Cody Drameh features: 5 EFL stars who must be on Cardiff City's transfer shortlist | OneFootball

Football League World analyses what the Bluebirds' summer shopping list in the EFL aisle should look like

It's set to be yet another season of significant transition at the Cardiff City Stadium, with Erol Bulut preparing to undertake his first summer window as Bluebirds boss without the constraints of a transfer embargo.

The popular Turkish manager was impeded by Cardiff's partial transfer embargo twelve months ago, which came as a result of the club initially defaulting payment for Emiliano Sala amid an ongoing legal dispute with FC Nantes and seeing them restricted to signing free agents or players on loan.

Bulut, an ambitious manager with pedigree and publicly-pronounced designs on returning the Welsh club to the Premier League, agreed a fresh two-year contract with Cardiff last month after his one-year deal approached a conclusion and will hope that his commitment to extension is reciprocated with a healthy and tangible transfer budget this summer.

Potential suitors overseas had been carefully monitoring Bulut's complex contractual situation and it's likely that he wouldn't have made the decision to snub alternative options and stay put in the Welsh capital without certain assurances in place, which will be important if owner Vincent Tan truly wants to realise his own ambitions and own a Premier League club once again after what would be a six-year hiatus.

It may seem a lofty objective for Cardiff, who finished 12th in the second-tier standings last term as a monumental improvement on previous campaigns spent embroiled in the unforgiving ring of a relegation dogfight but seldom looked capable of truly competing for play-off contention either, save for a promising start to the campaign.

All things considered, they performed admirably in difficult circumstances to acquire the likes of Manolis Siopis, Dimitrios Goutas, Karlan Grant and, of course, Aaron Ramsey last year and could just find themselves with a fighter's chance of knocking on the door of the sacred top-six positions with necessary squad surgery in this term's transfer window.

Bulut's continental connections will surely implant a degree of focus on overseas acquisitions, where bargains such as Siopis and Goutas can be unearthed underneath the noses of rival clubs but the domestic pyramid remains a consistent conveyor belt of talent too, so here are five domestic players that should appear on their summer shopping shortlist in the coming weeks.

Cody Drameh

The Championship transfer market can be volatile, unpredictable and unforgiving, with Cardiff enduring a series of trials and tribulations in their recruitment over the last few years.

On the other hand, fan favourites such as Harry Wilson, Jaden Philogene, Tommy Doyle and last season's Liverpool loanee Nat Phillips all testify to the undoubted success that Cardiff have enjoyed in the loan department by incrementally building positive rapports with the domestic game's top brass and giving a platform for those out of favour elsewhere to show their worth.

Cody Drameh is another name on a long list of past loan alumni at Cardiff, but in stark contrast to the individuals listed above, he is one that could be readily available for the Bluebirds this summer.

Drameh, who left Marcelo Bielsa frustrated by seeking regular opportunities across the Welsh border in 2022, provided Cardiff's right-hand side with much-needed dynamism, aggression and attacking thrust in the second-half of the 21/22 campaign, leaving many supporters to still clamor for his signature to this day.

Their pleas have a chance of response, with Drameh reportedly set to reject Leeds' offering of a new contract and leave the club on a free transfer after spending the last two seasons on loan with Luton Town and Birmingham City respectively.

Any potential deal for Drameh will certainly hinge upon the immediate future of Perry Ng, who was arguably Cardiff's standout performer from right-back in the season just gone but has earned admiration from the Premier League and overseas by Bulut's own admission.

Cardiff's ventures in the January window were severely hampered by the injunction of complying with the EFL's Profit and Sustainability (PSR) rules and absolute congruity is perhaps even more pivotal this time around given the power that a positive summer spree so often dictates, meaning that it's difficult to completely rule out a sale for 28-year-old Ng.

Bulut will rightly want to keep Ng at all costs, but Drameh represents an available, sustainable and influential replacement in the immediate and long-term future should the right-back seek pastures new.

Femi Azeez

With the reckless and outright merciless peril at the hands of owner Dai Yongge, Reading, whose six-point deduction in the 2022/23 Championship seasons saw them succumb to the drop in place of Cardiff, can actually consider themselves rather fortunate to have staved off two consecutive relegation campaigns.

They remain a League One outfit, but the turbulent ownership situation exists in tandem with their own financial ruin, which leaves them susceptible to being pinched of their prized assets.

