One winner and one loser at Cardiff City following £3.3m, Yousef Salech transfer agreement | OneFootball

Football League World looks at who could benefit and lose out from the signing of Yousef Salech at Cardiff City

Cardiff City have sealed their first signing of the January window in the form of Yousef Salech, who joins Omer Riza's side from Swedish top-flight outfit Sirius.

Salech celebrated his 23rd birthday by officially completing a reported £3.3 million switch to the Welsh capital on Friday morning, signing a four-and-a-half year contract with the club.

The signing comes amid the Bluebirds' well-documented search for attacking reinforcements, with Cardiff having sorely struggled infront of goal this season. Cardiff are currently just outside the Championship relegation zone in 21st ahead of Saturday afternoon's crunch South Wales Derby at home to Swansea City, for which Salech will be eligible.

It will be hoped that Salech, who scored 11 goals in 27 appearances for Sirius last term, will be able to add much-needed firepower and goals into this Cardiff frontline. However, having not played since November - when the season ended in Sweden - a certain degree of time and latitude will likely need to be afforded.

Salech's arrival is, across the board, good news for Cardiff, especially from a long-term perspective if he proves to have the desired effect. However, it may not benefit everyone in this squad, so to speak, as some could profit from the towering Denmark-born striker's arrival, while it could push others down the pecking order.

Football League World takes a look at one potential winner and loser...

Winner: Callum Robinson

At the time of writing, no Cardiff player has scored more league goals this season than Callum Robinson's haul of eight. Indeed, the side's second-highest goalscorer is classy central midfielder Alex Robertson, who has found the back of the net on four occasions since his summer arrival from Manchester City.

Robinson is the only out-and-out striker at Cardiff to have even scored a goal this term, which simply underlines his importance.

Granted, both Kion Etete and Isaak Davies have spent much of the campaign sidelined after suffering severe hamstring injuries in pre-season ahead of the final year of their contracts at the Cardiff City Stadium, while Hertha Berlin loanee Wilfried Kanga is yet to score from 16 appearances as he closes in on a shock permanent switch to Dinamo Zagreb, but it's still an alarming statistic which shows Robinson's importance and the neccesity for the goalscoring burden to be shared wider in equal measure.

Despite being Cardiff's most prolific and experienced frontman by a distance, the 29-year-old has completed the full 90 minutes on just three occasions this season, with continual niggles and fitness setbacks never too far away. It's been a recurring theme of his Cardiff career, really.

Robinson, who is also out of contract at the end of the season, should retain his starting berth - when fully fit - in spite of Salech's arrival, though it may just lessen the mighty burden on his shoulders. Competition for places is never a bad thing either, and the Bluebirds simply haven't had enough of that in forward areas this year.

Loser: Roko Simic

While the capture of Salech may well lift Cardiff, it could promise to push more peripheral striking candidates even further down Riza's pecking order.

One of those, of course, is Roko Simic, who faces an uncertain future at Cardiff after arriving from Red Bull Salzburg in a reported £2.1 million deal last summer.

The Croatia youth international was immediately loaned out to sister club KV Kortrijk, where the aforementioned Davies flourished on loan last term, but played just 143 minutes of goalless minutes across four appearances in a struggling side before suffering an injury back in November, spelling the end of his time in Belgium ahead of his premature return to City earlier this month.

Cardiff's plan for Simic, however, remains unclear at this stage. It was hoped that he would gain experience with Kortrijk and get the goals up in preparation to be City's first-choice striker next season but, given just how badly that move played out coupled with the arrival of Salech, one would not have great confidence in the club's intended plan falling into place as early as August.

The 21-year-old, who scored in the UEFA Champions League last season prior to joining Cardiff, is currently rotating between training with the under-21's and the senior squad. It does look as though he is set to see out the remainder of the campaign in South Wales, but equally, Simic is nowhere near first-team contention at the minute and that doesn't appear subject to change anytime soon.

The long-term effect, however, of Cardiff's decision to sign Salech could yet be trickier as far as Simic is concerned. Just like Salech, the Croat is a young and towering centre-forward who was signed for a not-insignificant sum from the continent as the club look to expand their recruitment net.

Whether Salech's signing indicates Cardiff have already given up on Simic remains to be seen. Supporters will hope that's not the case, and rightly so, and it would be harsh to completely write him off just yet.

But there's little denying the new arrival is going to make it a lot more difficult - if it wasn't already - for Simic to break into this side and throw his hat in the ring to become Cardiff's long-term marksman.