Alan Tate very conservatively expressed his feelings after Swansea City secured a 2-1 win against Forest Green Rovers at the Lawn in Gloucestershire on Wednesday night. And it was a simple one as well. ‘ We need something sorted for Blackburn Rovers , if not before “ Declaring his desire for the swans to get matters sorted off the pitch he cut a frustrated figure after the game. His body language giving much away.

First off hundreds of swans fans gave the game a miss after strange ticketing arrangements for the friendly were announced forty eight hours before the kick off. Locally we sourced over thirty swans fans who decided not to travel to watch the swans after only 400 tickets were allocated to Swansea City. No issues there, but not even those tickets were all snapped up prior to the game, as it was on a first come first served basis. Many swans fans didn’t travel from Wales and even locally from Bristol, Cheltenham and Gloucester, the majority deciding against the journey. The site owner ( of Swansea Independent ) having personally run a large supporters club in the south west of England for many years sent numerous text messages to fans in the local area, many responded with a “No can’t be bothered” The ticketing policy clearly backfiring. Even swans TV commentators seemed oblivious to the huge support for the club in the area, commenting everyone had travelled from South Wales. History and research clearly a thing they no longer do at the Liberty. Clearly too the lack of knowledge by the club in agreeing to such a ridiculous ticketing rule was evident as soon as away fans access to the ground were announced by Forest Green Rovers. Had the home club done their homework and allocated a sensible pre sale ticket for the game they would have easily secured many more fans at fifteen quid a head. However, clearly this is not extra money FGR need at this time of pre season, so the attendance, over half of which were swans fans anyway, watched a pretty stale game on a warm Wednesday night in Nailsworth.

The swans won 2-1 with sixteen year old Ben Lloyd being the difference with his first and second touches of the game. Yan Dhanda has previously put the swans ahead with a clean strike after good work by Kyle Joseph. Although FGR pulled one back from the penalty spot late on the result was never really in question. Had the swans needed a third you always felt they would get it, irrespective that they finished with ten men after a questionable sending off. Matt Stevens for Forest Green successfully converted his penalty after Joel Latibeaudiere was sent off for bringing him down in the penalty area. It shouldn’t go unnoticed the linesman in the first half flagged the swans offside on four occasions, none of which were even clearly offside, in fact none were even close.

It was a good nights work for Swansea City, albeit typically ponderous at times, and after the game caretaker manager Alan Tate had this to say “One thing we do need, we need someone in full charge before Blackburn. Probably before that, the build-up to Blackburn. Julian and the owners are best placed to decide that. Until I'm told otherwise, I'll plan to take the team on Saturday” With confirmed speculation that Matt Grimes is leaving SA1 Tate responded “At the minute, the plan is for Grimesy to be, hopefully involved in the Southampton game. If not, it looks like he could be involved in the Blackburn game. We're definitely planning at the minute to have him involved in the Blackburn game." More hope than fact there from Tate.

On sixteen year old Ben Lloyd Tate was especially pleased ”Little did I know his first touch would be with his right to control it and then fire it into the top corner with his left he beamed. But that’s what is great about young players. They excite you and they will climb a mountain for you. My background as a player was at Manchester United where there was an ethos that if you are good enough you are old enough, and no matter what I do that is always something I will stick by.”

Swansea City need to move far faster than they have since it was evident Steve Cooper wanted to leave the club, and with John Eustace withdrawing his interest at the last minute on Sunday morning the swans have much to think about. We understand only tentative talks are ongoing with both Jody Morris and Russell Martin, the latter as we speak, is not convinced the swans job is for him.

Julian Winter has much to do, and on that subject later in the week we hope to have more Information on his future as well. The past few weeks could have been handled far better, and something tells us this pre season there are still more exits to come at the Liberty before stability is secured. No hedge fund or whatever you want to call them want to see their investment being toyed with as it has been in the last three weeks. Leading on from that no investor wants a dilly dallying CEO clutching at straws trying to source a new manager through his London links. That is not the Swansea way. For us, encouraging people with little or no experience of Swansea City FC is playing with fire.

This is what happens when your identity makes way for quick cash.

This website and it’s contributors are extremely unhappy, but not as unhappy with proceedings as the majority owners are in the USA. And that’s something we are keeping an eye on.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

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