era.
"Mick and Terry [Connor] did a great job getting us all together and believing in each other, but after that there was no real change or way of playing or identity to us," Ng said. "That was a bit of a problem. Moro has seen that and has tried to change that, which is working so far. Hopefully a new dawn and we can get back to winning ways."
"I used to try and do things that they wanted me to do which I, in my head, didn't think was the right thing to do. Now we can be a bit more confident and hopefully people can see we are good players.
"It was a frustrating team to play in for a bit, I wasn’t getting much of the ball. That can work at times. We have just got to mix it up and be braver on the ball, especially when we are up there, not just giving it away all the time.
"Going forward, we have got to be braver, which Moro is insisting of us, and it’ll help us score more goals. With a mix of what we did have and a bit more modern football, that could be a really good blend and will help us going forward. Who knows what could happen?"
That last point is a salient one indeed. Where will this evolution take Cardiff? Some supporters with loftier ambitions think that, with more shrewd additions in the summer and a continual upwards trajectory, the Bluebirds could even mix it in the play-off spots next term. Other more moderate thinkers just want an improvement on the shambolic start to this campaign.
Either way, the direction has encouraged Cardiff fans and no player symbolises the Bluebirds' new-found style like Ng. With Ng providing the coolness on the ball, accompanied by stern defending, with the rapid Cody Drameh on the outside of him, it makes Cardiff a far more worrying prospect for opposing teams.
Like Marc Guehi displayed at Swansea City and now Crystal Palace, having a defender who is capable and confident enough to step out of the line and drive up the pitch with the ball at his feet adds another important facet to any team. It eases the pressure on midfielders, defenders and emboldens wide players and attackers.
Given how well Cardiff's January loan signings have done, it is understandable that Ng's fantastic transition into the back three might have been overlooked. But there is an argument to say that this positional tweak has been one of Morison's better masterstrokes.
Slowly but surely, the pieces of the puzzle are starting to slot together and it will hearten fans as they begin to look ahead to next season. Ng is a very important piece of that puzzle now and is someone who will have a big bearing on how Cardiff fare next term, you feel.
It's been quite the remarkable turnaround for the 25-year-old, who plummeted to rock-bottom just a few short months ago. Now, though, skies are far brighter on the horizon, for him and, hopefully, the club.
