This website has been exclusively told that Swansea City are most certainly now assessing a striker and all the avenues that could mean a bid. Could is good, because the club want to be in a position to recruit that extra striker the fans are wanting this summer.

With a striker, midfielder and defender looking to be brought in plus the loan market being extensively researched the Swans are not letting up on their player quest. The desire of course is to give Alan Sheehan and assistant Darren O'Dea the best squad, and most certainly a better squad than we have seen for some years. The club has now brought five players in, Zeidane Inoussa, Cameron Burgess, Melker Widell, Bobby Wales and Ricardo Santos are ALL permanent signings at the Swansea.com. And the main thrust of the transfer window has only got underway. With ten weeks to go of speculation and even more hope that certain players are retained this has to be the best start to incoming business since when ?

The player in question of course is Oli McBurnie who is ‘potentially’ going to leave his club Las Palmas now they have been relegated from La Liga in Spain. A clause in his contract has been confirmed that he can negotiate with clubs via his agency CAA Stellar. However, we have learned that Oli isn’t in any discussions himself with any club. Any inquiry must be through his agency with his club Las Palmas being informed. There’s a lot to this ‘free’ agent and most of it is money. A report that he is in talks with Hull City head coach, Sergej Jakirović this week is a bit misinformed despite their confirmed interest. In fact his agent hasn’t spoken to anyone officially as of this morning. If Oli’s agency do talk to Hull City it will be via Jared Dublin their Sporting Director with the consent of owner, Acun Ilıcalı. They are not short of cash but still have the same profit and sustainability issues as everyone else.

And they most certainly have a structure of responsibility.

That is of course is going to change and Birmingham City are a part of that equation, for us these two clubs will feature heavily as has been reported for some weeks. Sheffield United seem to be in some disarray at this moment in time with manager, Chris Wilder rumoured to be in a form of disagreement with the club over transfers. And then of course there is Swansea City. We had an interesting conversation last night that led to some disclosures on Oli McBurnie. If you recall we reported the clubs awareness back in mid May time. This person has contacts close to CAA Stellar and he is more than aware of the amount of clubs who hold an interest in Oli.

McBurnie report

When of course the headline above is only read and the content isn’t - then key information will be lost by the reader. So we have put it above for a fresh pair of eyes. Leading on from this report we have been keeping our powder dry until now because back then the Swans were aware - and today they are finalising their research and will decide if McBurnie is viable for the club.This will be based on the thorough research of Richard Montague and his team over the last four weeks or so. As he told the official website, "Adam Worth is global head of recruitment and analysis, He is responsible for identifying the players. He works very closely with James Morgan-Snowley, our head of scouting and they have a team of scouts and data analysts who work beneath them to work within the process identify the players. At the end stage of that process, those players are brought to Alan, and I am in on those meetings as well. That group with Adam’s leadership, determine which players we are going to go after. Then it’s my job to try to do the deals, speak to the players and sell them the project along with Alan. All targets go through it. It’s a process Adam has worked on since he arrived last October. Every player we have identified so far has gone through that process.”

The other issue will most certainly be what return can the club expect from McBurnie, especially with his up and down (but at times impressive) goal scoring stats. Does he fit the framework that Alan Sheehan is very keen to be able to implement ? And due to the salary demands will he upset the ongoing negotiations with Nottingham Forest for Lewis O’Brien ? For us it isn’t a case of both signing, that really doesn’t work into the club budget. Yes, for that profit and sustainability is an issue. And the Swans are more interested in holding on to their key players than moving them on this summer.

McBurnie has been put through the same scrutiny and of course the many other in-depth areas that Montague wants exposed on every player. The club will be making a decision this week. Both Birmingham City and Hull City may hold the front of the queue for now but the Swans will provide uncomfortable company for both of these clubs. If they decide to move then there’s a few other Championship clubs monitoring the situation as well, clubs who have kept their own counsel. Just like Harry Darling moving to Norwich it could end up in a surprise move for Oli. We are pretty certain though the Swans, if they decide to go official on Oli will most certainly have everyone looking over their shoulders.

Ask the Valencia CEO.

He is probably scratching his head even this morning wondering what happened with Cameron Burgess. Well, the club with no money and who are struggling in a dump of a city just railroaded you mate. Sometimes you can’t have everything you want.

Artwork by Swansea Independent