Melodramatic centre-half may struggle to regain his first-team berth...
Following on from the 1-1 draw at Norwich this Sunday, there seems to have been an outpouring of praise for our other Spanish centre-half - Jordi Amat. I won't have been alone in reserving judgement on the man acquired from Espanyol this summer, but this was mainly based on his level of physicality, and when you consider how young he is (especially for a centre-half), there really is reason to be hopeful we've got a player who can go on to great things during his time here.
This begs the question; should Chico automatically regain his spot? He missed the Norwich game as he was banned for accumulation of bookings, and at least one of those bookings was acquired after throwing himself to the ground like a rag doll, feigning injury. Pretty pathetic, and what's more despite Laudrup coming out in the press to say Chico needed to cut that sort of thing out he's still carried on making the meal of anything that comes anywhere near his face. Man up, mate.
As I didn't see the game at Norwich, I can't comment on Amat's performance but he does seem a very tidy player with all the attributes he needs to be a big success. He did seem to stand off Johan Elmander in the build up to Gary Hooper's goal, but you can't predict a striker will produce a finish of that calibre, and if he retained his place in the first-team I think it would send out a twofold message - one, that fringe players can expect to retain their place if they perform well and two, that needless bookings and a lack of professionalism won't be tolerated.
Personally, I've got absolutely nothing against Amat lining up instead of Chico against Everton this weekend. Whether Laudrup feels he's up to it we can't say though.
Would you prefer to see Chico reinstated against Everton or should Amat get the nod? Get involved in the comment section below!
First up today is Ben Davies chipping in with his tuppence worth on the protracted rumour surrounding Ashley Williams' future. It's been reported for months that Arsenal and Liverpool are interested in signing the Welsh captain, however it seems neither club are even remotely interested in meeting the Swans' valuation, believed to be around the £10million mark.
Davies alongside skipper Ashley Williams
When you're a club the size of Arsenal or Liverpool (or any other club with CL aspirations, for that matter), you have to expect to be paying these kinds of prices for established Premier League players. Ash just finished his second PL season, drawing plaudits from all corners while helping his team to (another) improved league finish, along with their first ever major silverware.
He helped secure Europa League football for next season, so to me if Arsene Wenger wants Ash, he wants him because he believes he can compete in the Champions League and he'll have to pay the going rate to do that. Name another established first-choice Premier League centre-back who you'd back to compete in the CL, who you could pick up for less than £10million? I don't think that's an exorbitant fee, and Ben Davies clearly agrees:
"Last season I would say Ash was one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League, I cannot think of many who were better than him. The job he did was incredible..
"A price of £10m or more to sign him is completel justified. You see some of the money that gets spent in this league on players who are unproven in the Premier League. I think £10m is more than a fair price.
"Ash gave me a lot of confidence on the pitch and the transition from Swansea to playing for Wales was made a lot easier as I played with him every week. He is a great player and a great captain, he is always there to talk to, and if you have to say something he is happy to take it." Ben Davies
Jordi Amat - "Swansea style the reason I signed"
The latest in an ever expanding procession of Conquistadors to make their way to SA1, Amat adds to an already healthy Spanish contingent, and acknowledges that with numerous countrymen already at the club making the switch to the Liberty was an easy decision to make:
This picture of Amat was worth including purely for the kit he's wearing. Epic.
"I think I can settle into the club straightaway, especially as we have Spanish players here already. I know Pablo Hernandez and Michu already, while Chico and Angel Rangel are very important players here. I also played against Jose Canas last season in La Liga, so I know a lot about him, but it's not just that, or the fact Michael Laudrup is manager, it is the way in which the club play. The style here is perfect for me — it is the way I play.
"I am very happy to join Swansea. One of my dreams has been to play in the Premier League, and I can do that here. I am very grateful to the chairman and Michael Laudrup for giving me this opportunity and showing a lot of faith in me. My target now is to repay their faith and do everything I can to help the team.
