Cardiff City’s top 10 most valuable academy graduates right now (Ranked)

FLW analyses the most valuable players to come from Cardiff City’s academy

Over the last few years, a much clearer and direct pathway from Cardiff City’s academy to the first-team picture has been paved in the Welsh capital.

Due to mitigating financial circumstances at the Cardiff City Stadium, the club have been forced to promote from within as part of various cost-cutting exercises activated by owner Vincent Tan and his hierarchal team.

Formerly, it was a premium sight to find academy products within almost any divisional matchday squad, though now, it is par of the course as numerous young players have graduated to the senior set-up and seized that opportunity with both hands.

Of course, there is still a long way to go for Tan to realise his ambition of having the team stocked across the board with talent blooded through from within, but Cardiff now find themselves very much on the right track to becoming sustained and accommodating for development in this regard.

The latest illustration of this came during the Bluebirds’ Carabao Cup first round victory over Colchester United, which saw five players from the academy take to the pitch alongside winger Ollie Tanner, who has spent the best part of a year with the club’s under-21s and embraced significant junctures in his footballing progression.

This would have been nigh-on impossible to fathom five years ago.

So, as such, it seems a good time to analyse the most valuable players currently playing to have emerged from Cardiff’s academy, which will be determined by Transfermarkt valuations.

Of course, the figures displayed on the site do not necessarily reflect the actual valuations of the clubs in question – these numerics often remain undisclosed – but it provides an expected price based upon a range of carefully-calculated factors.

According to Transfermarkt, here are the 10 most valuable Cardiff City academy graduates at the moment.

Getting us started is left-back Declan John, who is believed to be the tenth-most valuable graduate of Cardiff’s academy at the time of writing.

The Merthyr Tydfil native progressed through Cardiff’s age-group teams before bursting onto the scene during their first ever Premier League venture in the 2013/14 campaign, making 20 appearances and catching the eye as the Bluebirds were relegated.

Only 18 at the time, it had appeared that John was primed for a significant future with the club, although subsequent managerial changes and, indeed, instability, saw him swiftly slip down the pecking order.

Loans to Barnsley, Chesterfield and Rangers followed, and John made his Ibrox switch permanent in 2017 before going on to spend three years with bitter rivals Swansea City.

From there, he moved on to Bolton Wanderers. He is yet to build upon his seven Wales caps, the last of which came in 2019.

Meanwhile, Joel Bagan’s believed valuation sees him usurp John on this list.

Recruited from Southampton’s academy in the 2018/19 campaign – as a winger, no less – the 21-year-old was transitioned into a left-back and has turned out on 41 occasions for the Bluebirds at first-team level.

Bagan’s real breakthrough came under Steve Morison in 2022, in which he played 26 times across the league season and even went on a blitzing run of three goals in three games against Millwall, Coventry City and Blackpool.

However, the Republic of Ireland youth international fell out of favour last season, although he was still able to earn a fresh deal to extend his stay with the club.

Coming in next is striker Mark Harris, who has a reported valuation just shy of £700k.

Despite hailing from Swansea, the 24-year-old spent 11 years within City’s academy system and, after embarking upon loan spells to Newport County, Port Vale and Wrexham, he surged into the first-team in 2020 under Neil Harris.

With 92 appearances across all competitions, Harris racked up more appearances for Cardiff than all but one player on this list, though just 10 goals in that time led to little shock when his contract was not renewed at the end of the previous campaign.

He has since sought pastures new in Oxford United, where he will be hoping to unearth some goalscoring form in the third-tier and force himself back into international contention.

Isaak Davies is tied with Harris when it comes to the stated transfer valuations.

And, akin to Harris, Davies is also a striker to have spent much of his life with the Welsh outfit, for whom he has featured 42 times for after debuting two seasons ago.

Off the back of that breakthrough campaign that yielded three goals and four assists amid just 11 starts in the Championship and FA Cup, Vincent Kompany’s Burnley – who have ex-Cardiff star and academy boss Craig Bellamy as assistant manager – filed a £2.5m bid for Davies’ signature, though the Bluebirds were quick to dismiss that offer.

Unfortunately, injury struggles have since caused his career trajectory to take a much slower pace, and after seldom featuring last time out, he has since gone on to join Belgian side KV Kortrijk on loan, who are a part of Tan’s business empire.

