Cardiff City latest: Bluebirds found using youth talent such as Cian Ashford as huge success
As Cardiff City showed signs of adding their youth prospects to their starting eleven near the end of their Championship campaign, there’s a lot more to come from their younger players as they look to break into their side and make the Cardiff faithful proud.
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00:00 Yeah, and maybe as a shining light for Cardiff, their sort of implementation of some of their
00:05 younger players. How important is that for them moving on into the future and ensuring
00:10 that they keep them in the summer and can hopefully use these players well for next
00:15 season, these young players?
00:16 Absolutely. Cardiff's always had a good academy. Loads of players who may not necessarily make
00:22 the Cardiff First team, but they've gone off to other places as well in the last few years.
00:26 Cardiff's academy's strong. You've got players coming through always. Yeah, and then towards
00:30 the end of the season, you had Kean Ashford came on, made his league debut, scored in
00:34 that game as well. So there's a good few young players, really young players, a few 17-year-olds
00:41 who are coming up through who played towards the end of the year. They kind of played in
00:45 those, you know, I'll give them a game, get them some minutes. But Kean Ashford, he played
00:50 because he deserved a spot and he was playing and he scored and he did well. So there's
00:56 promise in Cardiff. Like I said, the academy's always been good. You get these players coming
01:02 through. Ruben Caldwell, the last few years has been an absolute light for Cardiff City.
01:06 And there's been some rumours, I'm not sure how far they go. The Premier League team's
01:09 looking at him, but you know, these players are very able, coming up through and hopefully
01:15 that's where Cardiff have got to go because we've been struggling in the transfer market
01:19 recently. You know, it was a transfer embargo the last few years on and off and things.
01:24 So these young players have needed to step up and they have and it's been a real delight
01:28 to be able to see.
01:29 Do you feel like this summer needs to be a bit more of a settled summer? We touched on
01:36 that, they've had some clear outs over the last few years. Do you feel like this is going
01:40 to be maybe the start of a new sort of time for the club where they can just settle the
01:44 players, settle the summer and get this squad ready to ultimately aim to achieve promotion
01:50 again?
01:51 I think the loan situation's really going to affect them a little bit. And some of these
01:56 players have been vital for them, definitely the likes of Kyle and Grant, who started week
02:01 in, week out for them as well. And Phillips has been a great impact as well. Yeah, I think
02:06 that's what Cardiff are looking for this season, was I think a settled season. They're nowhere
02:10 near the relegation zone, way more settled for them now. And that's what they want, they
02:16 want to build on what they've got and obviously add to it. But obviously, they're not a club
02:21 that has a lot of money to spend in the summer as well. So it might be a bit of hope that
02:25 they can bring through some homegrown talent as well.
02:27 I think for me, one of the most improved, even though he's only improved on his statistics
02:34 most recently in the last week with a few assists, is Ruben Caldwell. I think last season
02:38 he was so affected by his injuries because he was having growing pains and now he's actually
02:42 grown into this young player and he's already played at a World Cup and there's a lot of
02:46 hype around him. But I've really been impressed by Ruben Caldwell. There's always a debate
02:52 amongst the Cardiff City fan base as to whether he should start or he shouldn't. But for me,
02:57 he's got to be starting every week.
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