Yesterday we profiled fan favourite Gonçalo Franco. One of his tattoos is an airplane to symbolise the extensive travel when he was a youngster, thanks to his dad's professional football career. Franco Snr had 14 different spells with Portuguese clubs, but his one foreign club was FC Seoul. This brings me on nicely to today's profile of appearance centurion Eom Ji-Sung.

Rhys Clayton with his second ton of the week

Eom grew up in Iksan, a city of similar size to Swansea, on the west of the South Korean peninsula. He arrived on the Gower Peninsula just three days after Franco, following in the footsteps of Wilfried Bony and Lee Trundle by taking the number 10 shirt, despite playing as a right-footed left-winger. But a young Eom had sights on the number 1 shirt after being inspired by South Korea's goalkeeper at the 2010 World Cup. His country advanced to the knockout stages for the first time on foreign soil with goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong performing strongly. Jung grew up in Gwangju, a city just outside Seoul, which is not to be confused with the other Gwangju in the south-west of the country. It is here, for Gwangju FC, that Eom made his debut and went on to appear over 100 times.

Between 2015 and 2019, the general manager of Gwangju FC was a certain Ki Young-ok. If you know that Korean naming tradition puts the family name first, you can work out the relevance to Swansea City. His son, Ki Sung-yueng, played a big role in the Swans' Premier League years, and the two Koreans met at Fairwood during Eom's first season in SA1. The 108-cap (or 110 if you count two "unofficial" games) Korean football legend is still playing in the K League for Pohang Steelers, and if anything looks younger than when he was at the Liberty.

Eom speaks with immense pride about his country and the national team. He made his debut against Iceland in Turkey, of all places, in January 2022. He marked his first game with a goal, but with covid restrictions still in place, it did not have the expected feeling. His subsequent 10 caps, including two cameos off the bench at the World Cup, have yielded just one more goal. He did, however, light up the Asian Games just a few weeks ago. As one of the designated over-aged players in the under-23s tournament, he was the standout player of the competition with four goals and four assists. This included the winning goal in the 1-0 final win against hosts Japan in Toyota and an opening game hat-trick against Qatar. The current interim manager of the senior team is ex-Spain boss Roberto Moreno, who may want to utilise Eom's fondness for scoring against Gulf states in the upcoming international friendlies against Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Swansea winger's starting place is not guaranteed, but the captain Son Heung-Min's certainly is. The World Cup was a major disappointment for the Land of the Morning Calm, and some expected Son to step away, yet he scored in his country's last game against Uzbekistan in a man-of-the-match display. At the end of the spring international break last season, the iconic Korean told Eom he should do his signature camera celebration and he would re-post it. Just a few days later, against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane, Eom scored the third goal in a 3-3 draw. He did the pose, and Son did the posting, probably adding a few hundred followers from his homeland to @swansofficial.

That was one of eight goals he has managed so far in his Swansea career. For a player of undoubted talent, he will be hoping to contribute more, and he is already on track to do that this season. His first two seasons each produced a neat three goals and three assists, and this season he is already on two goals and three assists, from only five starts. I don't know if it is correlation or causation, but the games in which he scores or assists are also the games in which he has played 85+ minutes. After the last two weeks, there are plenty of fans online calling for Eom to be given a consistent run of games.

Eom is tricky and agile (see last season's photo against Portsmouth below). He can be skilful and show great vision, as the assist-of-the-season contender for Adam Idah against Watford proved. Showing those glimpses on a more consistent basis is the next step in his development. Or better yet, it will be Ki.

Photographs : GettyImages-2294395284 and as per declaration . Artwork TNTclick media