Swansea City right back Connor Roberts has given his reasons for his decision to commit his future at the club and ignore interest from other clubs as he signed a new deal until 2022 this week.
Swans fans have had to be patient waiting for the 23-year-old to follow Joe Rodon, Jay Fulton and Matt Grimes in signing a new contract and speculation was building that Roberts had his head turned with interest coming in. Due to his contract expiring next Summer, the player would have been allowed to enter talks with other clubs and potentially sign a pre-contract agreement.
Luckily though, Roberts has done the sensible thing and remained at a club where he is pretty much guaranteed first-team football, something that he wouldn’t be guaranteed at a Premier League club.
Roberts revealed that he went in search of advice and spoke to Wales boss Ryan Giggs:
“There is an emotional pull here. It would be hard to leave, the fans like me and I like them and all my family support Swansea. But luckily that (leaving Swansea) is not happening.
“My goal is to play in the Premier League again and I want it to be with Swansea.”
“I asked Ryan (Giggs) and got his input. He wants his players playing as much as they can.
“There were some rumours and whatnot. I spoke with the chairman, manager and my representatives and I think we all agreed I had to do what was right by me. There was some pondering, I spoke with Ryan Giggs to see what he thought.
“At the end it has come down to me wanting to keep playing football and improving as a player. I spoke with Graham too and I think Swansea is the team to do that with.”
Roberts also mentioned the ‘Swansea curse’ where a number of players have decided to leave to improve their careers but it’s had the opposite effect.
Alfie Mawson could be seen as another example of ‘curse’. He joined Fulham in the Summer for £15m but the Premier League side are really struggling so far and he’s also not a first-team regular although that could change with the arrival of their new manager Claudio Ranieri.
“I’ve seen a lot of Swans fans saying it’s almost a little bit of a Swansea curse. A lot of players have left and not gone on to do very much while a couple have even come back,”
“There’s only been a handful of people who have done well like Joe Allen and Ben Davies who can say they bettered their career or done a little bit better than they would have if they had stayed here
“Never say never. I might have to go to prolong my career or to get better opportunities.
“Nobody knows but at the moment I’m playing week in week out, improving and learning off Graham Potter and off Ryan Giggs when I play for Wales.”
