Sunday, 26 May 2013

Laudrup "I'm going nowhere" (despite sensationalist media headlines)

Over the last few days we've seen a number of different newspapers run the story that Michael Laudrup is concerned that he won't have a sizable transfer budget this summer. I could be wrong but I think the Evening Post were the first to go with this story, and the general tone of the article was "If I don't get a good transfer kitty I could be off". Given that, as with most stories of this type (remember the "discord in the Swans camp" rumours before Christmas?) there were no direct quotes and the story came from "club insiders", you could certainly have been forgiven for taking the story with a pinch of salt, and it seems that any doubts surrounding Laudrup's commitment were ill-founded.

The Dane has moved swiftly to quash any murmurings at the Liberty, stating he's confident the board will back him in the transfer market:


"We don't have so much money compared to the rest of the teams so we have to do it like that [look for bargains], but we'll have to strengthen our team just to try to keep where we are right now, consolidate as a mid-team, because there are a lot of teams, bigger clubs, below us who will spend big money. 
"We've already seen West Ham with Andy Carroll, I think Newcastle and others will do the same so we'll have to be very good in the transfer market to compete. 
"I wanted to stay because the club said they were going to strengthen their team. Of course we need to do that, but I'm sure they will keep their word about that, and then I want to stay for the fans and also for some of the players - they came for me so I can't just leave them after one season." Michael Laudrup


No smoke without fire? Pfft...

It's still early days but we're already being linked with a number of tidy players, with Arouna Kone being one I'm more in favour of. 12 goals for Wigan isn't a bad return for a striker playing in a relegated team, and I think he'd fit the Swans' system well. Who would you like to see brought in? Get in touch via the comment section, Twitter or on the forum!