It was a pre season friendly maybe, but it was also another indifferent display a full West Stand had to watch against Lorient this afternoon. The newly promoted French Ligue 1 side looked smooth and purposeful as they took a three goal half time lead.
Errors led to two of the goals, one a penalty and another just miserable defending with the ball being given away. Lorient having won the Ligue 2 championship last season didn’t really look out of place with crisp passing which meant Lawrence Vigouroux didn’t have much of a rest. He had to pull off a few decent saves. Melker Widell and Ronald did miss two very good chances. It was all very last season.
The disquiet was there in the West Stand, groans and frustrated sighs clearly heard as the first half really didn’t give any promise of the Swans getting off to a flyer this season. In fact the usual mistakes we often see were their but amplified twofold in a strange setting with only one stand open. Again as we saw in Cheltenham the work rate was down and very laboured at times. You would have thought after the second half we saw at Exeter City last week things would step up. It wasn’t evident. We did see a more positive side to the Swans in the second half, possibly more structure that led to Ronald earning a penalty, Liam Cullen converting. The same player had what looked like a a good headed goal disallowed but despite all that the game was still a 3-1 loss.
Lorient seemed very much a team prepared on their return to Ligue 1 in France next week. The Swans though despite players missing and Inoussa and Eom returning from injury deserved to lose this game, they had no complaints and Alan Sheehan seemed quite happy in his post match thoughts. "That was a very good test, it was certainly the toughest test that we have had in pre-season and I think it was the right one,” said the Swans boss. As a group we did not like a lot of what we did in that first half, in the second half we were a bit more like ourselves”
Next weekend the EFL Championship season starts with the Swans away at Middlesbrough. The final preparations take place this week, there will be more transfer business if plans fall into place. And that’s next here on the Indy.
Richard Kone, Wycombe Wanderers : The Swans are pushing hard still, but we gave been told that two clubs seem to be fighting for his signature. Figures and bids don’t matter now, it’s more about offering the Chairboys more incentives to get his signature. The belief is this particular transfer will be cleared up by Tuesday with the Swans most certainly having more discussions elsewhere. Liam has published some info on X.
https://x.com/swansea_indy/status/1951657400446144722?s=61&t=YHGgneENl07JiqZVb6O
Wycombe manager Mike Dodds stated earlier, "Rich (Kone) had a really kind of clunky week in terms of missed little bits. I have a really good relationship with Rich and as I said, the club have made him an offer to stay in terms of a new contract. I'm not involved in any of those discussions but I wanted to be honest with the fans and say, ‘Look, we have had - I don't know what it is - four or five bids, it might be six. Of course it was a tough decision because I've got a good relationship with him, and Rich is a top player at this level and you want your best players on the pitch. But it hasn't been a smooth week for him and obviously with the bids that are financially quite lucrative, what I didn't want to do was take that risk. As I said, the plan is that he'll be involved for Saturday, unless the club tell me otherwise.”
We do have a very well put together interview from the USA tomorrow, it’s been waiting in the wings for a few days, the only thing which will railroad it is official news on a player coming in.
⚽️ The Swans : Vigouroux 6, Josh Key, 6 Arthur Parker, 5 Cameron Burgess 5, Josh Tymon 5, Jay Fulton 4 Franco 5 Ethan Galbraith 5 (Ollie Cooper 80), Melker Widell 6 (Zeidane Inoussa 65), 7 Ronald 5 ( Eom 65) 6 Liam Cullen 6 (Bobby Wales 80).
Unused Substitutes: Andy Fisher, Joel Cotterill, Sam Parker, Cameron Congreve, Sebastian Dabrowski, Iestyn Jones.