Swansea City head coach Luke Williams has lowered his guard slightly over this months transfer movements, or lack of them as the transfer window progresses. He seemed prepared to an extent for no movement inwards whatsoever. This has to be the slowest January for some while, not many clubs are investing, will that be the Swans again ?
We will cut to the chase this morning, but there’s some warning signs in this report. Luke Williams started us off yesterday. "I’ve seen some impressive stuff from Andy Coleman (Swans Chairman) he’s not got his feet up” That’s good news because we already know this last week or so of the window is going to be result of months of hard work. An admission from the Chairman himself recently. On the Swans current targets Luke stated. "It’s more like, players who have options trying to wait, if you had a relationship with a player recently then these deals can get done quickly. (Does that rule out any hopes for Luke getting in anyone from Notts County ? Jodi Jones for example) "If a player is moving to a club and he has options, he doesn’t know any of the clubs, he doesn’t know any of the people at the club, he’s just making this big leap of faith I think, they will want to weigh up everything. We then have to do our best to be the most attractive proposition at the end of it”
That’s fine and we’ve been here before in a few January windows now. Those of you that form the many thousands who read our articles and reports every day will have some knowledge how this all works.
Luke admitted, "It looks like it is going to be a late flurry, so let’s see what happens”
That wasn’t so much of a shock, but to hear the head coach with quite a few days to go say that was a bit concerning. A late flurry and Swansea don’t really go together that well. Not for the consequences of leaving it too late, but that other clubs will obviously know that their player is still available. Then it becomes a tense game of blind man’s bluff. The Swans are spinning around whilst clubs they have spoken to are shouting out big numbers. Nobody knows who is dealing with what, and the selling club can really drill down and get more money.
As Luke says, "I’m optimistic there will be activity at the ‘end’ of the window, but what I would say is if it’s not what everyone was hoping for, it won’t be for the want of trying” That almost seems to be setting up certain fans for more displeasure come next Thursday at 11pm. He went on "I would be disappointed for us all, you know we really wanted to make the group stronger for everyone, we have to get the right one, and we have to make them feel like this is the right place to come and play”
As we have openly reported Luke Williams wants to keep Yannick Bolasie who has been excellent towards this website since coming to Swansea. This really though was his first real admission that he wants him to stay. If he doesn’t then tonight will be his last game for the Swans. If he does as Luke Williams desires then he will stay until the end of the season. What we do know is that Yannick was offered terms three days ago, he has decided to take a while to think about it along with his wife Kelsey. There’s some potential advancement for him away from football, but also within the game. He will have offers and they may well be closer to home in Cheshire. So you would always expect him to ask for some time out. We also have to add, he like everyone else may well be looking towards deadline day and clubs looking for a last minute signing because a deal has fallen through. Plus this offer from the Swans is only to the end of the season, he could well get more elsewhere.
There are some cautious words there from Luke Williams, but he now seems as much prepared for no signings as he maybe is for one. We know the club have three targets, maybe it is now possible to say the field they have ploughed is uncertain ? We also believe one player will go. However, things will become really fast moving after the weekend, a weekend where the Swans won’t have a game. The next fixture after this evenings FA Cup tie is Leicester City away on Tuesday night. ( KO: 7:45pm)