Exeter City and Cardiff City may both feel January transfer regret | OneFootball

Joel Colwill hasn't set St James Park on fire since his January loan move from Cardiff City and the Bluebirds might be regretting the deal.

It's not that Joel Colwill has been bad since his January move to St James Park, it's that he's just been a bit 'meh'.

The Cardiff City midfielder had a sterling first half of the season at Cheltenham Town before the Bluebirds cut that short in the last window to send him to Exeter City and test him at League One level.

The 20-year-old scored six and set up another three in 22 League Two appearances for the Robins and they were desperate to keep hold of him as he added another three goals in six more appearances in all competitions.

However, it wasn't to be and he headed off to the League One strugglers, where he's had no such impact with zero combined goals and assists in seven outings to date.

His fruitless return has mirrored that of the Grecians on the whole as Gary Caldwell's side slide rapidly towards relegation.

Toothless Exeter City look set for relegation

City have lost seven of their last nine in the third tier with only one fortunate draw at Peterborough United and a woeful 1-0 win over Cambridge United which, if nothing else, proved that such a thing is indeed possible in the world of football.

Those two fortunate games are their only positive results since the 4-4 draw at home to Crawley on December 29th which had them 4-1 down after 45 minutes.

Caldwell's side have scored eight goals in their last nine, with three of those being mere consolations in heavy defeats.

While City's results and Colwill's output have been poor since he arrived in the winter window, Cardiff will be pleased, at least, that he's getting plenty of game time with 413 minutes across seven games, four of which have been starts.

There's no doubting his effort and industry, but Colwill is struggling to make an impact in a genuinely toothless side that look like they have no idea what the plan is in attack, let alone how to implement it.

The cold, hard facts make grim reading and City are bottom of the league for shots on target per match and second bottom in both xG for and big chances created.

Caldwell clearly hoped that the Cardiff loanee would somehow be able to unlock opposition defences and make his attack work but it's not turned out that way so far.

With him and Brentford loanee Ryan Trevitt in behind Josh Magennis and with wing backs on either side it's very congested in attack and there's no room to create, options to offload to, or runners in behind to find.

There's still time for Joel Colwill to have an impact

Colwill may sill come good for Exeter, as Luke Harris did towards the end of last season, but the early signs are not that promising.

There are still 15 games left to play for Exeter in the 2024/25 campaign but it's hard to see where the next win's coming from.

It could be courtesy of a bit of Colwill magic but Caldwell's system isn't firing at all.

While he's getting experience at League One level, it's hard to imagine this is what Cardiff had in mind when they ended his loan at Cheltenham.

The Robins are ticking along pretty well without Colwill and still harbour hopes of a play-off finish so they're not missing him that badly in terms of pure results.

There was a time that Exeter were dreaming of a dart at the play-offs.

The nightmare of relegation is very real but if they can recover to a mid-table finish you feel that Colwill will have to up his game as it looks like he's going to get plenty of minutes unless Caldwell finally shakes up his faltering tactics.