Here at the Indy we are determined to bring you the best Swansea City content from our hard working journalists, even in closed season. It is the quietest time for any news but we have unearthed a classic interview from this week with Melker Widell which took place in Sweden about four days ago.

The interview was done with Olof Lundh a famous Swedish journalist who has a widely listened to podcast. With the quality of writers we have here on the Indy, all multi lingual, and in this case a Swedish national it wasn’t too hard to interpret the meeting between Lundh and Widell. Melker revealed some very interesting things from behind the scenes at Swansea. Olle Söderholm our features reporter went through the interview breaking down the most interesting parts.

Olof Lundh is perhaps the most famous Swedish football journalist, famous for his investigative works both within the Swedish FA and FIFA. He works for Swedish ad-funded media company TV4 and is generally considered one of the most respected sport journalists in Sweden. The interview started with some quick fire questions.

Here are a few fun things to note

Melker’s fun facts (ish)

1. Widell’s favorite team is Manchester United
His favorite player growing up was CR7

2. He is very much against VAR

3. He said the best player he has ever had as a teammate is Josh Tymon (below) excluding Alexander Isak who he played with for one game. Thats a bit tough Melker - ed.

Olof Lundh then moved on to asking Widell about his arrival in Wales and especially the fact that he wasn’t favoured by Alan Sheehan (below). It’s a sore point but we have decided to include it as it’s from the player himself. Widell said that he thought he played well after he was subbed on vs Nottingham Forest in the league cup. He did play a major role. Despite this, Widell only got a couple of minutes late in the next game vs Birmingham City, and wasn’t even included in the squads against Millwall and Blackburn.

This was a bit of a shock for the player. He describes how Alan Sheehan waited very shortly before a game on a few occasions to tell him he wasn’t even included. Against Millwall he was told he wasn’t on the bench just an hour before kick-off, and even worse against Blackburn, that really did upset him. Widell traveled the long journey north with the team understanding he was on the bench, but was told only about an hour before kick-off that he’d been excluded from the game-day squad completely. It really bothered him. He said this was his lowest point last season, but that talking to some teammates and other Swedish footballing friends really helped him. He laughingly described how Sheehan had asked him if he was mad about getting excluded, and he had told Sheehan that, yes, he felt like he had been playing quite well in training and that he deserved an to play. Sheehan then went on saying, “Well, you know I’ve got my favorites” - proceeding to name 15 players but NOT naming Melker Widell.

That seems a bit odd ?

However, Widell talks about this lightly thereafter in the interview and said that he is glad that this happened to en extent - it taught him to be ready for anything and to be adaptable. It was a weird situation for Widell, he has been signed by Swansea City via recruitment specialist, Adam Worth in January of 2025, a period where the club entered some very poor form. Then Luke Williams only retained his job until a couple of weeks after Widell’s signing. He had met with Williams and ”the owner” Andrew Coleman and knew there would be no guarantees that these would two remain at the club. “I called my agent after a month and said, “Those we had a meeting with aren’t there anymore, so let’s see how this goes”

When he arrived at the club last June he said, “It was like I had to re-introduce myself. The ones I had talked to at length we’re not there anymore”

The interview goes on, with Vitor Matos becoming the topic. Widell said that it was “this now means more to him”, insinuating that Matos had much more going on for training than Alan Sheehan. He also describes how Matos “Set the basics first, in possession and out of possession and pressing” These as we know are Vitor’s ‘non negotiables’ as we explained in our report on the Swans head coach very recently. That’s at the end of this feature.

With the news of Alan Sheehan departing Kim Hellberg became a rumour. This was prior to Matos’ appointment of course, but the Indy does have very firm evidence that Matos was not only the preferred candidate he was approached at the same time as Hellberg. Widell was very hopeful he would get the Swede as his head coach. But, he said “I’m very happy with how it turned out” Melker enjoys the way Matos delivered his training, and the head coach we can assure you is in total control of every facet of training.

