While much of the hype this summer was around Gareth Bale and Wayne Rooney and whether they would make their multi million pound moves all clubs were going about their business in a period where the Premier League clubs were involved with transfers totalling over £600m.
Bale of course made his move on the eve of transfer deadline day but – despite bids from Chelsea – Rooney is still a Man Utd player and, from our perspective, I believe this was our best summer ever thanks to our own transfer activity.
Of course we were one of the ten clubs that broke their record when we signed Wilfried Bony from Vitesse Arnhem for the small sum of £12 million. That didn’t I guess just break our record it almost doubled it but already the signs are looking good for a strong goal tally even at this early stage of the season.
Of course Bony wasn’t alone, Jordi Amat, Jose Canas, Jonjo Shelvey, Alejamdro Pozuelo and Alvaro Vazquez ll arrived during the summer and Jonathan De Guzman came back in on loan for a second season having impressed so much last time around.
The Swans themselves paid out over £20 million in transfer fees – almost more than they had managed in the previous 100 summers of existence added together but it was the quality that came in that made our transfer window so successful. Yet again we went through a period where we refused to break the bank for anyone and we worked within our budgets yet still managed 7 new players in with only Ki departing of any note in reality.
Although we are yet to see Vazquez in action, the rest have already impressed on their debuts although it should be noted that De Guzman is yet to reach his heights of last season but we know what he is capable of and they do say that form is temporary but class is permanent. And we always knew that this season we would need a bigger squad to cope with the demands of the Premier League, two domestic cup competitions and our first Europa League campaign.
We have a minimum FIFTY game season ahead of us and Michael has done his business shrewdly this summer and – more importantly – he did it quickly so all (bar Vazquez again) have had chance to settle and hit the ground running.
Overall there is little doubt in my mind that this summer has been our best ever in terms of transfer activity and we will see the benefits of this over the course of the season.
Well done Swans!
