As the Swans prove their competence at last on the pitch with their sixth win in seven on the weekend, a well timed mention of things away from the field of play has been made by Russell Martin. News reached us on Sunday afternoon that plans for the closed season that were agreed in February seem now to have been ‘adjusted’ leaving Martin extremely annoyed.
To avoid confusion majority owners and key decision makers Steve Kaplan, Jason Levien and Jake Silverstein all spoke directly with Russell Martin after the shambllic January transfer window which saw the club bring in no first team players. Martin was assured that matters were in hand and that Swansea City would have a certain degree of money available to satisfy at least some of his outstanding squad issues. And pending players leaving there would be far more flexibility.
Steve Kaplan travelled to the UK intending to secure further financial support for the club recently. This would be the form of specific investments. This occurred during the week of Swansea playing away to Millwall in mid March. Again Martin was reassured by Kaplan in a scheduled meeting in London that things were in place regards replacing players who would be leaving, and to support his key players list which had been known for some weeks. Kaplan and Martin were not the only people in that meeting.
Russell Martin has five players he wants to see at the club as early as possible in the summer. In principle those transfers have been agreed within the Swansea boardroom and Kaplan assured Martin there was some financial flexibility to do some early business. Martin responded on Saturday post match with the following. "I hope that we've convinced people that we have really strong foundations to build on. When we came into the building we said it would take time and I think we're starting to seeing the rewards of that work now. What we have to do is get moving forward with the strategy and what we're going to sign because, even now, we're probably not being as proactive as we could be or should be. We need to really nail down that and fix ourselves on what we need because we're showing in this run and the run we had earlier in the season that we can compete, but we need a little bit of help to take us to the next level."
What Martin was doing is very clear. He was reinstating the discussions that have already taken place. However we now learn that some of the agreed forward planning has been scuppered to some extent at the behest of Jason Levien. We were going to hold tight on this until the morning but now the likes of Stu James a respected journalist for the Athletic has most certainly let the cat out of the bag with a tweet slamming Levien. There seemed to be no reason why at this point Swansea Independent should not now disclose our own information on this matter.
Quite simply what is now happening is exactly what happened in January.
Reassurances for the last transfer window and the expected squad additions didn’t happen then and now it seems other things have to happen for any team strengthening in the summer. Martin expects to lose Ryan Manning whose salary demands are way above the Swans budget, and he has Joel Piroe and Steven Benda going in to the final year of their contracts. He has insisted as well the club secure Joel Latibeaudiere as his salary is well below the Swans threshold for new contracts. He has been told that would happen, however it has not and Latibeaudiere is now being tracked by five clubs as an out of contract player come the end of May.
This prompted him to say on Saturday. "Ryan Manning has so much quality, assists, goals, wherever he's played," said Martin. "He's been so good. I just don't think we can get to a financial position that will keep Ryan here. With Joel Latibeaudiere we can and we should. We need to. It's a source of frustration for me at the moment that we haven't got that done. If I was in charge of it, he would have that. His attitude, professionalism, character, commitment to us in what we do, he's a leader and a cultural architect. Now he's settled into a position he's been incredible. I implore us to do that, and we need to do that because you can't let someone like that go out of the building. We have to get that done."
Clearly Martin is frustrated again at the indecision of the majority owners, even with further investment planned is quite alarming. The owners have a history of dragging their feet, and that can go back a number of years. Matt O’Riley was keen to sign for the Swans last January ( 2022 ) and the owners stalling meant he went to Celtic. Swansea City need a productive and seriously well thought out summer. You can get some of the players Martin wants fairly cheaply and they can agree to sign as soon as the season ends, in fact before that as they are allowed to speak to other clubs. None of that has happened, not even securing some of the clubs best assets on new contracts which shows a distinct lack of understanding by Levien at least.
Swansea City cannot approach the summer hoping to pick up some embers in August when the players the club require are available pretty much now which is the main source of Martin’s frustration. You have to agree with him, when something is confirmed and an element of positivity is given by those who make the decisions you don’t expect the rug pulling to happen all over again.
Swansea fans have to increase the pressure on the board and it’s decision makers, it isn’t good enough for this to continue to occur. It’s unprofessional and hurts a club who are clearly on the cusp of something very exciting indeed.