Manuel Benson, seemingly against the odds was cleared to play for the Swans around twenty four hours after he first put pen to paper at Fairwood, Swansea on Monday afternoon.That clearance came after the Swans and Burnley appealed when a paperwork issue was pointed out by the English Football League (EFL)

That surprisingly was successful, they don’t happen that often that’s for sure. Without going too deep into the delays that frustrated both clubs over twenty four hours, here’s is a preview on the player and his injury record.. Now we can look forward to Manuel, also an Angolan international being a Swansea player this season, and hopefully a return to his incredible form of three years ago. That’s very much in the air, we can only hope he does because he really is a class act. His injury record though has to be understood by those who are unaware of what a very difficult time Manuel has had.

Here’s a summary of Manuel’s injuries, and it goes back further than our list below.

⚽️ 2025
• Achilles tendon injury – 5 Apr → 18 Aug 2025
• Achilles tendon injury – 19 Aug → 24 Aug 2025 (136 days)

⚽️ 2024–25
• Achilles tendon problems – 27 Mar → 30 Jun 2024 (96 days)
• Achilles tendon problems – 18 Aug → 10 Dec 2024 (115 days)
• Calf injury – 12 Sep → 31 Jan 2025 —> 141 days

Note : There are Angolan internationals he apparently appeared in during 2024 certain injury periods with no explanation.

⚽️ 2023–24
• Ankle injury – 28 Sep → 15 Dec 2023 (79 days)
• Knock – 22 Dec 2023 → 11 Jan 2024 (21 days)

Note : During the ankle injury phase there seems to some EPL appearances without explanation.

⚽️ 2022–23
• Unknown injury – 4 Feb → 13 Mar 2023 (38 days)

There are issues with the key data that is available from Wyscout, however these injuries are most certainly accurate with an 8% differential either way. This is the first thing the Swans have to manage, Manuel has such a wide variety of injuries and in repetitive areas we will almost certainly have our fingers crossed when he makes his debut. Overall over the past four seasons Manuel has played in forty four league games. Only eleven in the last three seasons, scoring one goal. However, during the 2022/23 season thirty three of those games were played in the Championship which has been his stellar season to date. He had an impressive return of eleven goals during that campaign.

The Swans do have numerous clauses regards him being injured and have a number of special caveats within his loan deal. He’s a really classy player as he displayed when he really came to prominence during that impactive Championship season. We have been told that the deal really isn’t that much of a gamble, if he does well and stays fit he will be a certain asset, if he sustains one of his long term injuries again there is a likelihood he will return to his club. That will potentially conclude the loan deal, dependent on the category of injury sustained. There will be a lot of monitoring of Manuel by Burnley ensuring his treatment is of the highest standard. He will have to have ongoing treatment throughout his time at Swansea.

Of course we welcome him to Swansea because on his day he is unstoppable.

We now turn to the international break with two matches for Wales. One a crucial World Cup qualifier away in Kazakhstan on Thursday (3pm) and a home friendly against Canada at the Swansea.com with a 7:45pm kick off.

Already licensed via Reuters

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