Cardiff City urged to sign "pacey and direct winger" to fix problems | OneFootball

FLW's Cardiff fan pundit gives his verdict on the Bluebirds' number one transfer priority.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

With Cardiff City currently sat inside the Championship’s bottom three, January could prove to be a pivotal month for the Bluebirds’ second tier future.

Omer Riza’s side currently sit level on points with Portsmouth, who are occupying that all-important 21st place, but they have played one game more than Pompey.

Cardiff have shown signs of life recently, bringing a nine-game winless run to an end with a 2-1 win at Watford on 29th December, before following that up with a pair of 1-1 draws against Coventry City and Middlesbrough.

Nevertheless, the Bluebirds still need to strengthen heavily in January if they want to avoid falling into the third tier for the first time in over 20 years.

Cardiff need a winger in January

With that in mind, we asked FLW’s resident Cardiff fan pundit, Jack Price, for his take on which position should be Cardiff’s number one priority to strengthen in January, as well as the type of player he’d like to see brought in.

Jack said: “I think it has to be a pacey and direct winger. There is such an absence of pace in our attack and a lot of that comes from wide areas. We haven’t really got any wingers who are comfortable on the ball going one vs one and can really stretch a play and get us up the field.

“Chris Willock is coming on as of late and starting to, in my opinion anyway, vindicate a lot of the hype that surrounded his arrival from QPR. But he isn’t that profile of winger.

“Anwar El Ghazi has been very disappointing for the most part. Yakou Meite isn’t up to it again in my opinion. Cian Ashford, to be fair to the academy, is having a second breakthrough, so to speak, and he’s looking really promising. Then you’ve got Ollie Tanner, who’s coming back from injury, but I don’t think any of those really fit the bill.

“Somebody who does, although he’s played a lot of football as a striker, is Ricky Jade-Jones from Peterborough. An attacking player like that who has bags of pace and can really pin opponents back and drive with the ball, that’s the type of signing we need to be making.

“So ideally, a wide player because I feel a lot of our problems in front of goal aren’t just due to the lack of strikers, but the lack of creativity and quality out wide.

“Strengthening that forward line fundamentally is what really needs to happen this month, and I think it will. You’re seeing a lot of links already and Riza’s already come out and said he wants three or four new players, so we’re making inroads.”

Cardiff certainly need more goals in their side if they are to claw their way to safety come the end of the season.

Only Millwall, Stoke and bottom side Plymouth have scored less than the Bluebirds’ 25 league goals so far in 2024/25.

Callum Robinson is the only man within Riza’s squad that has cleared five league goals and there simply isn’t the required level of depth to Cardiff’s attack.

Football League World revealed exclusively on Monday that the Bluebirds are interested in striking a deal for Peterborough forward Ricky Jade-Jones.

The 22-year-old could bring the vital injection of pace that Cardiff need, although he has played just 18 games of Championship football so far in his career.