Given that Cardiff now have the likes of Ike Ugbo, Callum Robinson, Karlan Grant and Yakou Meite to call upon, game time under Bulut always appeared a tall order and Davies finds himself at a crucial point in his City career, where he will be hoping to revitalise his bright potential.

Not quite a graduate of the Cardiff academy, the full-back nonetheless spent time with the club prior to his release at the age of 15.

From there, he made the short trip down the A48 to pen terms with Newport County, and went on to embrace six years at Rodney Parade before sealing a switch to Peterborough United in 2016.

Two years followed and Hughes was once again on the move, this time to Cardiff’s Championship rivals Preston North End.

The 31-year-old has gone on to be something of an ever-present, having made 176 appearances to date while forming a routinely-reliable presence on the left-hand side.

As per Transfermarkt, Rubin Colwill is valued at £1,036m, which makes him the first million pound player to feature on this list – although he falls into the category of having a valuation that doubtlessly does not align with what the club would quote if an offer arrived.

Undeniably the flagship figure of Cardiff’s renewed bid to reignite their once-prosperous academy system, Colwill has long been pinned as a future star after making his debut against Coventry back in 2021, which came following 11 years with the Bluebirds at age-group level.

He has had to undertake a sizable degree of trials and tribulations since then though, with both injury and fitness difficulties and a misunderstanding among previous management pertaining to his most effective position on the pitch halting his progress over the last year.

Club captain Joe Ralls is one of Cardiff’s highest-valued academy products, and that is most certainly merited given his years of stellar service in South Wales.

Snapped up as a teenager from Farnborough all the way back in 2010, Ralls did not spend long cutting his teeth in the youth system and was fast-tracked into the first-team.

He played roles in Cardiff’s run to the 2011 League Cup final and their first Premier League promotion two years later, and while they were in the top flight, he spent time on loan with Yeovil Town in the second-tier.

The midfielder returned from Somerset ready to stamp his mark on proceedings and has done just that, racking up over 300 appearances to date and becoming a mainstay in the team when fully fit.

Still only 29, Ralls also now dons the armband and will have a key part to play moving forward under Bulut.

Colwill had, of course, made a lasting impression in the 2021/22 campaign and finished as his side’s joint-top scorer in the league at the age of 19, with a match-winning brace away at Nottingham Forest and free-kick at QPR, along with an FA Cup strike at Anfield all in his catalog that term.

Now, there is every chance that the rocky season he had last time around can be left in the past, with new boss Erol Bulut choosing to optimise his strengths by playing him as a number 10.

Another valuation that perhaps does not quite reflect the probable price tag of reality, few former-Cardiff academy graduates are worth more in the current market than Rabbi Matondo.

The winger spent 10 years with Cardiff before being poached by Manchester City in 2016, and moved on to Schalke two-and-a-half years later for a reported £11m outlay after not being able to impose himself in Pep Guardiola’s plans.

His time in Germany did not go to plan and loan stints to Stoke City and Cercle Brugge followed, eventually leading to a switch to Rangers last term.

He has failed to hit the ground running at Ibrox too, and after failing to open his account across the entirety of the 2022/23 campaign.

Coming in second is Aaron Ramsey, who is undoubtedly the most well-known academy graduate in Cardiff’s history.

A boyhood Cardiff supporter, the creative midfielder played 16 times for the first-team at a remarkably young age and this saw him seal a switch to Arsenal at the age of 17, where he went on to feature 366 times across an 11-year period- with loan spells to Nottingham Forest and back to Cardiff inbetween.

At times, Ramsey was among the finest midfielders in the Premier League and accumulated an apex Transfermarkt valuation of £38m a year before departing British shores for Juventus.

Ramsey joined Rangers on loan towards the end of his Italian adventure and soon moved on to French outfit OGC Nice for a year, before going full-circle and engineering a scintillating homecoming to Cardiff.

Central defender Tom Lockyer tops this list with a reported valuation of £2.58m.

The 28-year-old spent five years in Cardiff’s academy only to be released at the age of 16, soon opting to head across the River Severn to sign terms with Bristol Rovers.

Lockyer tallied close to 300 appearances there and spent one year at Charlton before Luton Town came calling, where he plies his trade to this day.

He captained the Hatters to their stunning Premier League promotion via the play-offs, and has since made a full recovery after collapsing during the Wembley showdown against Coventry.

Looking at it now, Cardiff may just regret this one.