Calum Scanlon celebrates scoring for Millwall against Cardiff in 2025Getty Images
Cardiff City head coach Brian Barry-Murphy says new signing Calum Scanlon has surprised him with how ready he is to get straight into action, despite not playing a first-team game for more than a year.
The League One leaders signed the 20-year-old Liverpool left-back on loan for the rest of the season last Sunday.
A serious hamstring injury means Scanlon has not played a senior match since January 2025, when he was on loan at Millwall in the Championship.
However, having been training with his new club this week, Scanlon is ready to make an instant impact.
"A brilliant addition," said Barry-Murphy. "He's already shown this week how ready he is.
"It took me by surprise a little bit, I suppose, because he hasn't had a lot of action. But he's an elite player with elite mentality.
"He wants to improve and we feel as if we can help him enormously to improve."
Scanlon could make his Cardiff debut in Saturday's League One trip to Rotherham United.
"I think he's a good player," said Bluebirds winger Chris Willock.
"We've trained with him a couple of times. He looks very fast, so I'm looking forward to playing with him."
Cardiff will be without centre-back Dylan Lawlor for the Rotherham game because of a minor knee injury.
Although striker Yousef Salech and attacking midfielder Rubin Colwill are still not ready to play, both are progressing well with their recoveries from neck and ankle injuries respectively.
"Yousef is improving day by day. No timescale on him due to the nature of his injury," said Barry-Murphy.
"Dylan Lawlor is expected to be back next week, so not available for Saturday.
"Rubin is back in training, but not available for Saturday. Early stages for him.
"I think he'll want to play straight away. He's flying. He just has to go through enough of the training so we know that when he comes back into the game, he's almost protected from himself as much as anything.
"But he's been back training this week and looked really good without much contact."
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