Ben Cabango is making extremely promising progress and ‘may’ be in the Swansea City squad for the start of the new season on July 30th. The opposition will be Rotherham United in South Yorkshire. Joe Allen on the other hand is hopeful of at least some pitch time tomorrow against Bristol Rovers, if not the following Saturday against Charlton Athletic.
Swansea City have a behind closed doors game tomorrow at Fairwood in another exercise in adapting to a varied and changing formation strategy for the new season. The opposition will be Bristol Rovers, newly promoted to League one in dramatic style on the last game of the season. Joe Barton will bring a full squad having had some ‘difficult’ results in pre season.
Ben Cabango was given a boost yesterday when swans manager Russell Martin said "Ben's coming along really nicely. He has had no real work into him physically, so it's about getting him into a condition where he can come and train with us fully and not risk injury. It's like a mini pre-season for Ben now. He'll be back training with the group by the end of this week, it will be modified training and he will still be doing conditioning work. I expect him to be with us for the Charlton game hopefully, all being well. He's in unbelievable physical shape. He's made a real effort, they all have. I don't like to put exact timescales on it, but I expect him to be available and in and around it all for the first game”
Joe Allen may not feature tomorrow but has pencilled in some minutes for the Charlton Athletic friendly away game next Saturday. The expectation is he will be available for the first game of the season in two weeks time. He is in the latter stages of recovery from a hamstring injury.
Joel Piroe has again been the discussion of rash social media speculation regards Leeds United being interested in his signature. Of course there is a link with Cameron Toshack now on the elland road coaching staff, but as yet no bids whatsoever have been made by any club for the Dutchman. Leeds manager Jesse Marsch is in the market for a striker which will also prompt speculation. That is likely to remain the case in our opinion and speculation will continue daily we are sure even though the swans have put a price of £20M on his head. That may seem a high price but for us it isn’t high enough, if the club are keen to retain Piroe for the season.
He has been training extensively with the swans and if he does go there will once again be a scramble to get players in by the club. To date they have been calculating and very careful in their expenditure and recruitment. The issue is there is still seven weeks to go in this transfer window and the season starts in two weeks, a ridiculous scenario.
If the swans can fend off clubs between now and the end of the window it will be the most successful thing the club will achieve this summer, if not this year. More on Joel coming up later.
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