We have a plan?

by phil sumbler

If we had a pound for every time the current ownership group admitted to mistakes but promised to do better then we’d be funding the transfer of Mbappe to the Swans, never mind Leon Britton. Fanzine Founding Father Phil Sumbler knows a thing or two about how a club is run behind the scenes and he has some concerns about past, present and future strategy…

WE HAVE A PLAN? Strange, as we sure as Hell aren’t learning the painful lessons from the mistakes of the past!

Swansea City and transfer windows. They don’t exactly go hand in hand in complete harmony. Indeed they mainly pass by with a large underwhelmed feeling that leaves us wanting more. You know, a bit like one of those meals where you leave the restaurant but cannot help stopping off at the local takeaway on the way home because you don’t quite feel as if you have had enough.

The problem when it is a transfer window you cannot stop off on the way back home and pick up the midfielder and central defender that you so badly needed, you are made to rue the lack of suitable signings and wait for the next window at which point you will execute your perfect plan to fill those all important gaps in the squad.

That is, of course, assuming that you have a master plan.

And therein lies the problem as Swansea City do not appear to have one.

Some would tell me that it is a very harsh statement to say that, but what other reason can there be for our over reliance on (largely average) loan signings, allowing first team regulars to run down their contracts and come out of every window with the squad fundamentally weaker than we went into it.

Our transfer policy is, quite frankly, shot to pieces at the moment and the summer ahead is the biggest one that this ownership group has ever seen.

trust the mouthpiece

As we went through the January window we were told by our Supporters Trust (the official mouthpiece of the football club) that “January is a difficult month to recruit” despite evidence to the contrary that other teams manage to do business.

And it is substantially easier than November, December or February because those nice people that run the game have given a specific month in which you can do business.It kind of makes it pointless if we can’t do business when the window is open really.

We did manage to make three signings in the January window but inexplicably one of them was a loan just adding to our over reliance on loan players which gives us the same challenge every summer in that we are faced with the need to rebuild a squad. Someone needs to explain to me how bringing in Charles Sagoe Jr to sit on the bench for the second half of the season is better than using someone from our own academy in particular.

The official video for "What Got Us Here, Won't Get Us There" - the second single from Gareth Lewis's forthcoming EP "Roots".

planning

After the farce of the January 2023 transfer window we were told that lessons had been learned.

The club brought in Paul Watson to oversee recruitment for the summer and he was given pretty much the free reign (and the finances) to make thirteen signings; five of which were loans, two of whom have already been shipped out in January and two more that we were allegedly ready to lose in January on top of that.

It was hardly a roaring success.

Andy Coleman told us (in between telling us that he has moved his family to Swansea) that planning started for January the day after the summer window closed and that we were going to be ready to transact.

It is true (or at least as far as I know it is) that we missed out on a couple of targets but if we were so well planned you need to explain to me further how it went so far into the window (the last four days) for us to make any signings – and then we went solely for three wingers when it was obvious to everyone that we needed a central defender and midfielder at minimum.

Unless of course, this perfect plan was that we were to ship goals and lose games with such ease. If that is the case it is a plan perfectly executed

Meh

Over the past few years our player trading model has yielded some huge sales but frankly our incoming transfers have, in the main, been horrific.

Last summer was a case in point – Josh Key was a good addition, Carl Rushworth a good loan and Josh Ginnelly looked a good signing before his injury.

The rest? It’s all been a bit “Meh” really and this summer we face potentially losing FIFTEEN players from the squad between loans ending, contracts expiring and players we seem keen to move out of the club.

There is zero long term planning when you consider that kind of number.

track records

The challenge with the way we have gone about transfers in recent years means that we cannot correct this overnight, but we can adopt a different strategy and know that within 3-4 windows it will bring itself back where we want it.

We all know about the definition of insanity (you know the one I mean) but maybe someone needs to sit Coleman and his bosses (let’s not fall for the line that he is really in charge) down and explain it to them because they clearly don’t understand it. Or maybe that stupid data spreadsheet doesn’t tell them what it is all about.

Because of the nature of the squad, the contracts and the loans this coming summer is quite possibly the biggest we have faced for a long long time.

Get it right and we can potentially look to improve next season, get it as wrong as we have in past and next season could make the struggles of this season look like a walk in the park.

And how many people can, hand on heart, say that they trust in those making the decisions to get it right? I know I can’t, track records give me my reasons why.

And this is what happens without a plan…