Planet Swans ArchivesTabanou was one of the Swans five key signings of the summer, signing on with much praise from his manager and the player himself stating how he was going to have an impact on the Swans first team.
We are yet to see him feature in the Premier League and the Swans short Capital One Cup campaign is the only time we have seen him in action and he doesn’t even feature on the bench for most games.
We were told to expect a solid left back with strong attacking tendencies when he was signed and there were many (myself included) who wondered whether there would be plenty of rotation between Neil Taylor and Tabanou depending on the line up the Swans were putting out there for any one particular game.
As we now know that has not been the case and it has caused many to ask where is Tabanou. We have to take an assumption that he has not impressed the manager as much as he/we would have liked and therefore he is out of favour as a result but it is all assumption as we are not told any different.
Upon signing Tabanou back in the summer, Monk said รขโฌลIt’s an excellent signing that I’m looking forward to working with individually and as part of the group,รขโฌย said the Swans boss
“He is exactly the type of player we are looking for. He’s young, talented and looking to make the next step up in his career.
“He has the right attributes to fit in here and increase the competition and quality in the squad.
“He’s come from a good club and is an exciting talent that I’m sure the supporters will enjoy watching.รขโฌย
I almost understand why he would maybe not be in the first team at the moment if he wasn’t playing in training but surely we could give him game time in the reserves or do we have a downside of having an Under-21 team rather than a full blown reserve team.
Tabanou surely is not the only one who would benefit from some game time and you would assume that should Taylor sustain an injury at any point then he would come into the first team which would be without any match practice for several months.
It makes you wonder what has gone wrong from such positive words at the time of signing รขโฌลIรขโฌโขm just arriving at the club and everything is new, of course. The manager and the club signed me because they trust me. Iรขโฌโขm going to prove that I can start. The short-term ambition here is to become a starting player.
รขโฌลI know the club has a lot of ambition and I want to grow with the club. This is an important stage of my career. Iรขโฌโขm looking forward to playing in the stadium and I hope to make the fans happy.”
Neither player or club have really commented on Tabanou’s absence from the side bar some words from Garry earlier on in the season about how it was difficult to keep everyone happy with competition for places in every position.
In terms of starting places though we have used relatively few players in the league this season when you sit and analyse it and that could therefore be suggested that we are not utilising our squad to the full depth or some could even assume that the players we paid decent money for back in the summer are not of the standard that we would want them to be.
Either way it is a puzzler and one that has surprised many of us since the season started especially when you consider for many this was described as the strongest squad we have seen at Swansea.
Will Tabanou ever get the chance? I guess only time will tell.
