Russell Martin spoke tonight about the possible return of Morgan Whittaker from his highly impressive loan spell at League One leaders Plymouth Argyle.<\/p>\n
The winger has been a huge success for the Pilgrims and has fast become one of the most exciting players in the division with rumours suggesting that Ipswich Town are keen on landing the former Derby County man.<\/p>\n
At just 21, Whittaker has nine goals and seven assists in 23 appearances for Plymouth this season – impressive figures at any level let alone in a division with heavyweight like Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County.<\/p>\n
So the logical answer would be to either keep the player at Home Park and review at the end of the season or bring him back to SA1 to offer some genuine pace and creativity. Surely?<\/p>\n
Well, that’s not quite what it seems. Martin said after the defeat to Burnley that a decision was “imminent” but seemed to suggest that it wasn’t exactly his desire for the player to return with his preferred position in the team already well stocked.<\/p>\n
It’s never quite appeared from the outside that Martin has been a fan of Whittaker despite the player netting a hat-trick against Plymouth in the EFL Cup last season and offering promise in the brief appearances for the Swans.<\/p>\n
The manager’s comments suggests it’ll be tough for him to force his way in with the likes of Luke Cundle, Oli Cooper, Olivier Ntcham, Joel Piroe and even Jay Fulton options in that attacking midfield area.<\/p>\n
Therefore it suggests that the decision for Whittaker to return is more down to Chief Executive Julian Winter and Head of Football Operations Josh Marsh, with them viewing him as a valuable asset to the club.<\/p>\n
Martin said: “I didn’t think there was (the possibility of him being recalled) but I think there probably is because the ownership group have an opinion on that. Josh (Marsh, Swansea’s head of football operations) and Julian (Winter, the club’s chief executive) have an opinion on that with Morgan.<\/p>\n
It has to be imminent because the clause in the loan, or whatever it is, is imminent. I don’t know where that’s at at the minute, there has been a lot of conversation about it.<\/p>\n
“If he comes back he will be welcomed back into the group. He wants to play where he has been playing at Plymouth, which is probably the most competitive position on the pitch for us with Olivier Ntcham, Luke Cundle, Oli Cooper, Jay Fulton, Joel Piroe when he plays there.<\/p>\n
“So I think it’s a really tough position to get in, but if he does come back he comes back with the mentality that he wants to fight and get in the team, and then we will just have to take it from there.<\/p>\n
“I don’t have a definitive answer for you on that and I’m sure I will get told in the next, well probably this evening I would have thought, and if not it will be tomorrow.<\/p>\n
“He has done brilliantly, really well. If he comes back hopefully he can build on that momentum and see where it takes him here.<\/p>\n
“I think his preference would be stay and play football where he’s guaranteed every week I think.<\/p>\n
“But he’s our asset, he’s the club asset and there is a bigger picture in terms of what Josh and Julian see in terms of his value, in terms of what he might be able to add here, and all that stuff. We will just have to wait and see. I’m quite relaxed about it either way.”<\/p>\n
So, with the manager even admitting that Whittaker would prefer to stay at Home Park, is the only logical explanation that the player will be on his way back out in January to help strengthen other areas of the team?<\/p>\n
The links with Ipswich have continued for some time and with suggestions that the League One club are still owed money for the Flynn Downes transfer, it does perhaps then hold some water.<\/p>\n
Whatever the future holds for Whittaker, if he was to be sold in January for the paltry figure of \u00a31m – as has been quoted in other media reports – then it would be a sad exit for a player who could have offered plenty in a team that sorely lacks pace of any kind.<\/p>\n
Indeed we should be looking to the division below for young and exciting players as we have always done in the past; not selling them at the first sign of seven figures for what could be a genuine asset in the future – see Brennan Johnson at Lincoln as a prime example.<\/p>\n
Time will tell on this one. If he is to return then we can only hope that he will be given the opportunity he deserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russell Martin spoke tonight about the possible return of Morgan Whittaker from his highly impressive loan spell at League One leaders Plymouth Argyle. The winger has been a huge success for the Pilgrims and has fast become one of the most exciting players in the division with rumours suggesting that Ipswich Town are keen on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":74566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[293,49,203,296],"tags":[363,669,665],"class_list":["post-74565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-first-team","category-news","category-opinion","category-transfer-news","tag-morgan-whittaker","tag-plymouth-argyle","tag-the-2022-23-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}