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Cardiff City midfielder Joel Colwill has completed his loan move to Exeter City and believes the League One club “really suits” his style of play.
Colwill is coming off the back of a terrific League Two loan with Cheltenham Town, but the Bluebirds were keen to get the 20-year-old out at a higher level in the back end of the campaign.
The Wales youth international scored nine goals and assisted a further three in the first half of the season for the Robins and Cardiff hope that he can reproduce those sorts of numbers in League One before becoming part of the furniture in the Welsh capital next season – in whichever division the Bluebirds find themselves in. Sign up to our daily Cardiff City newsletter here.
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Speaking about the move, Colwill said: “I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the club from people I have spoken to. Spoke to the manager and the way the team play really suits me and I think I can be effective in the team.
“His style of football, he was showing me videos of how the team play, the club itself is really good. Everything so far has been brilliant and I’m really looking forward to it.
“Cheltenham was a really good move for me, the manager there was really good to me and I felt joy. I scored a few goals and I hope to continue my form at Exeter.
“I learnt a lot at Cheltenham and am grateful for that opportunity, to play men’s football, win games and get that competitiveness.”
He added: “Cardiff have been brilliant with me throughout the process. I spoke to people at the club and they think it’s the right club to come to with my style of play.
“I can come here, the way the manager sets the team up I can express myself and show what I can do and hopefully have a good rest of the season and see where things go.
“My aim is to win as many games as possible and I hope I can help the team achieve that.”
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Elsewhere, reports in Turkey have suggested that Cardiff were interested in Poland international Jakub Kaluzinski this month.
Reporter Reşat Can Özbudak, of Sports Digitale, claim Cardiff made an official bid for the Antalyaspor midfielder, however the 22-year-old rejected the approach because he wanted to move to “a bigger club”.
Scottish side Celtic were reportedly keen on the defensive midfielder in the summer, so, too, were La Liga side Real Valladolid, with a transfer fee of around £3.5m touted.
Polish outlet Meczyki claim Cardiff were “willing to pay €3-4m”, citing Daniel Weber from the INNfootball agency as saying: “It’s true that there was such interest from the Welsh, but sportingly we are aiming at a completely different level today, so we were not interested in this.”
Cardiff have taken a look at that base of midfield area and are hoping to strengthen there. Peterborough’s Hector Kyprianou is one player who has been on the club’s radar.
Meanwhile, Cardiff winger Raheem Conte has returned to his parent club following a disappointing loan spell at non-League Woking.
Conte, 22, managed just 13 appearances for the National League side, which is a disappointing return given how he impressed at the back end of last season under Erol Bulut.
“We are grateful to Cardiff City for giving us the opportunity to work with Raheem,” Woking director of football Jody Brown said.
“He came into the squad during a really difficult time for everybody and didn’t get the playing time we’d all have hoped for, but we did see glimpses of his quality and hope he took lots from the experience.”
Given Conte played for the Bluebirds in the Carabao Cup at the beginning of the campaign, he will be unable to head out on loan to another club this season.