Jazz Richards joins Huddersfield on loan

Young Welsh international heads to Yorkshire on emergency loan deal in search of regular minutes

It's not every day that you find out one of your club's players has joined another team via an email from the BBC, but that's what happened today. "Ping" went my Blackberry, and after the usual couple of minutes' loading time I discovered BBC Radio Leeds had got in touch and wanted my opinion about Jazz Richards' loan deal with the Terriers. 

Needless to say, I pretended I already knew about this and agreed readily! It's not like it was a complete surprise - I mentioned the other day there were a number of Championship clubs interested in his signature and one of those, Huddersfield, appear to have won the race to sign him. The Swans have only said that they expect a deal to be ironed out by the end of the week, but in reality it appears as good as done. 

The BBC learned of the impending move from the man himself, when Jazz tweeted earlier today saying he'd sealed a move to the Yorkshire club:

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      Jazz Richards ‏@jazzrichards3h

      Loan deal done to @htafcdotcom looking forward to the next few months!

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      4:11 PM - 10 Sep 13 · Details

While I'm happy to see him getting game-time, I do still think he's a player we should be looking to retain as I think with a little improvement he'll be a very handy player to have in the squad. For me, he's shown enough so far for us to hope that with an extra 10% to his game he'll be a very tidy right-back, as it's only really his positioning that let's him down - his touch, engine and passing are all pretty decent and seeing as he started life as a defensive midfielder it's no surprise he's still not mastered the fullback role - positionally it's as difficult as any, especially when you're expected to bomb forward like you are at the Swans.

Either way, this should be good for him and with the deal due to expire in January it gives both clubs time to assess whether they want the deal to be extended. All the best Jazz - do us proud. 

Jazz Richards attracting attention of three Championship clubs

Young Swansea full-back being chased by Huddersfield, Millwall & Birmingham

You have to feel for Jazz. After, to me, performing quite well on numerous occasions he's been called upon he still finds himself down the pecking order at the Liberty, but in honesty you can't really argue given Dwight Tiendalli has signed back on and Angel Rangel continues to enjoy almost a guaranteed place in the first team. Both the aforementioned full-backs have done everything that's been asked of them in the Premiership and despite Swansea youth product Richards impressing in various cameos it seems he's going to have to go back out on loan to try and gain some first-team football this season.

While this could be considered harsh in that until a few weeks ago we were all expecting Jazz to be the regular backup to Rangel, now that Dwight Tiendalli has decided he wants to be here after all you'd struggle to convince anyone that at present Jazz is the more dependable option. That's not a slight on Jazz though - that's based purely on Tiendalli's performances last season.

With Kyle Bartley already on loan to Birmingham it could well be that Richards fancies linking up with his Swansea teammate, and with Lee Clark in charge he should at least get to play some decent football. Bartley was signed specifically because he can defend and pass the ball - put Jazz alongside him and you've got yourselves an efficient Swansalona right side of defence. Not a bad proposition for any team in the 2nd tier of British football.

I can't say I know too much about Huddersfield or Millwall other than ex-Swansea boss Kenny Jackett had done a sterling job at the latter club over the last few years, but now that he's departed ex-Man City/West Ham man Steve Lomas is in charge, while ex-Barnsley & Coventry boss Mark Robins is in charge at Huddersfield. Mark Robins always tries to get his sides playing decent football, so that's two of the three teams mentioned who play a good style which would probably benefit Jazz. I wonder what kind of football Lomas likes his sides to play...

Hopefully Richards can get a good amount of gametime this season as it would no doubt aid his development. With opportunities likely to be in extremely short supply in SA1, it seems his best shout is a loan move, and I think it'll be good for him. Wherever you end up, good luck Jazz.