Keeping Time

Keeping Time

Of his two trialists Jackett said: "There is no set amount of time that the lads are with us because this spell works two ways, as we can look at them and they can look at us.

"At the moment I only have one goalkeeper at the club and so need to bring someone in.

"Mark is living locally, but we will have to wait and see what happens."

Willy Gueret and Mark Ovendale are both likely to remain at the Vetch for another ten days or so with both getting the chance to impress with the pre-season friendlies due to start a week on Saturday away to Worcester City.

Ovendale is known to be looking for a move back to Wales, with his in-laws from Rhondda, whilst Gueret is keen to stay in the country after his spell at Millwall, revealing that he has no plans to move back to his native France.

Upon releasing Roger Freestone at the end of last season, Jackett said he was looking for someone with experience which would suggest that Ovendale may lead the way in the favourite stakes at the moment but this is Swansea City and you can never tell that things are to be the way that you expect them to.

Speaking to the Evening Post, Ovendale said "Getting a move here would almost be too good to be true for me, "We’re at the mother-in-law’s in the Rhondda at the moment and we’re looking to buy a house back in Wales, so playing for Swansea would be ideal. "It sounds a bit silly since we were relegated, but I only missed three or four games and I enjoyed last season on a personal level," he adds. "If we had stayed up then I think I probably would have been offered a new deal, but understandably the club had to cut costs. "Hopefully now I can get something with Swansea. "It’s not easy coming on trial – you can try too hard to impress when you’re on trial and you worry about the slightest mistakes, but I’ll just keep my fingers crossed."

Whilst Gueret was more open about just wanting to play football although he did compliment the area, something to be expected

"I like this country and I like the football here," he adds, "and Swansea with it’s beaches and the sea seems like a nice part of the world. "To be honest, though, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Swansea, London or Manchester, I just want to play football. "Swansea are a big club for the division and I think there are going to be some good times ahead in the next four or five years. "I think it would be a good team to play for."

My guess would be that the new challenger for one of the goalkeeping slots would be one of these two players but as time moves on, the need to get someone in quicker heightens. On worst case scenario we would see ourselves just over two weeks away from the start of the season with no challenger for Murphy, a situation that we cannot afford to have as we head into August.

Although there is still time, the clock ticks on the replacement and we hope, after two setbacks on this front, that Jackett is starting to close in on his man.

Why not check out the latest Vetch Verdict on the BBC site?