He describes the championship as a “very tough league”, talking about how the games are so close to each other and the away games often require long bus trips. “After a few weeks of playing regularly it’s like you forget that you’re tired, but playing some of those games I was thinking like ‘please coach sub me out now in the 75th because my legs will stop working’” Melker enjoys a joke and often laughs but we can see the reasons why he would want that as his running and commitment is one hundred percent.

He goes on talking about the quality and the attention to detail in the league. Martyn Margetson will be a huge loss for the Swans now he has left. Melker uses the goalkeeping coach as an example saying “He’s insane, he showed us clips from free kicks talking about how he need to win the duels after the ball bounces, it’s to detailed and all one v one situations and second ball duels are so much tougher and more important. If you win one duel then immediately another guy comes up to you, in Denmark after winning that first duel you would have two maybe three seconds with the ball.”

Talk turns to dirty tactics and Olof Lundh asks what’s the worst trick he has faced and Widell talks about corners: “During corners you are sure to get studs on your foot and an elbow in the stomach. And I don’t know how our goalkeeper survives, luckily he’s tall, but they do everything to him, they even pull off his glove and stuff”

Melker on the Jack Army : He is asked, “How is the atmosphere at Swansea’s games?” And Widell answers “It’s actually really neat, it’s not like in Scandinavia when they sing for 90 minutes but when something happens they really explode” Those who have witnessed that ‘explosion’ will certainly agree with that.

Talk as you would expect tuned to Snoop Dogg. Widell explained his encounter with the super star. According to Melker, you could smell the mariujana before even seeing him. “I could sense that sweet smell, it’s present throughout Swansea, particularly at the beaches. When I saw him I laughed because he sat there with big sunglasses and a bandana up to his chin and talked with his heavy American accent.”

On the American owners he has a lot of praise for them. He states are often present in the club, talking to the players and being more involved. We concur, there have been numerous occasions when they are present and at times appearing without warning with no press aware.

He is tackled on the Swans majority ownership and is asked if they are comparable to the American owners of Strasbourg, who are owned by American company BlueCo, who also own Chelsea. These owners have used Strasbourg as a talent factory for Chelsea. Widell responds ‘No, it’s not like that’
“The fans are still happy with the owners. For example they renewed a contract with our top scorer, Zan Vipotnik, who scored the most goals in the entire EFL.” He also stated that sometimes he thinks the “show” around Snoop Dogg and celebrity owners is too much and removes the focus from the football.

We of course can see that, but it’s needs must when generating the finance to keep the club productive. We do know of some very exciting plans this summer leading into the autumn, the fan park alone will be a real boon for the fans and club alike.

Of course Melker is looking forward to the South Wales derby next season. He said “A Cardiff supporter doesn’t go a lot of sentences without mentioning how much he hates Swansea, and it's the same for Swansea supporters, so I really feel the hatred even though we weren’t in the same league. I mean, I don’t like Cardiff, so I really look forward to it (playing the derby), it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

When asked about his life in Swansea, Widell describes it as “peaceful and calm”, but also goes into detail how pleasant the city is. “It’s really beautiful with a lot of beaches, if it was 10 degrees hotter I think it would be a vacation paradise and Swedes would travel there. They are incredibly nice people in Wales, so I feel comfortable there.” Melker lives well in the city but his girlfriend still lives in Aalborg.

He describes the club as very technologically advanced and professional when it comes to facilities and equipment. Widell featured in the Christmas party dressed as a power ranger, he described this as ”something that would never happen in Sweden”. He met fellow Swede and Derby County goalkeeper Jakob Widell Zetterström, noticing that he wasn’t even dressed up. Melker also expressed his shock in the British’ drinking ability. “As soon as I sat at the table, I had a pint in front of me and I don’t even like beer”. He continued saying, “I woke up the morning after at like 7:30am and saw in the group chat that the lads were asking where everyone was. They were already out and drinking, and I was like what is going on”

Thanks to Olle Söderholm once again. We hope you enjoyed our Melker Widell feature. Swansea Independent welcomes everyone with the ability to have dialogue on the website, in turn we are proud to write in-depth and what we hope are informative football reports.

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