It can’t please anyone that Swansea City are currently floating around the football world in a state of limbo brought about by inaction and dissatisfaction after a week off the pitch which brought more questions than answers. Then there’s the events on the pitch which are certainly beginning to dictate Russell Martin’s football future at the club.
From a position of relative strength in January after an away win at Sunderland, with everyone looking upwards and hopeful of better things to come we are today as far away from any positivity than ever. Then we have Director Jake Silverstein taking to social media to explain himself and his cohorts with statements that don’t really fit the words we heard before this transfer window.
The allegations of asset stripping and taking money out of the club are of course pure nonsense. However, the explanations for the current situation and the poor transfer window are extremely questionable. It’s been said before, after a dozen transfer windows how come they made simple and basic errors over timing and recruitment that they have navigated some fifty times since taking over at Swansea City ?
That just doesn’t make sense.
However, since then we have heard these bullet points. They do nothing more than really confirm the feeling the transfer window was a smoke and mirrors game with no intention to buy in anyone but make more savings on players going out.
* it was a difficult window for us
* We had a number of targets
* We came close to signing a few
* January’s always a tricky time
* The manager is happy with what he’s got
* The owners remain fully committed to this club
Thanks to Reddit’s u/RafiakaMacakaDirk for that breakdown.
It’s a succinct and very damning indictment of the responses we all heard from the majority owners. As we said no experienced ownership of many transfer windows makes these mistakes, unless of course they either intended to or there is another financial agenda ahead.
In early May of last year the warning signs were there. We did cover this on the website, but it went pretty much unaddressed. Silverstein stated. "One core principle of financial sustainability for a club like ours is a player trading model whereby we identify, develop, and eventually sell young players to boost revenues. While over each of the last three transfer windows we have spent more in transfer fees than we have brought in through player sales, that will not always been the case. We are very proud of the incredible strides that so many of our players have made this year”
Unfortunately the recent attempts for want of a better word to address the ‘need’ for a couple of signings that everyone knew were required has resulted in a deflated feeling across the fanbase. The result on Saturday drove home that dissatisfaction. In fact Swansea City were the only club not under an embargo that didn’t sign a player in January. That’s a damning fact.
If we are to believe the statements post transfer window, and if the inability that was referenced by Jason Levien ( a highly qualified attorney ) to get players over the line, then what we have is a completely incompetent leadership in the USA, and a flawed hierarchy at the club in Swansea. Are they really though ? Seasoned businessmen is often referenced when they are spoken of. We have a CEO in Julian Winter who at the top of football administrative CV has overseen years of transfers at Watford, Sheffield United, Huddersfield Town and now Swansea City. Jason Levien a registered player agent and ex strategist for the democrat party in the USA is a good starting point. Levien began his career as a promising law clerk, then worked as a lawyer, player agent and assistant NBA general manager before becoming a team owner and operator. And get this, he has negotiated a 33 million dollar deal at Miami Heat. Then a 55 million deal at Sacramento Kings, and let’s not forget the largest deal in the history of the Chicago Bulls, an 80 million dollar six year contract for player Luol Deng.
That’s some impressive portfolio, and we have only scratched the surface.
"My philosophy was to take a hands-on approach and form a close relationship with my clients. I was motivated to make an impact on my clients lives. I had to ‘out hustle’ people.
Jason Levien
And now the Swans fans base is at his mercy when he states deals couldn’t be achieved last month. After a long history of multi million dollar business transactions, and being at the forefront of numerous massive deals in the sporting landscape of the USA - he can’t deliver to our club a £340,000 twenty three year old right back playing at Exeter City ? Or indeed a free transfer or loan keeper from the third string at a premier league club ?
You have to be kidding right ?
Personally I don’t believe Jake Silverstein has no care for Swansea City. However, what he is embroiled in is his links with Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien set against his personal desire for the Swans to improve. He is fast becoming the middle man, working earnestly defending the disasters of this year set against his attempts to stay on board with thousands of Swansea supporters. The time he has spent on social media explaining all this away, and then in telephone conversations over six weeks, and of course the intense discussions of late could have been far better spent in direct discussion regards transfer objectives.
And getting them done.
However, and as we have already stated, there was no intention to sign anyone. That’s our belief and we stick by it. Karlan Grant was a wonderful example of the owners confused state when the window closed. A loan player where we were told was offered more money to come to Swansea, when has that ever been a loan deal characteristic ? The intention was to drift through this window, hope the flannel afterwards would wash and keep their fingers crossed Russell Martin could deliver something magical. That magical thing being the ability to deliver whatever they see as success with the youngest squad in the league using the least number of match day players. Check it out, it’s fact. And despite the calls for Russell Martin’s head, which may well have been the hope of the majority ownership to sidetrack the fans from their transfer window misdemeanours, he is still head coach at Swansea City. How in place and safe remains to be seen as he will more than likely spend more time on conference calls this week to the USA than on the training pitch.
"In terms of January, I hope we will be right in it when the January window comes around, I hope we will be clearly in the hunt for the play-offs. That’s what I hope, and if that is the case then we will ‘defer to Julian Winter and Josh Marsh’ and our football team that we trust to talk about who the transfer targets are, what the right business for the club is going to be in a holistic way”
Jake Silverstein, October 2022
The final insult came when Silverstein and Levien confirmed they would be ‘scouring’ the free agent market for something to appease the fans now any real transfers cannot be completed. Honestly does anyone really believe this ? Do they not already have a strategy in place for this if these supposed January signings didn’t occur ? These businessmen of multi million dollar deals across the USA didnt once think ‘ Hey Josh Marsh, just in case this all falls apart let’s have some back up’
But no, what we hear from Russell Martin on February 2nd is "Josh Marsh is busy trying to source something and has given me a list of players he sorted out this morning” I suppose some will always have questions about the people in charge of things at their football club. Personally I spent thirty two years sifting through excuses, alibi's, defences, lies, the truth and much more to secure an honest and open outcome to many life changing events. The process if carried out diligently and transparently, and applied to a set of circumstances such as this leaves me with one conclusion.
This isn’t in any way an attempt to undermine anyone connected to this complete farce we are enduring at Swansea City. Not Levien, Silverstein or anyone within the walls of the club. However, hard questions need to be asked, and with all due respects they need to be asked by someone who is used to asking questions and then managing that conversation to steer it towards a productive and transparent conclusion.
There’s far too much cover work being done here, and possibly that’s another objective, to confuse and disorientate the support of our club to the extent they are distracted with an overflow of information. It’s a classic technique, and often one which is used in complex criminal cases to bewilder and perplex a jury. Mind you, for that strategy to be successful you would need a fairly brilliant legal mind behind the process.
Someone like an experienced attorney maybe ?
Just putting it out there.