Hi guys, I'm writing a blog on your club's greatest signings. Who would you put in the list? Thanks for your help.
I'll just go on the players from my generation as they are the ones I know best. Leon Britton, roberto martinez, lee trundle, ferrie bodde, Jason Scotland, ash Williams, Rangel, nathan dyer, vorm, and Michu! They may not be the greatest signings but for me they are definitely the most influential. All for a combined total of around 4.7m... and thats with vorm and Michu accounting for 4m of that!
Don't forget Tosh! Rajkovic and Jimmy were great signings, as was the re-signing of Curt. Plus Scott Sinclair - would we have got out of the Championship without him?
Leon Britton, Ferrie Bode, Dyer, Sinclair, Ashley Williams, Michu and Chico Best loans Gomez, Fabio Borini and Siggy I do think after this season the list will grow.
Roberto Martinez, as without him being connected to the club, I believe we would not be in the premiership....He changed pretty much everything. Scott Sinclair's 27 goals got us to the Premiership. Angel Rangel and Ashley Williams - They have been constants in our defense as we have gone up the leagues. Cheap as well. £420k I believe. Ferrie Bodde was probably the most gifted player I have seen at the Swans, but he just had rotten luck with injuries...If he had stayed fit he would be with a Champions league club by now. Others -Trundle,Michu,Scotland (Goals!, and they were cheap) Leon Britton - Offers stability, and is part of the furniture at the club...Helps other players settle quicker I'd imagine
Thanks for your responses guys. When you say roberto martinez should I assume you mean as a manager or as a player for swansea? Cheers.
Definitely Roberto Martinez, as someone said. If he hadn't been involved in the club from his playing days to management we probably wouldn't be where we are today! Trundle was fantastically entertaining to watch. Then again maybe James Thomas - as without that hatrick we'd have had a great deal more re-building to do. One player I used to love, although not our greatest ever signing was Willy Gueret! As butt clenching as it was, I loved it when he ran on to a ball sailing into the box to header it back out. His head must have been made of steel judging by the power of his headers. Oh and of course Michu has to be up there, for the price we paid and the contribution from him to probably our most successful season ever can't be underestimated. I doubt he'll be as prolific next year, but luckily we've signed Bony! Let's hope we can add Bony to the list eventually, I reckon Shelvey might be on the list at some stage!
Martinez is the catalyst of where we are now so he has to be at the top of the list. He was a great captain who again was the catalyst for making monk a great captain and when he took over as manager nobody really knew how good he was, the club got him because we had no money to get an established manager and we went for broke with martinez.....the rest is history...
1. Bob Latchford - huge signing at the time & a great goalscorer. 2. Roger Freestone - he was our hero through the dark years of the nineties. A superb keeper with real personality - started off at Chelsea and, with great reflexes and shot stopping ability, it was baffling why he never got a real chance at a Prem team. In his own no-frills way, the platform he offered for the club really propped it up over those years. Years where we couldn't score for love nor money - but we had a good, solid defence. 3. Lee Trundle - for building our name. After years in the doldrums, we suddenly had our own icon. We had a player that even fans of Prem teams gushed over. This was after a period where we never had a good goalscorer. Steve Torpey had been as good as it got. Suddenly we had a player with imagination and flair. Someone who made watching the football the Swans played more fun. 4. Roberto Martinez - an excellent player for us. He sometimes suffered because he was seen as a luxury player, that he didn;t have the grit to play in the lower divisions, but when he came back he showed that there were better forms of bravery for our players to aspire to. 5. Nathan Dyer - he's feeling the squeeze a little bit now but, coming with us from the 1st division to the Prem, he has always grown. Will he take that next step up to reclaim his place? So many games in the 1st division, and in our 1st season in the Prem, he absolutely murdered full backs. He has always created so much time and space for other players becuase of the fear he stries in the opposition. I also maintain that his performance in the play off semi-final away leg against Nottingham Forest was the single bets performance from a Swans player I have ever seen. With Taylor off in the first minute he did the job of the full back and the winger and, for either position, he would have got man of the match. He was absolutely astonishing - fierce int he challenge and then leaping up and sprinting full pelt to win the ball and run the full length of the pitch before sprinting back the full length of the pitch to get back into position. For 90minutes!! I remember Tosh said that that game was the best performance he could remember seeing from the Swans - true as we outplayed forest away with 10 men - well, I maintain Dyer's was the best performance I'd seen. Oh, and he should have had a hatrick at Wembley this year too!! 6. Ashley Williams - a rock from the very beginning. Committed and powerful, he has been central to our play. A real leader for the team, although one that possibly works better without the label of 'Captain', he was the foundation that the promotion year was built on. Every year, as we have progressed, so he's progressed and seemed to pick up the challenge and improve as a player. 7. Scott Sinclair - after the fact, people have belittled Sinclair's contribution and his ability. Without him we would not have gone up. His relentless goalscoring gave us the confidence to believe that we'd go up. His ruthless pentalty-taking meant that, againt Reading in the play-off final, the opposition knew they had already conceded a goal when a penalty was given. Even when he was seeking to move on to Man City, he still turned out and scored for us against QPR. Other players would have played at being injured to protect themselves for the move, no Sinclair played and scored and went out on a high. I just wish he'd find the right team for him. He's actually one I wish had gone to Liverpool!! 8. Vorm really gave us that platform to believe that we were a Prem side. Over those difficult first six games, he was truly outstanding and let his confidence carry the team. Indeed, possibly the most important contribution by any player that season was the penalty save against Wigan that helped us start to build up clean sheets rather than worry over losses. A thin line but he made all the difference. 9. Fabio Borini (For getting us there) & Gylfi Siguurdson (For keeping us there). Really hard to pick between our two loan wonders. Both only played post xmas for us, but both played their guts out, scoring vital goals. Despite knowing he was signing for someone else, Fabio bust a gut in the play-offs. From the first game, you could see real class in his touch and finishing (co-incidentally that first game saw two goals scored against Forest), but it was the determination and movement that really set him apart - in the Semi against Forest (losing Dobbie and having the play the lone target man) and then in the final. The image of his reaction at scoring the penalty was one of the indellible images of the day. Gylfi brought real class to our midfield - a real feel of a Prem player in his ability to pass the ball into the back of the net. But, possibly because of the end for Gylfi, I'll go for Borini... 10. Michu - 'nuff said really. There's a danger really that there will be a backlash against him, such has been the praise lavished upon him. From that first game against QPR, his touch has been sublime and his finishin unerring. When you saw him with time and the ball on his left foot you expected a goal - not hoped. That and he's been such a positive influence on the team.