Femi Azeez has emerged as a rare beacon of light among a bleak blackdrop as of late, having scored nine goals and contributed with the same number of assists across all competitions for the Royals last term.

Cardiff themselves have been crying out for an explosive and direct right-sided winger ever since the departure of Nathaniel Mendez-Laing nearly four years ago now, with their most recent candidate - Nottingham Forest loanee Josh Bowler - having struggled to make the grade last season.

It's been a problem position for far too long, but picking up the 23-year-old in a potential low-cost summer deal offers a likely cure and a long-term solution.

Tyrese Campbell

Tyrese Campbell's release from Stoke City last month will likely see him highly-placed on the summer shortlists of a whole host of Championship clubs, with the 24-year-old already well-versed enough with the second-tier to represent a peculiar profile as a free agent.

It won't remain that way for long though, given Campbell's age and potential upside despite bouts of inconsistency in the Potteries.

For the third consecutive window, Cardiff will undoubtedly have recurring designs of launching a return for Kieffer Moore, who snubbed them in January before gaining promotion with Ipswich Town on loan from Bournemouth five months later.

Cardiff should be wary of placing all their eggs into that basket, but while Moore will probably be their chief transfer target, the relatively-low risk and certainly high-potential capture of Campbell should also be firmly within the Bluebirds' thinking.

His precarious injury record and equally-concerning lack of goalscoring regularity should mean that Cardiff should tread with caution in any theoretical deal, but it's just as hard to look past the glimpses of real promise.

Campbell's positional flexibility is also an attractive proposition over the gruelling slog of a 46-game campaign, which inflicts the realities of injury, inconsistency and fatigue that Cardiff have been all-too-accustomed to in years gone by.

Capable of playing through the middle as well as both wide forward positions, the former Manchester City youth product is certainly worth a swoop.

Chris Willock

Like Campbell, Chris Willock is yet another esteemed name to be reeled off the list of personnel redundancies across the Championship last month.

And once again, it would be difficult to see Willock's status remaining that way.

The tricky winger, who has been the tormentor in-chief for the vast majority of second-tier opposition over the last few seasons, is currently in encouraging talks with QPR over a potential new deal after his contract expired last month, but the situation is unresolved at present and Cardiff should be monitoring it carefully.

While Willock's career crescendo to date is now two years in history, the seven-goal, 11-assist haul from the ex-Arsenal and Benfica prospect in 2021/22 should not be lost on key decision-makers throughout the division, who could all land themselves a real coup in the near future.

So too could Cardiff, with their lack of invention and creativity from wide areas proving a real paralysis in the final third.

Their relative successes last term were a byproduct of defensive solidity and set-piece efficiency, which have threatened to gloss over a campaign that also saw them rank 15th for goals per match (1.2), 21st for big chances (63) and 22nd for accumulated xG (44.3).

Their undoing next term could be a failure to address such inarguable attacking frailties.

Of course, additional personnel and, above all, the implementation of a more fluid and dynamic offensive blueprint from Bulut amid the critique he has rightly faced from the Cardiff faithful both present more realistic remedies to the issue than one individual signing, but Willock's natural flair and X-Factor ability are traits that have been sorely absent in recent times and would be much-welcomed, you can imagine.

Michal Helik

Meanwhile, Michal Helik is one of a select few Huddersfield Town players to remain with intact pride after the Terriers were relegated to League One alongside Birmingham City and Rotherham United at the end of last season, meaning that it's unlikely he'll be sticking around in the third-tier.

As far as Cardiff are concerned, Bulut quickly made good of his promises to improve their prior shortcomings from set-plays, with the Bluebirds scoring a whopping 20 goals from such scenarios.

It's an unfathomable record which, rather unsurprisingly, isn't usurped by anyone else across the entire EFL sector and while Cardiff must look to find more than one ways to skin a cat by creating increased chances from open play, it's equally difficult to see Bulut completely abandoning the modus operandi either.

Powerful central defender Helik, who stands at 6'3, proved a real handful at both ends of the pitch last season by making 75 interceptions and winning 180 aerial duels, but, more impressively, scored nine goals.

That's a remarkable return for a defender - in a relegation campaign, no less - and Cardiff would certainly benefit from his goalscoring profile, especially given their ongoing search for an ample Nat Phillips replacement after the defender returned to Liverpool following his productive loan spell in Wales.