Cardiff City must find £2.5m Dinamo Zagreb transfer development hard to believe | OneFootball

Wilfried Kanga is poised to join Dinamo Zagreb for £2.5m, which Cardiff City ought to find hard to believe given his displays on loan this season

Cardiff City loanee Wilfried Kanga is poised to see an imminent conclusion to his half-season nightmare in South Wales as he closes in on a permanent switch from parent club Hertha Berlin to Dinamo Zagreb, a development which must surely leave the Bluebirds scratching their heads in wonder.

Kanga joined Cardiff as one of eight summer signings, albeit the sole loan acquisition, under Erol Bulut as the Turkish boss looked to build upon - in terms of league position - a promising debut campaign which saw the Welsh side finish in 12th.

An alarm bell, however, from the summer window was that Kanga had been signed as Cardiff's only fit and ready striker for the season, with Roko Simic immediately heading out on loan to sister club KV Kortrijk in an ill-fated agreement, which has since been concluded prematurely, after arriving from Red Bull Salzburg for a reported £2.1 million outlay.

Isaak Davies and Kion Etete both suffered long-term hamstring injuries in pre-season, from which the former is yet to return while the latter is only now beginning to get back on the pitch, leaving Kanga with limited competition away from current top goalscorer Callum Robinson. Cardiff, through a mixture of design and ill fortune, gave significant goalscoring responsibility to Kanga and he quite literally could not have delivered on that any less.

Wilfried Kanga has been a poor signing for Cardiff City

Kanga joined Cardiff with fair continental goalscoring pedigree, having registered 12 league strikes apiece with Young Boys and Standard Liege either side of a dismal sole season in the Hertha Berlin first-team back in 2022/23.

However, he greatly struggled in ever acclimatising or finding his feet at Championship level. The two-cap Ivory Coast international started five of Cardiff's first seven games across divisional and EFL Cup action as they embarked upon a horror league start under Bulut, who was consequently handed his marching orders.

Kanga was a seeming favourite of Bulut's, with the ex-Fenerbache boss - remarkably, it must be said, preferring him over the aforementioned Robinson. It's telling, then, that Kanga did not start another match for Cardiff after Bulut's dismissal in September, with successor Omer Riza limiting him to the occasional role of an impact substitute.

From the start of November onwards, the striker played just 26 minutes of football for Cardiff and did not get off the bench in any of their five most recent league matches despite being named in each matchday squad. Kanga is all-but-set to leave Cardiff, who had unsurprisingly been looking to end his loan deal for some time, with his 16 appearances, six starts and 511 minutes of action yielding no goals or assists.

For many supporters, Kanga's inability to open his account was far from the sole issue at play. Cardiff have had, albeit with mixed results at best, a variation of strikers across the years.

Huge physical presences, such as Kieffer Moore, Sory Kaba, Famara Diedhou and Uche Ikpeazu have all come and gone with varied success.

Direct and high-pressing forwards in Mark Harris, Danny Ward, Oumar Niasse, for example, were all effective with running the channels and leading the press without being necessarily prolific in goal. Meanwhile, the club have also had more technical, ball-to-feet strikers in the likes of Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Robert Glatzel, both of whom are visibly gifted footballers less cut out for the physical side of the game - and Cardiff perhaps failed to get the best out of them.

The point is Cardiff, who have endured a quite frankly horrific track record with strikers over the years, have had many different profiles and skillsets, but it was hard to ever decipher what Kanga was bringing to the table whatsoever.

Any potential redeeming qualities were simply not there with Kanga - admittedly not helped by his limited match minutes - though the misfiring forward fell drastically short of compensating for the absence of just goals.

Cardiff City may struggle to believe Dinamo Zagreb's £2.5m Wilfried Kanga transfer

Given all of the above, Cardiff may well find Kanga's impending transfer to the Croatian giants difficult to believe - but that's not to say they will have too many complaints.

According to reports in Croatia, the ex-Paris Saint Germain academy forward is set to join Dinamo Zagreb in a £2.5 million deal, after a loan switch to the Balkans had first been mooted.

Ironically, Kanga is seemingly moving to the Croatian capital as a replacement for Youcef Salech, who had been a reported target for Zagreb before his £3.3 million switch to the Welsh capital on Friday morning in a move which has likely accelerated the Ivorian's own departure.

Zagreb have won an astonishing 25 Croatian top-flight titles, the last of which was their seventh straight scoop just last season. Managed by former Ballon D'Or winner Fabio Cannavaro, Zagreb are due to visit the Emirates Stadium for a UEFA Champions League clash with Arsenal next week, where Kanga could feature, before welcoming an AC Milan side which boasts the likes of Theo Hernandez, Fikayo Tomori, Tijjani Reijnders, Rafael Leao and Christian Pulisic at the end of the month.

Champions League football for Kanga, who appeared miserably out of his depth at Championship level, represents an impressive career move, it must be said.