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Glen Williams

Erol Bulut confirms Dimitrios Goutas to become next Cardiff City signing

Cardiff City are set to complete the signing of Greece international Dimitrios Goutas.

Cardiff announced their first signing of the Bulut era on Tuesday with the loan capture of striker Ike Ugbo from Troyes, one of a number of signings the manager is hopeful of making in the coming weeks.

And Goutas is set to be number two. It is understood Goutas underwent his medical on Tuesday afternoon, with some paperwork still outstanding before he officially becomes a Bluebird.

READ MORE: Cardiff City player ratings as Joel Colwill and Mark McGuinness impress in TNS win

The 6ft 4ins centre-back, 29, was pictured at Cardiff City Stadium during Tuesday night's 3-1 friendly win over TNS, with only the final bits paperwork to be completed.

"With Goutas, I think there is small paperwork still open. I hope after tomorrow it will be done," Bulut said. "We will then have completed two transfers but we need more.

"He is not only (known for his time in) Turkey, before that he had some quite good years at Olympiacos. He played for the Greek national team.

"If we finalise the deal with him, I hope we can get him back in the national team. Because he did really well, some good work, with Sivasspor. We played against each other and I know him well from there.

"He is quite good in defence. He is organised, good on the ball. He is good in the air. He has scored a lot of goals from set pieces. That is also important for us. We are training on set pieces, so we need these kinds of players. When the game is tired and you can't create chances, you have to do it from set pieces."

WalesOnline reported that the club had held talks with Aaron Ramsey over a potential homecoming this summer. However, Bulut played that with a straight bat.

"You know more things than me!" he replied. "I don't know about that. Of course, we need quality players in the team, players who are free in the market. So I hope in the following days, we can do it quickly.

"I hope in the next week we can finalise a few transfers."

Bulut insists he still believes eight to 10 players are required if Cardiff are to catapult themselves up the table next season.

The manager feels his contacts in the game will only help to bring players from across the continent and help the club cast their net further.

"Since 2017, I have been a manager, only six years, but I played for 20 years, I have quite a good network to many clubs, agents and players," Bulut said.

"For me, it is very important to speak with the players. Many players want to have a talk with the manager, what the coach thinks, what system they want to play. I try my best to get good players, to have talks with them. Until now - everything is going well.

"We need to add especially in the attacking area. I said that in the offensive part, we need quality offensive players. Defensively it looks good, maybe one more in the defensive part, I cannot say.

"We maybe have to play two or three more games to see what we need."

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