Swansea City: There’s no “Wow” signing – or at least not for now…

Speculation has been rife in the close season that the Swans are on the track of a “wow” signing who will raise more than just a few eyebrows in SA1.   Several names have been banded about as a potential signing that meets this critieria but the club have been keeping their cards very close to their chest on this one so there are no confirmed reports of any targets.

Indeed, it is right that the club do become guarded when it comes to transfer dealings.  They appear to have worked hard to reduce the leaks that can from within and despite the usual transfer speculation on the outside, many of the dealings we have made to date have come not so much out of the blue but without media speculation which makes a nice change compared to some recent years.

That said there have been undoubted leaks made to talk of this wow signing.   The discussions around them started not long after the name of Luka Modric was confirmed as a new investor in the club and for many that was enough to start to believe (or was that wish) that Modric was to be the signing that matched the criteria set down in their minds.   The speculation increased when press reports stated that he was about to buy a house on the edge of Gower but that has proved to be as untrue as any hopes that he may swap the white of Madrid to that of Swansea.

The main speculation is that the Swans were after a striker and it was this signing that would create the relevant factor to match the speculation.  Many seemed to create the links with former striker Oli McBurnie which, whilst a move that could well have benefits for the Swans, does not create that wow factor or at least not in my mind anyway.   There were enough rumours floating around too that Modric was involved in brokering the big deal that everyone was keen to see come through but how much of that is from known knowledge and how much is from an obvious statement remains to be seen.

Modric’s involvement in Swansea City we know can have an impact on player purchases and at least two of our summer signings it has been said have had the midfield maestro involved somewhere in the discussions.   So it would be as much as common sense more than anything which would tell you that he would be at the heart of what could be a marquee signing of the summer.

The need to bring a striker into our squad is obvious.  Mykola has already been moved in and it’s likely that Jerry Yates will follow suit in the not too distant future.   Liam Cullen will remain at Swansea but is never likely to be a prolific striker in any promotion push and neither will Zan Vipotnik.  These facts will not be lost on our owners who clearly have an ambition that would return the club to the Premier League.  They will be more than aware of the deficiencies in our goalscoring department since the departure of Joel Piroe to Leeds and their recruitment team will be sourcing out more than one target.

I would also go as far as to say that the same ownership group will not have been phased by the speculation around a wow signing as it could deflect from their pursuit of other targets as people wonder who the player maybe.  The work done in the early weeks of the window has been pretty impressive on more than one occasion and its refreshing to watch the club having what appears to be a coherent plan after the haphazard approach to the past few years.

Even as recently as yesterday there was a suggestion made to us that the player in question could be Vincent Janssen but we dismissed that as soon as we heard it.  Not through any detailed inside knowledge but purely because we are hearing though on the grapevine that the plans for the wow signing have been shelved.  Or at least for now.   We are all aware of the financial regulations in which EFL Championship clubs need to operate (read more on that here) and this will mean that any big name (or rather expensive) signing will need to wait for a sale for it to be able to come to fruition.   That factor does of course not mean that there was never a possibility just that other options have been (or could be) utilised and the overall budget is being spent in a slightly different manner to get the maximum return for any investments that we make into the transfer market.

The shelving of these plans should of course not detract from any of the work done so far – or any of the work still to come – just merely reiterate the fact that we do have a plan, it is being executed and, as with any plan of any nature, some of the success of it will come down to an ability to move the goalposts at any given point in time.  And that is what we have done here.

We have, of course, seen departures as referenced earlier in the article this week and more departures could lead to a further change in strategy but for now there is no “wow” signing around the corner although the speculation behind it was fun while it lasted.