"I watched Swansea last season — what the club achieved was incredible. To finish in the top half of the Premier League and win a trophy is a massive achievement. In Spain, Swansea are very famous now. They talk a lot about the club and how they have become a successful team in the Premier League with an attractive style of play.
"The club has a great set-up — the stadium is lovely and I know it's full every game, and I can't wait to run out in front of the supporters for the first time." Jordi Amat
When Jose Canas came out with similar comments regarding the Swans, it was greeted (outside SA1 at least) with a small amount of mirth, given that the more hirsute of the two recently arrived Spaniards claimed Swansea were "the most famous team in Spain". While I don't think we could go that far, it's unlikely there's any kind of corroborated charm offensive being utilised by the Swans in terms of pitching the club to Spanish players, so it's likely they're not just making this up, and we are developing more of a following in Spain. Nothing wrong with that, and it'll only be of benefit to the club both financially, through increased shirt and merchandise sales, and in terms of how easy it is to attract players to the club in future.
Swansea to drop interest in Wilfried Bony?
With Huw Jenkins having gone on record as expecting to hear something regarding the Swans' bid for the Ivorian before the weekend was over, it seems the Swans' chief is losing patience with his current club, Vitesse Arnhem. It's believed the Swans have tabled a bid worth around £10million plus add-ons, and when the Swans put that kind of money on the line I can't imagine they'd be willing to hang around too long waiting for an answer. Huw knows that he can't, and won't be drawn into a bidding war, and while I don't feel we can rule out this deal being completed just yet it's more than possible we're now looking at other options in terms of a new striker.
Nacer Chadli. Tricky.
There've been two names which have appeared in the last 48 hours. First, Christian Benitez (once of Birmingham - remember him?) - the Ecuadorian has excelled for Club America in Mexico over the last couple of seasons and has reportedly drawn interest from Tottenham, amongst others. I'd say it'd be very hard to draw any conclusions on a striker's efficiency by comparing the Mexican league to the Premier League, but if the club feel he's worth a bid they know a lot more than I do.
The other name which has been linked with the Swans in the last few hours is that of FC Twente striker Nacer Chadli. The 25-year-old Belgian scored 16 goals in 32 games (in all competitions) last season, and from what I'm reading he's very much in the Scott Sinclair mould - a tricky forward who operates on the left hand side, but is actually right footed. He's only 23, and would apparently cost slightly less than Bony at around £8.5million, however given Bony's scoring record it's hard not to feel like we're accepting second best if we miss out now. That being said, Chadli has been featuring for the Belgian side and given the wealth of talent they have in attack it's clear that the powers that be rate him highly.
One issue may be the reported interest of Aston Villa. With fellow countryman Christian Benteke enjoying such a prolific breakthrough season in the Midlands, it's possible Chadli will decide to opt for the Villains over the Swans. With information on Chadli scant, the best I can do is link a video from youtube:
The guy has clearly got technique in abundance and I've no doubt he'd be a good addition to the squad, but he definitely seems like more of a winger than an out and out striker. Is there anything in this one? We'll have to just wait and see...
Skysports are also reporting we're close to agreeing terms with 17 year old Slovenian 'keeper Gregor Zabret
Coming as it did at a time when all the talk was of Wilfried Bony's much reported transfer to the Swans, Jordi Amat could be forgiven for feeling like the announcement of signature was somewhat underwhelming. Perhaps a better indication of the potential bargain the Swans have picked up is that his name was still trending on Twitter long into today. Whether that indicates a lot of people were talking about him or that it was a slow news days day we can't say.
If you'd like to read a bit more on Jordi Amat, I put together a profile HERE with a load of stats for your perusal. Something which is a lot easier to digest though is this; his only goal of the season last year.
While we can hardly expect him to do that kind of thing with any regularity, his stats suggest he's got an eye for a pass and can rival Ash when it comes to pinging one out to the wingers - that'll give us greater threat on the counter-attack and won't go unnoticed by the Swansea coaching staff.
