As Stoke City prepare to cut ties could Joe Allen come back to Swansea?

It was the summer of 2012 when Joe Allen left Swansea for Liverpool, following in the footsteps of Brendan Rodgers who was being tasked with bringing a first Premier League title to Anfield.

And it could so easily have happened had it not been for a second half of madness at Crystal Palace and a Steven Gerard slip that he will never be allowed to forget and the title slipped away from Rodgers, Allen and Liverpool and the rest, as they say, is now history.

Allen left Liverpool in the summer of 2016 for the Potteries after more than 130 appearances for Liverpool and since then over 200 appearances for Stoke who were, of course, relegated along with the Swans back in 2018.

Joe Allen is now very much a veteran as far as footballing terms goes.   He turned 32 in March and has 500 club appearances to his name to go with his 70 senior caps for Wales and in the summer he looks set to be searching for a new club as Stoke prepare to cut their ties with him.

That has immediately heightened speculation that he could be returning to SA1, the club where he started his career although signing a veteran like Allen would certainly go against the challenge that Russell Martin had to bring down the average age in the squad.

Allen was – and certainly still can be – a quality player at this level – you don’t make 500 appearances at club level without that being a thing but the Swans also have the likes of Matt Grimes, Jay Fulton, Korey Smith and Flynn Downes in a midfield that can be crowded at the best of times.  Given the ‘seniority’ of the likes of Grimes, and possibly even Fulton and Smith, would there be space for Allen in there and would the Swans be prepared to match any wages that he may want to earn at the moment.

Of course the flip side to wages is that Allen sees this part of the world as home.  Maybe not specifically Swansea but certainly South West Wales where he was born and bred.   It is clear that he wants to move back and given the choices of league clubs in this neck of the woods it is fair to say that his choice is not so much limited as completely unique.

Reports first surfaced last month that Allen was keen to move back home at the end of the season and – given Wales are one match away from a first World Cup finals since 1958 – it is clear that he is not ready to hang his boots up just yet hence his need for a new club.

Stoke-on-trent Live reported then that although the Potters may be keen to keep their out of contract captain his desire to move back home was making that look unlikely.

It is difficult to see that the Swans would look to move to sign Allen although his experience may add a further dimension to the playing squad here especially when you look at the youth around him.   Kyle Naughton has been rightly praised for doing just that this season with the defenders and maybe Allen could have a similar impact on the younger midfielders?