Bluebirds hand trials to talented youngsters

EXCITING young talents Jaami Qureshi and Ollie Tanner are on trial with Cardiff City this week, WalesOnline understands.

It is understood that the Bluebirds are keen to overhaul not only their first-team squad, but their under-23s side this summer in one of the biggest recruitment drives we have seen at the Welsh capital city club for quite some time.

And Cardiff are using the final weeks of the season as the perfect opportunity to get a few youngsters in with a view to signing them, if they impress, ahead of pre-season.

We knew that trialists would start pouring in towards the back end of the campaign, with clubs having made decisions on which crop of budding talents they are going to keep and who will be able to seek pastures new.

Cardiff City’s under-23s played Coventry yesterday lunchtime, with a trialist named in the young Bluebirds’ starting lineup. WalesOnline believes that to be Qureshi, an 18-yearold winger who is eligible to play for England, Malaysia and Iraq.

Cardiff made a similar signing last summer when winger Jack Leahy, then 18, was signed from Brighton and he has gone on to impress for the Bluebirds’ youth teams this term.

Qureshi has two goals for Brighton’s under-18s this term. And, later this week, it is understood that Tanner will be brought in by Cardiff for a trial, which represents an exciting move by the recruitment team.

Cardiff were linked with Tanner at the back end of the January transfer window, but so, too, were Southampton, Luton, Watford, Brighton and, most notably Spurs.

The 19-year-old, who can operate on either wing as well as in the No.10 position, had the opportunity to sign for Tottenham in January but rejected the north London club, but failed to agree personal terms.

The winger, who was on the books at Arsenal as a youngster before moving to Bromley in 2018, played out the rest of the season with Lewes, who finished seventh in the Isthmian League Premier Division, but it was always expected that clubs higher up the football pyramid would go in for him again in the summer.

Cardiff manager Steve Morison just last week spoke of how he hopes for an exciting transfer window for the under-23s this summer and how new recruits can benefit just like the ones who have taken strides from the Bluebirds academy this term.