Swans linked with Barnsley striker again but are we really in the running?

The dust has barely settled on the main part of the Championship season and yet the transfer rumours have started in full with Barnsley’s play off failure sparking reports that striker Devante Cole is now more likely to leave this summer.

The Swans are not alone in the Championship with being credited with interest in the striker who is the son of former Newcastle and Manchester United striker Andrew.   Middlesbrough, Hull, Stoke, Bristol City and Cardiff have also been linked with the player after Barnsley went out of the play-offs at the semi final stage away to Bolton on Tuesday night.

The Swans have previously been linked with Cole as he was known to former manager Michael Duff after he scored 16 goals in 53 appearances as Duff led Barnsley to the brink of promotion to the Championship before departing for the Swans last summer.   Eighteen more goals this season have followed and with Barnsley now set for a third successive campaign in League One it seems unlikely that he will stay at Oakwell for another campaign especially when you consider the Championship interest.

Cole is out of contract this summer and whilst the speculation was rife in January that Barnsley would cash in as a result they elected to keep hold of him – and a host of his team mates – in a bid to go one step better than last season and win promotion.   Now with that dream over they must brace themselves for Cole to be one of a host of exits this summer.

The out of contract element will make clubs sit up and take notice although it will also not go over their heads that at the age of twenty-nine Cole has scored just one goal at Championship level in his career and has not been the most prolific of strikers at a host of clubs that he has had – eight other clubs have had his services over the years.

It is difficult to know whether the current links with Cole are genuine or whether just a hangover from Duff’s time here as manager.   Luke Williams has been linked with Macaulay Langstaff due to his time with the striker at Notts County for the very same reason.   There is little doubt that managers look to players they have worked with before but it is difficult here to see that Cole fits into the model that Williams talks about wanting to build at Swansea.

It does feel though that this comes more from a position of a previous link and two and two being put together following the Barnsley defeat.

Time will though of course tell!