Cardiff City manager Neil Harris has slammed the EFL for their handling of expiring loan deals, after his side won 3-1 at Preston North End in the Championship.

Second-half goals from Joe Ralls, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Robert Glatzel saw Cardiff claim their second win of the restart, and with it they leapfrogged Preston into 6th-place of the Championship table.

It was a fine performance from Harris' side, but the ex-Millwall boss told BBC Sport Wales after the game that he remains angered by the EFL, referring specifically to on-loan Wolves man Dion Sanderson.

"I think the EFL have to take a long, hard look at themselves," stated Harris. "As far as I know, Dion has pretty much agreed and Wolves are okay."

Sanderson joined Cardiff on-loan for the remainder of the Championship season back in February - a deal which was supposed to last until the end of this month.

But now with the season finale scheduled for next month, a major issue has arisen for clubs throughout the EFL regarding loan players' contracts.

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Harris then discussed the status of Albert Adomah, who is on-loan from Forest.

"Forest is not as straight forward," said the Cardiff boss. "We're in dialogue with Forest at the moment. The bottom line with Albert is I want him to stay. I've picked him in every game he's been at the club for.

"Albert wants to stay and finish the season here. So we have to keep working with Forest to try and make it happen."

So, particularly in the case of Sanderson, Harris is pointing out that the EFL has completely mishandled the situation of loan players, going on to say:

"It might end up with clubs in dispute over players when the EFL should've taken leadership and ownership over this and made it compulsory for loans to be finished. So my gripe at the moment is with the EFL in particular."

The verdict
Little will take away from Cardiff's win and subsequent spot in the top-six today. There's a lot of teams who've been in and out of the mid-table pack this season, and Cardiff having restarted sharply, have taken their rightful spot in the play-off places.
As for the situation surrounding loan players, Harris has a very valid point in saying that the EFL should've made a concrete decision early on, rather than allowing clubs to embroil in further negotiations to extend them. Harris and his fellow managers now have just a few days to extend the contracts of their loan players.