Summer Transfer Window | Page 2 | Vital Football

Summer Transfer Window

Steve Cooper to remain with us then, after Palace and Fulham go for alternative choices in their manager search.
The compensation clause in his contract probably hindered his selection.
Will he now be offered an improved contract with us or will he be allowed to run down the final year of his present one?
 
Fabrizio Romano
@FabrizioRomano
Marco Silva has been appointed as new Fulham manager. Total agreement reached today afternoon. Contract until June 2024 to be signed in the next few hours. ⚪️ #FulhamFC
 
Pre-Season training commences:
Sat 3 July

Pre-Season Friendlies:
Sat 17 July 15:00 Swindon v Swans
Tue 20 July 19:00 Plymouth v Swans
Sat 24 July 15:00 Bristol Rovers v Swans
Wed 28 July 19:00 Forest Green v Swans
Sat 31 July 15:00 Swans v Southampton

Championship season starts:
Sat 7 Aug 15:00 Blackburn v Swans

Carabao Cup First Round:
Tue 10 Aug 20:00 Reading v Swans

Championship continues:
Sat 14 Aug 20:00 Swans v Sheff Utd (live on Sky Sports)
Tue 17 Aug 20:00 Swans v Stoke
Fri 20 Aug 19:45 Bristol City v Swans (live on Sky Sports)
Sat 28 Aug 15:00 Preston v Swans
 
The Swans have turned to England for their team travel partner.
Bristol company “Turners Coachways” are the new team transport for the next four years.
Welsh coach company New Adventure Travel (N.A.T.), based in Cardiff, who’ve transported the team around the country for the last several years, have been ditched.
Bristol is 80 miles away and 1-1/2 hours from Swansea, so it seems a strange selection of company, where the coach will have to do a 160 mile round trip on top of any designated journey. It will probably mean having two drivers to conform with driving time and mileage limit restrictions.
I wonder if the Swans Travel Club will stick with N.A.T. Coaches when they eventually resume transporting fans to away matches?
 
The squad are off to a training camp in Surrey next week, 5 star Pennyhill Park luxury hotel and spa the destination. It’s the training base for the England rugby team and has top facilities.

https://www.exclusive.co.uk/pennyhill-park/business/meeting-rooms/pitch

https://www.aladyofleisure.com/pennyhill-park-luxury-hotel/

Matt Grimes:
“It will be nice to have a change of scenery next week and get away with the lads. It will be good team bonding and most importantly we will be putting in some hard work on the training pitch.”
 
There were two one hour competitive matches against Newport behind closed doors today.

1st Game: Benda, Rushesha, Latibeaudiere, B Cooper, Manning, Smith, Fulton, O Cooper, Akanda, Joseph, Whittaker
Morgan Whittaker scored the only goal in a 1-0 win.

2nd Game: Hamer, Naughton, Bennett, Butler, Bidwell, Grimes, Walsh, Byers, Lowe, Cullen, Garrick
George Byers, Liam Cullen and Jamal Lowe 2, all scored in a 4-0 win
 
Plymouth 1 (Hardie) - Swansea 2 (Whittaker, Cullen)
Plymouth had the better chances and should have at least drawn the match. Apart from the first half spell when we scored the two goals, it was the usual bore fest from the Swans. Both centre-backs Bennett and Latibeaudiere were poor and it was Bennett’s mistake for the Hardie goal. We were disappointingly poor and lethargic, as was the live match commentary with Anthony O’Connell and Alan Curtis, where neither knew the players names and both tended to ramble on with long winded stories instead of commentating.
Coaches Marsh and Margetson were missing, fueling the rumours that Cooper is on his way out.
Swansea City: Steven Benda; Kyle Naughton (Dan Williams 73), Ryan Bennett (Scott Butler 73), Joel Latibeaudiere (Ben Margetson 79), Jake Bidwell; Jay Fulton (Liam Walsh 46), Matt Grimes (captain, Korey Smith 61); Morgan Whittaker (Kyle Joseph 73), Yan Dhanda (Joel Piroe 61) Jamal Lowe (Ryan Manning 73); Liam Cullen.
Unused Substitutes: Ben Hamer, Lewis Webb.
 
The football headlines are full of the news of the imminent departure of Swans Head Coach Steve Cooper after his contract is being terminated by mutual agreement, with a year left on it.
Cooper has been unsettled this summer, with top scorer Ayew leaving and by a limited transfer kitty and more key players potentially leaving
The club were annoyed by Cooper openly applying for other jobs, Crystal Palace, West Brom and Fulham that we know of, making his position at the Swans untenable.
The owners were hoping he would get one of those positions so they could at least receive recompense, but those clubs were seemingly unwilling to pay that compensation and the vacancies have now been filled.
He is now free to pursue his career elsewhere, but it leaves us in the lurch with the new season starting in a few weeks.
 
