The much needed time with his squad players has been fruitful for Russell Martin but a few of his responses to questions on his squads progress left a few scratching their heads today. He also had some good news regards Joel Latibeaudiere whose recovery from his shoulder injury has been nothing more than remarkable.
A few of Martin’s squad are away or in rehab this and next week, and that includes non Welsh internationals either injured or in Ntcham’s case in action for Cameroon. So with that in mind it gave the manager time to reflect on his position as swans boss this week. He was as honest as ever when he said. "It just feels so similar to last year, we're going through so many similar things. We still have a very young squad and probably didn't strengthen the squad as much as maybe we thought we were going to at the start” Now I don’t see that as an excuse but it is a reflection on the lack of signings that he clearly wanted last season and now this. Martin clearly has not received all the players he wanted, but keeping Michael Obafemi and Joel Piroe are clear statements of intent for the rest of this season, or at least until January.
Joel Latibeaudiere in action for England
What he means by feels so much like last season is open to discussion but coupled with. "When we have 10 days or whatever it is to prepare for a certain opposition, it is nice. I think the lads quite enjoy it, training, which isn't always the case, so it's good for us." That indicates to me he is happy and content and enjoys it when the pressure is off, as it has been this week. He has tried to arrange a behind closed doors friendly but has found realistic opposition hard to come by so a full on squad game will take place this weekend. "We tried to organise a friendly for the guys who haven't played so many minutes but it's been really difficult for other clubs with how far away we are, so we'll probably play an in-house eleven v eleven at some point” Martin told Ian Mitchelmore at Wales on Line.
Other news regards younger players saw the under 19 Cymru side include Ben Lloyd, Kai Ludvigsen, Joel Cotterill and Cameron Congreve in their starting line-up for the game at Rhyl’s Belle Vue ground against Hungary, that ended 0-0. Olivier Ntcham played for Cameron earlier today in their 2-0 defeat to Uzbekistan.
Swansea City have a huge schedule of games in October starting with West Bromwich Albion away on Saturday October 1st with a 3pm kick off.