Former Charlton midfielder joins from Liverpool on a 4-year deal
Well, it's a good thing I didn't post anything on my site at lunchtime, as was originally the plan. When I heard this was going through today I wasn't amazingly enthused, shall we say, but more so purely because of the price. If it was two, perhaps three million then I could understand it, but five? It still seems a really steep fee, but I've had time to calm down now and in the cold light of day, he's 21, looked tidy on occasion for Liverpool (with Europa League experience to boot) and he is British, something which is quite important given FA regulations and the growing continental contingent in the Swansea squad.
Quite a few people have said that his performances waned as the season wore on last year, and that it started when he was dropped for the first time, but it is easy to forget how young he is. Kyle Bartley is a year older, and is going out on loan to get first team experience - Shelvey has a couple of seasons for Charlton under his belt as well as well as a few for Liverpool now, and he made ten appearances in Europe last year.
You get the feeling, too, that he's been signed for one main reason - his willingness to shoot. The guy does have a cannon and it's often said that sometimes the Swans fail to make anything of prolonged periods of
time spent in the opposition area. That was less of a problem last year, granted, however we can still improve in that respect and it's likely Shelvey will be asked to help take the goal burden off Michu, as well as any other striker we sign (if any...gulp).
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| Shelvey getting stuck into Jonny Evans. |
We've signed him now, so I'm behind him and the board. They know better than I do, and if they think he's worth £5million who am I to say otherwise? Who knows, we could look back at this as an amazing bit of business in a few years.