No official word on the new incumbent but odds on favourite is now John Eustace, QPR assistant manager.
Apparently he’s on duty for QPR’s friendly against Man Utd tomorrow before departing to us.
Some are saying Angel Rangel will be his assistant, others say Andy Scott, presently our Head of Recruitment.
Not sure whether Rangel has got his badges or not but he played under Warburton/Eustace at QPR.
In house, no word on whether these two are staying or not -
Mike Marsh - compassionate leave
Martyn Margetson - on holiday after England duty

Alan Tate is taking charge of the team at Bristol Rovers tomorrow
 
No official word on the new incumbent but odds on favourite is now John Eustace, QPR assistant manager.
Apparently he’s on duty for QPR’s friendly against Man Utd today before departing to us.
No word on whether they’re staying or not -
Mike Marsh - compassionate leave
Martyn Margetson - on holiday after England duty

Covid in the camp. Alan Tate was taking charge of the team at Bristol Rovers today but the game has been cancelled
 
After the embarrassing debacle of John Eustace deciding to stay at QPR citing “personal reasons” but It was probably wages as QPR offered him more, we continue our search for a head-coach with the season opener at Blackburn only 9 days away.
Favourites for the post are Jodi Morris and Russell Martin.
Morris is available after leaving his role as No 2 to Frank Lampard at Chelsea in January.
Martin has a 350k release clause in his contract at MK Dons, but one website is saying he’s already turned us down due to the financial restraints and no control over players in and out.
 
So 35 year-old Russell Martin seemingly is the man then, after several media reports state that he has agreed a 3 year deal in principle with the Swans.
An ex-Norwich City player, where he played over 300 games as a defender, he left at the end of season 2017-2018 to take up a player-coach role at League 1 Walsall in Oct 2018. He only lasted 3 months and 12 appearances before leaving, citing personal reasons, in Jan 2019.
That same month he moved to League 2 MK Dons on a short term deal under Paul Tisdale, where they gained promotion that season to League 1, Martin playing a key role..
Tisdale left in Nov 2019 with the Dons struggling at the foot of the table. Martin took over and retired as a player, managing to avoid relegation that season, finishing in 19th position.
Season 2020-2021, the Dons finished in 13th position in his first full season in management, with Luke Williams as his assistant, instilling a possession based game that became renowned and received widespread recognition. In one game last season, the Dons scored after a record 56 pass move.
His managerial record at MK Dons is:
P79 W30 D19 L30, Win % 39.37
In comparison to Steve Cooper at Swansea:
P105 W47 D28 L30, Win % 44.8
 
Swans 1 (Salisu o.g.) - Southampton 3 (Tella, Redmond, Armstrong)

Swansea:
Steven Benda, Kyle Naughton, Ryan Bennett (capt) (Scott Butler 89), Ben Cabango, Jake Bidwell (Lincoln McFayden 90); Korey Smith (Ollie Cooper 75), Liam Walsh (Dan Williams 32), Yan Dhanda (Ben Lloyd 84); Morgan Whittaker (Joel Piroe 60), Liam Cullen (Kyle Joseph 84), Jamal Lowe.
Unused subs: Ben Hamer.

Southampton:
Alex McCarthy, Kyle Walker-Peters (Yan Valery 60), Oriol Romeu (capt) (Ibrahima Diallo 46), Shane Long (Michael Obafemi 60), Che Adams (Danny Ings 60), Nathan Redmond (Mohamed Elyounoussi 60), Stuart Armstrong (Ryan Finnigan 73), Moussa Djenepo (Romain Perraud 60), Mohamed Salisu (Jack Stephens 60), Nathan Tella (Theo Walcott 60). Jan Bednarek (Oludare Olufunwa 81).

We were easy meat today for a very good Southampton team.
The match showed how far they’ve advanced since they beat us three seasons ago under Mark Hughes to stay in the PL, and how much we’ve gone backwards with our U.S. owners fire-sales decimating and lowering the quality of the squad each season.
With the squad as it stands we’ll be lucky to stay in this division if today’s performance was anything to go by. We were bettered to every ball and bullied and cajoled into losing possession continuously.
Southampton could have scored many more goals but for some fine saves by Benda, they had so much possession it became boring, whereas all we could do is pass back or sideways or lose the ball, Cooper-esque style.
Russell Martin has a lot of work on his hands next week to get us in shape for the season opener at Blackburn.
 
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