Swansea City: Defensive trio linked with enquiries from SA1 on a testing weekend

If there is one thing that we seemingly seem good at in a transfer window it is enquiring for players.   Actually signing them becomes very much a different matter and we are hugely challenged in that department despite the noises from the top of the expertise of our forward planning.

I have no doubt that as we head to the closing stages of the window there will be a couple of late signings at the Swansea.com Stadium and they will be followed by the usual “we will learn from these mistakes and the planning for the summer window has already started” which has been a standard follow up to each of the last four transfer windows.

Throughout each of those windows though there has been no shortage of the Swans “making enquiries” or “eyeing up moves” which can sometimes mean that it is nothing more than agent talk or even lazy journalism linking players with a move to this particular part of South West Wales.

There is even an argument that the January window should be relatively quiet for the Swans given the uncertainty that seems to hang over the future of manager Luke Williams but having completed a deal to take over the club at the back end of last year, the Swans are known to be keen to at least strengthen a little in this window something which the new owners believe they should do to show the ambition that they have for improving the club.

Whilst most of the discussion over the weekend was of the meek and pathetic way that the Swans surrendered the South Wales derby with a 3-0 defeat in Cardiff there were suggestions of three more links for the Swans with defensive players which is probably no surprise as it is looking increasingly unlikely that we will be able to get a deal for Joe Low over the line.  As far as that deal is concerned the Swans have a maximum that they are prepared to pay and it has been suggested by more than one party that this maximum still falls some way short of the price that Wycombe have put on his head.

And so we come to the new link, two of which are potential loan signings with  Aston Villa defender Lamare Bogarde  and Burnley defender Hannes Delcroix both said to be targets for the Swans in a loan deal with all three also said to have generated enquiries from SA1 to the player’s respective clubs.

The third link is more of a permanent one with Amiens defender Osaze Urhoghide reported as being a target for both us and Bristol City.

Right now I see very little point in the Swans pursuing any loan targets given our current league position that will be too strong to see us fall fully into a relegation battle and we know that we are some way off being a potential top six contender – a fact that is highlighted by some of the more pathetic performances that we have put in recently.

The link with Urhoghide makes more sense with the 24 year old said to be able to play anywhere across the back line but predominantly in the centre back position.   With the long term future over Harry Darling hanging in the balance and our recent moves for Low then we are know to be in the market for a defender and the question is have we moved our sights on to Urhoghide?

For the loan signings Bogarde is also attracting interest from other unnamed clubs both home and abroad whilst Oxford are also said to be interested in Delcroix who has not featured for the Clarets this season but did last year as they were relegated from the Premier League.

As mentioned above, the logic now of using loan signings does not feel like something we should pursue hard unless we feel that we could turn the deals into a permanent one.  Our record in the loan market over the past few years has been pretty dreadful and there has been much criticism over our seeming desire to develop younger players from other clubs without giving our own first team chances.

With the window having just two weeks left to run we wait and see what the last two weeks will bring but expect more enquiries, more interest and a deal or two out of left field.   That, it seems, is the Swansea way…