"A massive gamble" - Cardiff City worry issued over £3.3m striker transfer deal | OneFootball

We asked our Cardiff City fan pundit for his thoughts after it emerged they are set to sign Yousef Salech for £3.3million

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...

Cardiff City forking out a reported fee of £3.3million for 22-year-old IK Sirius striker Yousef Salech has been dubbed "a massive gamble" by our Bluebirds fan pundit.

It's been reported by Wales Online that Cardiff are lining up a deal to bring the Danish-Palestinian striker to the Welsh capital this month, and reports from Expressen in Sweden, the country where Salech is currently plying his trade, suggest the Bluebirds will have to fork out £3.3million for the 22-year-old's services.

Salech possesses an impressive goalscoring return for IK Sirius, scoring 13 times in 29 appearances for the Swedish side since joining them in February 2024, but playing for a Cardiff side fighting for their lives in the Championship could be a completely different ask.

£3.3million is a lot of money by Cardiff's standards, but desperate times call for desperate measures and Omer Riza will be hoping his goals can help the Bluebirds avoid the drop.

Yousef Salech signing deemed a gamble for Cardiff City

We asked our Cardiff City fan pundit, Jack Price, what he thought about Salech's signing, and it's clear that he feels it's a risk for the Bluebirds to be paying that sort of money, despite the 22-year-old's potential.

Speaking to Football League World, Jack said: "It’s a very interesting one with Salech. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Cardiff fan who had heard of him before last night. He’s an unknown quantity.

"First of all, it’s a big risk, there’s no getting around that. £3.3m the touted fee - it’s not insignificant by any means, particularly when you think of where Cardiff are in the league and there’s been a lot of cost-cutting in the last few years.

"So, it’s a massive gamble, and he hasn’t played since November, so I don’t think he’ll be coming in to lead the line straight away, but he’s going to have to get going pretty quickly because it’s a lot of money, and we’re in a dogfight, let's make no bones about that.

“In terms of what I’ve seen and heard from Salech, who obviously isn’t a lot, he was very prolific in Sweden, a good goals to game ratio, and he’s pretty young as well, which is always promising.

“In terms of his profile, he’s 6’5”, so you’d fancy him to acclimatise to the Championship quickly, and this is just going off the clips I’ve seen, but he looks good at making runs in behind, and he’s quite mobile for his height, and he’s also a high-volume shooter, so hopefully he’s getting into the opportunities to score which can’t be said for someone like Wilfried Kanga.

“You’d like to think he’s an instant upgrade on some of our options, if not an experienced second tier goalscorer like Callum Robinson, but it’s an interesting signing.

“We made a similar move for Roko Simic in the summer and that simply hasn’t worked out, so I’d hope that it goes better for Salech at Cardiff.

“I am reserving any real judgement for now, because we simply don’t know enough about him, and it’ll be a case of seeing what he’s all about.

"The only certainty is that it’s a huge gamble from Cardiff, in my opinion, but I’m not writing him off, so hopefully, he scores goals to keep us up and, with the evidence, he could prove a really shrewd long-term investment.”

Yousef Salech has huge pressure on him to make an immediate impact at Cardiff City

While Salech is a young player who's set for a big future in the game, he's not being brought in as one for the future, he's being brought in to make an impact now.

Cardiff need a short-term fix, so it's something of a surprise to see them targeting such a young player, and it wouldn't have been a shock had they signed an experienced Championship goalscorer to ensure they remain in the division.

However, Salech has impressed in Sweden, and supporters will hope he can score enough goals between now and the end of the season to keep Cardiff in the Championship.

The striker won't want to be playing in League One next season, and Cardiff haven't paid £3.3million with League One in mind, so it's a huge risk, but one that the Bluebirds need to take to remain in the division.