Cardiff City: Neil Warnock plans 'three or four' January signings

Neil Warnock was appointed manager of Cardiff City in October 2016

Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock hopes to make "three or four" signings during the January transfer window.

The Bluebirds beat Aston Villa 1-0 on Monday with a performance Warnock praised as the best of his reign.

With Cardiff 19th in the Championship and still not clear of relegation, the 68-year-old is looking to strengthen.

"I can't envisage spending a lot of money. Vincent [Tan, the owner] will be quite pleased to hear me say that," said Warnock.

"I've got three or four targets. I've spoken to two or three clubs about them and I'm hoping we can get one or two over the line over the next few weeks.

"We're close on that Financial Fair Play thing so we might have to lose the odd player going out and, at this moment in time, I don't know who that will be.

"It all depends who comes in for my players. I hope it's not one I don't want to let go."

Joe Ralls celebrates the winner against Aston Villa

Warnock was busy in the transfer market immediately after succeeding Paul Trollope as Cardiff boss in October, signing free agents Sol Bamba, Junior Hoilett, Kieran Richardson and Marouane Chamakh on short-term deals.

Centre-back Bamba and winger Hoilett have since established themselves as first-team regulars, but midfielder Richardson and striker Chamakh have been released after barely playing.

Bamba was deployed in an unfamiliar holding midfield role against Villa, and the Ivorian excelled as Cardiff secured just a second clean sheet of Warnock's tenure.

"It's the best we've played by a mile since I've been at club. It had everything," the former Crystal Palace manager added.

"We made hard work of it. We should have put the game to bed by half-time, but we don't do that do we? We've worked on being a bit more disciplined towards the end of games - we've thrown so many points away.

"I threw Sol into midfield and he did well. I first saw him at Leicester City playing in midfield and we had a laugh about it.

"He did ever so well, enabled the others to get forward. I thought we dominated for large parts. I didn't see weakness anywhere… an all-round really good performance."