Vital Swansea Blogs

How Swansea City Fans Are Feeling Ahead of New Season Opener – Majority Aren’t Confident

|
Image for How Swansea City Fans Are Feeling Ahead of New Season Opener – Majority Aren’t Confident

Prior to our final pre-season friendly against Freiburg on Friday, we asked our Twitter followers how they were feeling ahead of the new Championship season and it’s fair to say that the majority of fans are not exactly filled with confidence.

You can hardly blame them either. Manager Graham Potter has admitted that we’ve signed 1 senior player in Joel Asoro, with Yan Dhanda and Jordi Govea drafted into the under-23s setup, although given his Summer performances since his free move from Liverpool, you wouldn’t expect him to be playing with the youngsters for long – if at all.

After 281 votes in the Twitter poll below, the vast majority believe we’ll consolidate in around mid-table, or do worse and finish in the bottom half, with 12% believing that we’re doomed!

Considering the current state of our squad and the lack of signings, finishing in the bottom half but above the relegation zone would be an acceptable return in Graham Potter’s first season as Swansea City manager.

Such is the lack of confidence in the squad that some fans have discussed today how the club must stick by their man, even if the worst happens and we “do a Sunderland”.

A lot of the discussion we’ve seen has been about our chairman Huw Jenkins yet again. We’ve all recognised the need for a rebuild job this Summer but all we’ve seen really so far is players leaving.  Hopefully, that will change before August 9th but not many of us are overly confident about that happening.

‘A very risky and foolish move, but that fits in with their actions over the last few years.’

And whilst you cannot take too much notice of pre-season friendlies, it’s quite clear that the squad is lacking quality and so far we’ve received roughly £16-17m following the departures of Lucasz Fabianski (~£6m), Roque Mesa (~£6m), Kyle Bartley (~£4m) and Andre Ayew (£1m loan fee) but have only spent £2m on Joel Asoro.

I realise that the wage bill does need to be reduced significantly given our reduced TV income, but we’ve been slow in both selling players – raising money and rebuilding the squad with new recruits. You start to get the feeling that quite possibly our owners were hoping that Graham Potter can squeeze everything out of a limited squad in the Championship and get them over-performing like his Ostersund side did for so many years. A very risky and foolish move, but that fits in with their actions over the last few years.

There are 6 days to go until we travel to Sheffield United for the season opener and Potter says he’s hoping to “do some business” after watching his side lose another Summer Tour friendly.

“We hope to do business. That’s clear and that’s something we want to do,”

“The players need support from us to try to help them play better and enjoy their football.

“If we can add bodies to the group, I think that’s what everybody would like to see. That’s a process that’s ongoing and we are doing our best.”Graham Potter

Talking about potential signings this week and before the transfer window closes on August 9th (31st for loans), journalist Alan Nixon says one signing is on the way, with a second possibly:

Let’s hope he’s as accurate with this as he was with Asoro and Jordi Govea stories.

Share this article

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *