New director of football at Swansea City, Richard Montague has been reviewing and looking into specific facts surrounding the mishandling of Harry Darling and a new contract offer.

As has been reported for nigh on nine months now on these pages we have kept you updated with Harry Darling and a potential new contract offer at the Swans. That all started last summer. The latest report on here was that Harry Darling wasn’t off the menu as far as the Swansea were concerned. In fact the club are still in the box seats as he is already a squad player. The issues as they have been since the summer transfer window closed is finances. Ben Cabango and Darling were somewhat miffed at the way they were being treated.

That link is here (Oct 2024) ⚽️Key Swans players disrespected

Despite Richard Montague not being ‘officially’ at Swansea City in his current guise the Swans were never going to stop all attempts for the player to sign a new deal. Montague was very much in and around the club in January with an agreement for him to join in place. We reported that Harry was still in the mix (Jan2024) ⚽️ Darling not forgotten

Montague has spoken to the media and states, "I haven't caught up with Harry's agent on that just yet. I need to be fully up to speed with where we are with everything. But obviously, it's an attractive proposition to be a free agent at this time. I think you can go into the summer knowing you've had a really good season like Harry has done and have a lot of options and he's going to have a lot of opportunities. So I think all we can do is make our best case to him and I'll make sure that we've done that. But we also have to recognise that there are points when the other options on offer might be too attractive for our players. So all I can do is make sure that we put our best foot forward and our most competitive offer forward and try to sell ourselves in the best way possible and we will do that."

We didn’t expect that to be any different with agent sources happy to talk about Darling, but their caution is that he may have (more than likely has) already information on what clubs are interested in him. The caution is of course rightly stated. No agent would be doing their job properly if they didn’t advise their client of interest they have prompted (Luke Williams agents as an example) or inquiries into them. We know there have been talks and offers far above what the Swans would be prepared to go to which sort of sounds like Montague’s efforts would be in vain. That isn’t necessarily the case. We do know after one of our brazen efforts to be more informed that Harry Darling loves living in the Swansea area. Although as we reported last year he does have numerous business interests in England and a daughter from the city. You can read all about that below.

⚽️ Extra curricular Darling ?

Harry has been decent for the Swans as one of the better players in the squad this season. This year he has been prone to errors, and he missed three games through suspension. That’s a concern potentially down to the spotlight and his desire to show any interested club of his skills base. Well, overall it hasn’t really worked. In front of goal he is a danger as he displayed against Leeds (below) earlier on in the season, however this season under Luke Williams has seen his levels drop somewhat.

That could be said for many players, especially Ronald and Josh Key. Harry Darling may well have his sights set away from the Swans come the summer, and he may well get his move but you can’t fault the club on not giving up just yet. We have been told that the Swans could dig into the massive savings on Matt Grimes to rekindle Harry’s interest. However the general feeling is the club will not under any circumstances alienate him from the rest of the squad by paying him too much. An estimate of fifteen thousand pounds a week (60k a month, 720k a year) loaded with incentives over three years (@2.2million basic) is the best he can expect. Personally we feel that although he is still only twenty five the Swans must not pander to salaries above their remit. There are players of equal ability able to step up to Championship football (Joe Low) or already playing at that level, and losing Darling isn’t the end of the world. Yes, he may well get twenty five thousand a week elsewhere, and good luck to him if he does, we wish him the best and off you go.

On the Swans manager hunt and despite reports elsewhere, including the ‘players want Sheehan’ etc. We’ve been told today no player has been canvassed by anyone through club channels and no player has been approached either. Sometime outlets need to do their due diligence and not approach indirect fourth party people who know nothing other than what ‘they’ want, very lazy reporting.

When there is news, there is none at this moment in time with the Swans allowing Alan Sheehan space with the squad to relieve pressure on forthcoming games, we will report it.

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Photographs : Licensed from Reuters

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