Cardiff City manager Mick McCarthy has insisted that Marley Watkins has been handed a short-term deal with the club to continue his trial period, and that he did his chance of a long-term deal no harm with his League Cup display.

Watkins had been on trial for the Bluebirds during their pre-season fixtures and he did feature for them on two occasions against Bath City and then Southampton.

Cardiff confirmed on Tuesday that Watkins has now been handed a short-term contract until the end of the month. That enabled him to feature for the Bluebirds in their League Cup tie against League Two newcomers Sutton United on Tuesday evening.

The attacker managed to make a major impact on the contest and he fired home Cardiff’s first two goals as they managed to secure a 3-2 win against their plucky fourth tier opponents. That underlined the quality that he could bring to the table if handed a longer deal.

Speaking to Wales Online following the Bluebirds’ win over Sutton, McCarthy outlined why Watkins has been handed a short-term deal until the end of August and also insisted that his prospects of getting a longer-term contract have not been hurt by his performance.

He said: "He's done [his chances of signing a longer-term contract] no harm," McCarthy said after the victory over the Us.

"It's just a short-term contract for now. But I thought he did really well today.

"It is a trial period. Absolutely that. He came in for pre-season but the rules dictate you can only play two friendlies and he played the one at Bath; he played with a bit of an injury and he was wanting to play, but he didn't do anything.

Then he had 10 days, two weeks off. So, to be fair to him, and to be fair to us, we had to have another look at him.

"So we have just had this short-term deal and that's what it is."

The verdict

Watkins deserves an enormous amount of credit for the way he has handled himself amid the uncertainty over his situation with the Bluebirds.

He was only handed a temporary contract with Cardiff but instead of turning that down and maybe looking for a move elsewhere, he showed he was determined to win a long-term deal by starring in their win against Sutton.

The attacker adds depth to Cardiff’s attacking options and he showed against Sutton that he has a goal or two in him and that could make him an invaluable player to have in and around the squad this season for McCarthy.

Watkins has not managed to fully convince for a while now with his last majorly impressive season coming for Barnsley a number of years ago now. However, he seems to fit in with this Cardiff squad quite well and McCarthy could do a lot worse than handing him a deal maybe until January and see how things progress from there.