During the final knockings of any transfer window players left on the bench or excluded will most certainly set tongues wagging. Michael Obafemi is one, and Olivier Ntcham is another. The former connected to a move away from Swansea tomorrow, the latter is more speculation.

Of course it could well be tactical but with only just twenty four hours to go before clubs actually can’t sign any actively employed players, it’s a bit odd. The swans are holding out for ten million pounds for the striker after a Burnley inquiry yesterday morning. Tonight Burnley manager Vincent Kompany has said “We’ve been in for a few players now. At this stage of the season I can’t even keep up with who we’re being linked with. There’s this thing still where although he’s a really good player, he’s a Swansea player so unless a club engages with us, I’m not really willing to engage with individual cases.” He went on to say yesterday “For the right player, there’s always something (in the budget) left, but for us we’ve got to a place where it was important for me to be in a position where we don’t need to sell. I don’t want to tip the balance again, I don’t want to tip the scales where because we’ve overspent we have to sell.”

That’s now a matter for us all to think about, this transfer clearly isn’t dead after the budgetary comments by Kompany. All we have heard from Russell Martin is that he hopes there’s no signal on his home tomorrow when the squad return from St George’s Park after a post match debrief and rest.

Stoke City: Jack Bonham, Morgan Fox, Aden Flint, Sam Clucas, Lewis Baker (captain), Jacob Brown, Dwight Gayle, Jordan Thompson, Ben Wilmot, Liam Delap, Connor Taylor.

Substitutes: Joe Bursik, Phil Jagielka, Tyrese Campbell, Will Smallbone, Tariqe Fosu-Henry, D'margio Wright-Phillips, Tom Saprrow.

Swansea City: Andy Fisher; Nathan Wood, Kyle Naughton, Harry Darling; Matty Sorinola, Joe Allen, Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes (captain), Ryan Manning; Ollie Cooper; Joel Piroe.

Substitutes: Steven Benda, Michael Obafemi, Olivier Ntcham, Jamie Paterson, Luke Cundle, Liam Cullen, Armstrong Oko-Flex.

Tonight’s game kicks off at 7.45pm at the Britannia Stadium in Stoke.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

Swansea City Polls