Martin: Club in strong position after Downes sale

Russell Martin says that the sale of Flynn Downes to West Ham has put the club in a stronger position to retain other stars like Joel Piroe ahead of the new season.

Downes completed his move to the Premier League last week for a fee which could rise to £14m although his former club Ipswich are set to receive around £2m of that figure.

With the club’s financial situation requiring a big sale every summer whilst in the Championship it was always going to see one or more of the big stars leaving this summer but the hope was that it would only need to be one rather than two.

And Martin says that the deal – for which he praised Matt Gill for identifying Downes in the first place – enables the Swans to hold out for a larger fee if Joel Piroe for example was to leave.

The Swans boss was speaking after the 1-1 draw at Plymouth which saw Piroe net a stylish early opener which was cancelled out late on after wholesale changes to both teams.

He told Wales Online: “I think so (on the deal leaving the club in a substantially better position).

“The amount we got for Flynn, it’s a real positive for everyone. Obviously we’re disappointed to lose Flynn because he’s brilliant.

“But it’s a brilliant return for the club, if you look at it as a financial return and what he did on the pitch. He got a dream move to a club he supported as a kid. So really, while you’re disappointed to lose him in terms of performance, I think it’s only a positive.

“It reflects really well on everyone that’s been involved in his development, his team-mates, the staff here, Matt Gill who identified we should bring him to the club, and the owners backed us on that.

“Gilly has to take a huge amount of credit because he understood the kid. He was in the 23s at Ipswich when we took him and had fallen out of love with football, so it’s a real success story.

Pointing to the success of identifying players and making a profit, Martin hopes for more of the same going forward to sustain the club on a level footing if Premier League promotion isn’t possible.

“Hopefully there’ll be more success stories like that. I’ve said all the way along that the most beautiful thing would be for us all to get there [Premier League] together.

“If that doesn’t happen, [the aim] it’s to enable loads of others to get there and make sure this club is stable financially.”