Vincent Tan urged to set £10m Cardiff City demand as West Ham eye second transfer | OneFootball

Cardiff City have been told to put a hefty price tag on key players linked with West Ham United, including Rubin Colwill.

Having been two divisions apart last season, West Ham United and Cardiff City will be sharing the same league next season and it appears as though the Hammers are lining up the Bluebirds for something of an old school transfer raid.

West Ham endured a miserable 2024/25 season with off-field issues and generally below average decision-making behind the scenes leading to what felt like an inevitable circling of the drain and eventual plummet down into the Championship.

With Nuno Espirito Santo having been confirmed as staying on at the London Stadium and some upheaval upstairs, there will surely, eventually, be newfound optimism that things will begin to look up for West Ham.

A part of their rebuild appears to be a raid on Cardiff, with links to Dylan Lawlor and Ronan Kpakio having now been followed by an apparent interest in City’s key man Rubin Colwill.

Cardiff faltered at times last season but, at their best, were excellent and eventually confirmed their position as runners’ up to runaway leaders Lincoln City with ease in League One, under the management of Brian Barry-Murphy.

As they gear up to return to the second-tier, Barry-Murphy will be extremely keen to ensure his side stays together as they seek to be competitive.

Cardiff told to slap £10 million price tag on starlets – at a minimum

Cardiff, and Barry-Murphy in particular as the head coach, were excellent at blending together some experienced players that were remnants from their Championship relegation in the 2024/25 campaign with an array of youth talent.

The young players, such as Rubin Colwill, were the bedrock of the side and he emerged as one of the very best players in the third-tier, having shown glimpses of quality at a higher level in a struggling side before that.

As FLW’s Cardiff Fan Pundit Matt Hall outlines, Cardiff should put a hefty price tag on Colwill, as well as Lawlor and Kpakio to ward off any interest from The Irons or elsewhere.

Matt says: “I think it’s absolutely paramount that we retain him.

“Obviously, there are many reasons to it in terms of his ability in general but he is, I would say, the leader of the group.

“Obviously there’s two sectors of the group, there’s the older players, of which there aren’t too many but there’s the younger group and Rubin is the old head of the academy boys.

“He’s the one they all look up to really and I think that is why he’s one of the captains we have alongside Calum Chambers, and he may turn out to be the main captain by the end of the summer if Chambers was to go, potentially.

“For that, on its own, you’ve got to be looking at, the lowest, £10 million. You’ve really got to try and put big price tags on these players.

“I think I saw in reports that Dylan Lawlor and Ronan Kpakio were players they were potentially interested in as well. I think you’ve got to be looking at £10 million for pretty much all of the standout ones we’ve got, in terms of your Rubin’s, your Kpakio’s, your Lawlor’s, those standout young players that we’ve got.

“Obviously, there are some others that we’ve got in there that are worth more towards the £5 million region.

“I don’t think it will take anything for Rubin to leave. Obviously, as mentioned, him being a captain, his brother being here – I think there are just so many aspects that this deal will never happen.

“I don’t think the fee is necessarily the biggest problem. Similar to Dylan Lawlor, I don’t think there would be any push on the player side so there is no pressure for us to sell.

“I think as a club we need to just take it as a compliment. If people want to state: ‘are we ready to compete in the Championship? Well, West Ham, one of the relegated sides (from the Premier League) are already after three of our players that are key players in the squad so I think you just have to take that as a compliment that we are developing these players really well and that they are top, top talents.

“Not for sale and if they really want them then they are going to have pull out a lot of money – eight figures, minimum.”

Cardiff will be confident in the Championship

Action Images

In the past, we have seen teams that haven’t won League One thrive in the Championship, with the best example of that being Ipswich Town a couple of years ago or even Wrexham last year,who missed out on the top six and the play-off places on the final day of the season.

Not so much the case with Wrexham, albeit there was with the manager Phil Parkinson, Ipswich managed to achieve that success, a successive promotion up to the Premier League, by building on the style of football they had put in with a similar set of players and a general continuity around the team.

Cardiff appear extremely well set to do that with Barry-Murphy, a former youth coach at Manchester City, having implemented his passing and possession-dominant style of football to great effect.

Combining that with the fact that City have players continuing to develop with such a young core should ensure not too much work is required and simply refining things and adding an extra bit of quality may well take them quite far.

Imperative for those aspirations of competing well in the second division will be ensuring that they keep hold of their impressive young talent with Colwill especially pivotal to that.