Josh Kilmister on why, despite Bony's departure, there’s no need to panic
Since news of Bony's transfer broke, there has been an understandable outpouring of emotion across all forms of social media. Yes, it’s pretty much certain that Bony will be leaving us and yes, he will be a huge loss, but some of the reaction on Twitter is a tad ridiculous.
After having one person playing as your primary striker for over a season, of course it’s only natural for people to panic when he’s suddenly taken out of the team. It was bad enough when he was gone for a month, but now it looks like he’s gone for good. But honestly I’m not worried, not in the slightest.
Since joining in August 2013, Bony has scored 23% of our competitive goals. To put that into perspective, second is Nathan Dyer with 11%, so yes, you would be within your rights to say that Bony’s absence will leave us in dire straights, but let’s take something else into consideration. Bony has been our main frontman for just over a year now and his ability has seen our game built more and more around him over the months, so of course he’s going to have scored a lot of our goals!
Maybe, just maybe, Bony’s exit will bring a breath of fresh air to our squad. Perhaps we had become a little too reliant on him, and his departure will spur on the rest of the side. One person who will certainly be spurred on by his big money move will be Bafetimbi Gomis, who I’ve defended to the death since he joined the club just a short while ago. It’s all well and good to say he isn’t as good as Bony, but what do you expect? Is a club like ours realistically going to have two £30m strikers to play around with? Honestly, I think it’ll be a while [If ever? - Ed] before someone as good as Wilf pulls on a Swans shirt again.
I’m almost certain that with all the other options he had available to him, Gomis wouldn’t have come to us as a second string striker. If it wasn’t for the World Cup I think we might well have been without Bony in August, and Gomis was seen by the board as a replacement. Okay, maybe Garry Monk was intending to play them up front together, but we’ve played the same sort of formation for years now and I can’t see that changing drastically any time soon.
And why would we change our formation? Even with Bony leaving, Gomis fits perfectly into the leading role. One thing that will have to be altered is our approach to finding the net because, despite what people may think, Gomis and Bony are two very, very different strikers. Gomis has made eleven of his fourteen appearances from the bench, meaning that he hasn’t had much of a chance to have the game built around him. Playing to Bony’s strengths brought the best out of Bony, the same will apply for any striker we have up front.
So short term I think Gomis is the man, but what about the long term? If we’re planning on bringing in someone else in the summer, we won’t have the slightest clue who it is until then, and I’m confident of that. If, in January 2013, if I had said: “I think we should sign Wilfried Bony”, most people wouldn’t have heard of him - despite how well he was doing in the Eredivisie. We would have had scouts out for potential replacements for Bony before the Man City rumours even surfaced, and I bet Huw Jenkins and Co. have already got a shopping list ready for the Summer.
What I’m getting at is, we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. I may be completely wrong - it may be complete panic stations in The Liberty - but the way the club has been run in recent years I very much doubt it. Bony was always going to leave, and to make an £18m profit on him over eighteen months is something I’m sure nobody expected after his first few months here. With £30m coming in from Bony, clubs are going to know we have the money to spend that little bit more on a player, so why rush into replacing him now? We’ve two strikers on our books, and I can’t see us needing any more just yet.
As Garry Monk said recently, there are other parts of our squad that need strengthening before we look at our attacking options. I’d rather see us spend on a fullback and a winger than rush into anything silly, because we’ve seen in the past what January transfer window’s can do to clubs. Liverpool bought Andy Carroll for £35m when they lost Torres to Chelsea for £50m; neither of those signings worked out, and both clubs made considerably large losses because of it. Despite being financially sound, we can’t afford to lose that sort of money.
So instead of worrying about how we’re going to replace our £30million man, let’s focus on getting behind the players we already have. Gomis’ chant may not be as good as Bony’s and Oliviera doesn’t even have one yet, but I can’t wait to hear their names being sung just as loud as Wilf’s has been over the last season and a half.
Fine advice indeed from Josh, and I think he's right in that I can't see us rushing to replace Wilf. That said, is there anyone you think we should sign? Perhaps in the summer once the market has died down? Get in touch in the comment section below.