It’s a fifty fifty spilt as it generally is with players and the clubs supporters. Some will always give a player the benefit of the doubt, others just won’t let it go when it comes to a lack of commitment to their clubs shirt. However, now we have some more interesting comments from Swansea striker Michael Obafemi.
First off, let’s be clear, anyone who has an opinion can put that opinion on here. You just have to write it down. That’s none too difficult. Obafemi is a wonderful talent, we all know that but he has come with a few anomalies over the time he has been a swans player, and that’s really one season plus the current campaigns games. He has been dropped and he has been disciplined, it’s been kept in house, and of course it’s been made public. The result was a real positive reaction from the striker until he had his transfer window moment with Burnley. We love the people who have the clubs shirt on loan to them to play the very best they can, that’s a given. And when they can’t play because of known or unknown reasons, or when they are not ‘mentally fit ‘ to play that causes concern.
Especially at Swansea who have a carefully managed budget for these players to have nice houses, cars and lifestyles. And of course an average salary of around ten thousand pounds a week. It’s not a small amount of money. Michael was clearly affected by the lack of transfer movement to Burnley. He disclosed to Russell Martin of his ‘fitness’ to play for Swansea and he was dropped. That is what happened, it’s recorded on many websites, social media and mainstream reports.
And that is what upset many swans fans when that was reported as fact.
Stephen Kenny the Ireland manager got involved two weeks ago by talking about Obafemi’s situation at Swansea. He said. "I've spoken to Michael and like everything else, there are two or three sides to every story," Kenny said. "Certainly Michael wants to play football, he wants to play for Swansea”: Personally. I would have thought with a lot of the countries football fans screaming for his sacking he would have other things to focus on. In response Russell Martin replied. "It really is that simple. There are no three sides to the story," the Swansea boss continued with a smile. "I spoke to Stephen (Kenny) before he called him up, so I’m a bit disappointed with those comments. There’s no agenda. I hope he goes away with Ireland and does brilliantly and I hope he does brilliantly with us when he comes back."
Obviously having explained the reasons for Michael’s omission from recent Swansea City squads and the return to form of Joel Piroe it was a bit annoying for him to even have to remark upon Kenny’s comments. And of course they have clearly remained with Michael Obafemi to respond in the way he has. But for me Michael is a young man, we all learn every day from what we do and what we say, we know that only too well on here. So, overall he should be given some grace, surely ?
But then Michael says this. "Erm, interesting, "Yeah, I don’t really need to get into too much detail but I’m thankful that he had my back," That’s a pretty odd statement, it insinuates all sorts of messages and really won’t please the Swansea City manager, to us it implies he needed his back covering in the light of the issues that Michael himself created when he wasn’t allowed to move to Burnley. It’s shocking really, and just makes the whole matter for cloudy and questionable.
Michael then supports the Irish manager by saying "I’m here and I’ve done well and that’s the main thing. I’m glad that he said what he said but, ultimately, it’s in the past now and we’ve got to move on forward." Well, let’s hope so Michael because stating things like that again isn’t helpful. As we have said it implies all manner of speculative questions. And our club doesn’t need it and neither does Russell Martin at a crucial time of his Swansea career.
Our role as we see it is to report situations like these so fans of our club can read them and make their own minds up. But playing word games and indicating he needed protection isn’t a good look. All we ask is that Michael puts on our clubs shirt and plays his heart out over the time he has left with us. It’s our clubs shirt and it’s our club. Again, this isn’t about one person it’s about our club.
It’s getting annoying, very annoying saying it over and over again. We want Obafemi on the score sheet every game, we want a happy smiling striker scoring goals and with a positivity about him that we have seen in the past. So let’s see it.
And maybe Stephen Kenny should stop being the third person in all this and keep his mouth shut.