Planet Swans ArchivesWhen the final whistle blew of last season after we beat West Brom at the Liberty there was the collective sigh of relief that you would expect after a traumatic nine months that only just saw us avoid relegation. We knew exactly what work lay ahead of Paul Clement during the summer and the challenges that he would face.
It was almost immediate that the speculation linking Gylfi Sigurdsson with a move away from the club started and not far behind that were the reports that Fernando Llorente was wanted by Chelsea. It was clear that we had to make decisions as to whether we were going to fight to keep them or plan to replace them. As we now know, the plan was the latter although both deals dragged on far longer than we would have wanted.
In terms of players in there is little doubt that the arrival of the likes of Tammy Abraham and Roque Mesa were good deals to get done early and, certainly in the case of Abraham, we have seen the benefit already of working with them.
Nothing much was to happen until August arrived and the season was underway but as soon as the deal was eventually done to sell Gylfi then the deals were going to happen. Sam Clucas arrived quickly from Hull and appears to be a good acquisition but it was the last couple of days that we impressed the most.
The signing of Renato Sanches appears to be a masterstroke and exactly the kind of deal you would hope that the contacts of Paul Clement could bring us. To read the reasons why he chose us brings a warm feeling to my heart and I cannot wait to see him make his debut against Newcastle next week.
As Llorente departed – for Tottenham not Chelsea as expected – it became clear that we would bring in Bony (despite my initial belief that we wouldn’t) and so it proved late on in the transfer window. The return of Bony is an interesting one as we know that he cannot be used as an impact substitute so I do expect him to get much game time as a starter otherwise the move for him doesn’t make a lot of sense.
The frustration I think was the transfer out of Stephen Kingsley. This has left us a little short at full back – clearly something we were trying to plug with the capture of Yiadom. What went wrong there will remain to be seen (or discussed) but we have to move on from that as he isn’t here so let’s hope for the full backs to stay free from injury for the next few months
Overall for me if I was to rate the transfer window out of 5 I would go for a 4. The captures are excellent, Kingsley aside the departures were predictable and we have plugged most – not all – of the gaps that we needed plugging.
What we now need to see is how these players bed in but there is no doubt in my mind right now that we are a better squad than we were back in May so the future looks positive. The other thing we need to remember is that we have retained some of the money in the bank for a January strengthening if we need it and trimmed the wage bill with the departure of some dead wood. This was vital for us as well and should be commended as much as any player we have bought in.
Roll on Newcastle next weekend…
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