A look at the plethora of players we've been linked with over the last few days
Well, the media circus has now gone into overdrive. As one friend has suggested, it's possible the Swans are being used by agents to drum up interest in their clients by putting their name into a sentence with "Swansea City", but it seems there's something in at least one or two of the rumours.
Probably the most exciting name to crop up is that of Wilfried Bony. The Ivorian set the Eredivisie alight - scoring 31 goals in 30 league games (43 in 62 through all competitions), and is valued at £10mil+ by his club Vitesse. Likely? Who knows. If we're going to pay up to around £10million for a player, which I'm still not convinced will be the case, I'd rather we spend it on Bony than Bafetimbi Gomis, who is rated at around the same price but has never had a season as prolific as the man from the Ivory Coast.
One rumour which seems to have an element of truth in it is that we've made a loan bit for Matej Vydra. His agent has said that up to eight clubs are interested in his client's signature, and that Swansea are one of a number of clubs who've made loan bids for last year's Championship Player of the Season. I'll be honest, I didn't watch too much of the Championship last year but if he stood out that much playing for a Watford team littered with supposed "star loanees", picking him up without having to pay a fee could well be a really tidy bit of business. He's valued at between £8million and £10million by his parent club Udinese, but they seem willing to let him spend another season on loan as he looks to kick on again.
Jordi Amat is another name that's now been linked with the club for a while, and the Spanish centre-back is rumoured to be close to signing, while we've also reportedly had a bid accepted for Nathan Redmond - the latter is an exciting prospect, very much in the Scott Sinclair mould, while the defensive cover Amat would bring could be key if Kyle Bartley departs, as expected, on loan to Birmingham.
Last but not least, yesterday Jonjo Shelvey dropped to 1/8 to be at the Swans next season, and the press seem to be running with the idea we want to sign him for £5million. To be completely honest, I've never seen Shelvey play well and I'm really not enthused by this one, but as usual I'm completely willing to be proved wrong. There's a reason I'm not a football manager.
Actually, there's probably a couple...