Plenty of signals today from Luke Williams that Swansea City were in a stranglehold situation up until Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan left the club. Not that it was breaking news.
Surprisingly Ji-Sung Eom seems to have made some remarkable progress from his MCL injury and could feature in the match day squad tomorrow. Luke Williams also reports Harry Darling is in a good place after being substituted on Wednesday evening against Derby County.
That news on Eom, which was talked about on our forum this week does come as a surprise. We investigated his injury and put together a report on Eom back in early October. Our summary of him returning by the end of November was more in hope than expectation.
⚽️ Eom report
Swans head coach looked a lot happier disclosing this news, "Jisung is now available. He could be in the matchday squad. He has been training this week and he is ready to go. He has been away for a while so we have to be careful, but he is available.”
Going further Williams states, We are really excited he (Eom) is back, and he’s been exciting as well in training, so that’s a real positive for us” Despite the news Luke warned on his inclusion. Focussing on the week,”Yes, we have had a busy schedule, and we got a good result and that has given everybody a boost, we live playing at home so that’s given everybody a boost as well”
Portsmouth will not have played for three weeks when they run out on the Swansea.com pitch tomorrow afternoon (3pm) with two games postponed in succession. "There’s pressure on all of us”
remarked Williams. "They will only be looking up, we expect a really tough game there’s no panic there I’m sure, no crisis”
Unfortunately Sam Parker is a few weeks away in recovery from his hamstring injury and Josh Ginnelly will continue his rehabilitation along with keeper, Andrew Fisher. Reflecting on Derby away and that 2-1 victory making it three wins out of five Luke had indeed had time to gather his thoughts on matters. " There’s pressure to win of course we are really happy with that. I think really small margins, a last minute penalty (at Burnley) which was dubious, and then the point snatched away from us against Leeds. That closeness, there is still a margin for us, the players, we have to improve. The margins are small but we really have to close them”
Luke spoke of improvement based on last seasons results, "We have to do better”
On Vipotnik, "I’ve seen many of those (the goal against Derby) there’s been a few side glances from the coaching staff when we are watching the finishing practice, this guy can really strike a ball and he can strike it both consistently and his ability to track the ball in the air and connect with it cleanly is high, he has a high level”
On Ben Cabango and Harry Darling Luke commented, "Everyone needs to know the players involved have been in a situation that has manifested itself for a long period. So, we have to understand if things were done a long time ago then those guys would have put pen to paper and that would be history. But things weren’t done earlier”
We know there has been more contact as we have reported recently, and plans for more discussions next week with both players.
That of course reflects badly on Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan who as we have reported many times were stalling and preventing more discussions unwilling to release the financial purse strings by not a lot of money. Luke smiled when he said, "There’s more clarity, I would say less people involved, fewer people more driven, more present, so that is already having an effect” If anyone doesn’t see the tight hold Levien and Kaplan had over the Swans then they don’t believe Luke Williams after that statement.
As expected Paul Watson won’t be directly replaced but someone may get the job once the right person is located. That interview with Luke was the most positive and encouraging we have seen for some time. We can’t think why he is now far more happier and much more positive, it’s odd isn’t it ?
⚽️ Full pre match here -