Cardiff City news 23/11/99

Tues 23rd Nov 1999 - Colchester v City preview

Enter Richie Humphreys, the new loan striker is set to make his debut at Layer Rd tonight. The long awaited arrival of a striker to Ninian Park will ensure maximum interest in tonights game. It must be seen as a classic 6 pointer with Colchester struggling below City in the table. This will be their second home match in 4 days, they were soundly beaten 3 - 0 by Brentford last Friday and City fans will be hoping for a similar scoreline in the Bluebirds favour tonight.

The Blues have taken a 16 man squad to Layer Rd. On the bus today were the following players.

Hallworth, Kelly, Faerber, Vaughan, Legg, Young, Eckhardt, Carpenter, Boland, Hill, Perrett, Humphreys, Brazier, Bonner, Roberts and Bowen.

Kevin Nugent, Mike Ford, Craig Middleton, Jamie Hughes, Jason Fowler and Josh Low are the main absentees. bluebird.gif (2236 bytes)

Tony Vaughan returns after being cup tied for the Bury game. Humphreys is like to start up front with Jason Bowen. Hopefully this will be our dream team strikeforce for at least the next month. Its rumoured that Humphreys could be available for purchase at around Ł200,000, an incredible price considering he was valued at over Ł4m just season or two ago. At aged 22 he could be an amazing signing. His form while he is on loan will be a major factor in any possible purchase.

Report from todays Daily Mirror.
RICHIE HUMPHREYS, an England Under-21 starlet less than two years ago, has been given the chance to rejuvenate his career with Cardiff City.

Humphreys, 22 next weekend, has lost his form and his Premiership place at Sheffield Wednesday.

But Cardiff boss Frank Burrows signed him on a month's loan yesterday and he is in line to make his debut for the Second Division club at Colchester tonight.

He links up again with Tony Vaughan, Cardiff's other on-loan player and a former U-21 colleague.

"Since Tony came here from Manchester City he has raised his own game and helped the club," said Burrows. "He's become a better and more confident player for it.

"I hope Richie can enjoy the same boost during his time with us. He may not be a flying machine but he is very skilful and clever.

"We needed to get some more depth into our squad because Kevin Nugent is taking a while longer than I expected to recover from his ankle injury."

If Humphreys impresses, Burrows may try to find the pounds 200,000 needed to make the move permanent.

Along with a possible pounds 400,000 move for Vaughan and last weekend's pounds 110,000 swoop for German defender Jorn Schwinkendorf, it could be an expensive countdown to Christmas for the board.