Jamie Paterson – what will Russell Martin say?

The subject of Jamie Paterson you would expect to be high on the agenda when Russell Martin talks about his preparations ahead of the visit of Preston North End to the Swansea.com stadium this weekend.

Paterson was of course a high profile absentee last weekend which was revealed on Sunday to be down to him not being in the “right frame of mind” which now appears to have ended his Swansea City career with several Championship clubs circulating seemingly with an interest in taking on the Swans second leading scorer this season.

It is less than two weeks since the Swans confirmed they had triggered Paterson’s contract extension on 7th January with Russell Martin saying “With Jamie Paterson we have triggered the extension a little bit earlier, so that is done.”

“That’s good news and it is an automatic 12-month extension.”

It all seemed so simple.   The player missed the game with Southampton due to a Covid related isolation period but all was good in the camp.  And when he missed last weekend’s game it was reported as due to illness and nobody raised an eyebrow.   Until Sunday when it was revealed that he had refused to play and was unhappy with the contract he had signed just a week before.

In December we understood that his contract extension would be triggered on 25 appearances and we now have to wonder if Paterson is refusing to play because he does not want to trigger the automatic one but the suggestion from the club was the early extension has done which, you would assume, was at the agreement of all parties.

Yesterday rumours and suggestions emerged that West Brom had agreed to sign Paterson on a free which would tie in with a change in heart but, as of yet, we are not in a position to have heard from club (or player for that matter) officially on this matter.

With QPR, Blackburn and Huddersfield all interested supposedly in a move for Paterson you can certainly assume that he, along with Hannes Wolf, will be very high on the agenda when Martin answers his press questions where we all hope that maybe some further details emerge.