Swansea close to signing Gregor Zabret
According to Skysports, the young Slovenian spent time with the Swans in January and is going to be finalising a deal over the weekend, before joining up with the club's pre-season tour of Holland. Honestly? I've never heard of the guy and there's scant information online, but I'll have a look at some point to see if I can dig up any information online. It seems he's highly rated, and he's already made quite a few appearances in the first team for NK Domzale, who finished third in the Slovenian league last year, so hopefully in time he'll turn out to be a useful addition to the squad.
No news regarding Bony move
The latest on this is likely to come down to whether you believe what you read on Twitter or not. Some sources are claiming he's asked for £80kpw in wages, which I struggle to believe, but Swans director John Van Zweden has been quoted in the Dutch press as saying the club and the player are "way apart" in terms of agreeing a deal at the moment.
Hopefully they'll agree something, because with all the fanfare now surrounding this move it would be a real shame to miss out - and it's also possibly something which could leave fans panicking that the club will be short a striker come the beginning of the season. It's not panic stations just yet, but everyone knows the Swans need a frontman and if it comes down to the wire they may well find that clubs stick an extra few million on any proposed fee.
Which probably means we won't end up signing anyone, thinking about it...
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.
Young Spanish centre-back seems to fit the bill for the Swans
The latest player to be linked with a move to SA1, Amat is a 21-year old centre-back who spent this season on loan at Rayo Vallecano (from whom we signed Michu), playing 28 games in all competitions. He only scored once, but it's worth mentioning and here's why:
Wowzers. Sign him up? Let's see.
A product of the Espanyol youth system (where he signed on as a seven year old), and after appearing for the "C" and "B" teams he made his debut in La Liga aged 17. He's gone on to make fourty-one appearances for Los Blanquiblaus but they decided a loan spell would aid his development, and so at the beginning of the season he moved from a Catalan club in the shadow of Barca, to a Madrid club in the shadow of both Real & Atletico - Rayo Vallecano.
The Espanyol man won 1.4 aerial duels per game (38 in total) and again this pales in significance to Chico & Ash, both of whom had around double that figure. He makes 2.3 tackles per game (Chico has 3.3 while Ash has 1.2), and 2 interceptions to boot (Chico 3.5 & Ash 3), both pretty impressive figures, and also makes a pretty tasty 5.6 clearances per game (although again this is far from the 8.7 & 10.3 managed by Chico & Ash respectively). It seems that we have two particularly tasty centre-back's at present and using them as a yardstick is making Amat look bad, so I'll try to desist from now on.
He only gets dribbled past once every 0.6 games, and that's a very encouraging statistic for a young centre-back, while he makes on average 37.7 passes per game - about 20 less per game than the Swans centre-backs average but again, any player who joins will see their statistics (in terms of passes at least) improve. One interesting stat is that he plays 6.6 accurate long balls per game - double Chico's average and a little more than the 5.7 Ash averages. It seems he's adept at picking out a man up top or out wide, and with the Swans preferences for outlying wingers it could be that we'd see him pinging the ball out to the wing Ashley Williams stylee.
Here's some funny stats. Spot the Spaniards. Ash averages 0.1 dribbles per game, Chico 0.3 & Amat 0.6. In turn, that would account for the fact that Ash is only dispossessed once every 0.1 games too, whereas Chico & Amat both average once every other game (0.5). Amat matches the Swans' boys in turns of turnovers too (giving the ball away through poor control) - his 0.2 per game is equal to Ash's, and better than Chico's (although only slightly at 0.3).
It seems he's a pretty tidy footballer, and if he's available for the £2million asking price that's rumoured then it would be a very prudent signature. He's likely to hold his value at the very least for that money, but I'd say if he's performing well in La Liga at 21, a move to a possession-based footballing team in a different league could well benefit him. Huw Jenkins has reportedly been meeting agents this week in a bid to get Swansea's summer shopping underway, so it shouldn't be too long until we learn of some firm targets. Until then we're all left to speculate on what may be, but I'd say he seems a very decent prospect.
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