Swansea City don’t expect to be busy in the January transfer window, chief executive Tom Gorringe said on Wednesday.
Asked if the club would be active again, he said: “I wouldn’t expect so. No.”
He added: “The squad is full in terms of numbers. We’re not here looking at a squad that’s got lots of gaps.”
‘Not a long wish list’
The Swans brought in 10 players over the summer. Gorringe says January will only be about players who would improve the starting XI.
He said: “Obviously if we assess that and we think there’s opportunities to improve then we’ll look to exploit those. But we’re not sat here with a long wish list of things that we need to fix.”
He added: “If we can improve the starting XI and give ourselves a better opportunity for the second half of the season, then we’ll do so.”
Galbraith went, Vipotnik stayed
Gorringe says any sale comes down to one test: “The reality is in order for us to sell any player, the numbers have to make sense.”
That test was passed when Ethan Galbraith left for Stoke City in an eight-figure deal at the end of June, after one season in which he became central to how the Swans played.
It wasn’t passed for Zan Vipotnik. The Swans turned down a bid from Hull City for the striker in August, after his 23 league goals last season.
Gorringe said: “The numbers will make sense at a certain point in time for everybody within the squad.”
‘Many would have wilted’
The Swans go into the international break sixth in the Championship, after losing 2-1 with 10 men at Birmingham last Saturday.
Gorringe picked out that game as proof of the squad’s character: “Many would have wilted on Saturday at Birmingham and we showed a real good mentality to not only stay in the game but to continue to compete.”
He believes this is the deepest squad the club has had in years: “I think we’ve got more depth than we’ve had in previous years and that’s come to fruition over certain games.”
On a forward line that now includes Ross Stewart, he said: “I think most teams within the league would be happy to have the calibre of strikers that we’ve got within the group.”
He said the Championship fixture list makes that depth essential: “If we rely on the same 11 every week then ultimately we’ll start to see those cracks and it’ll catch us up at some moment in time.”
Who finds the players
Much of the summer recruitment came through Jamestown Analytics. The data firm is known for its work with Brighton and Hearts and became a Swans partner early in the summer.
Its lists go through a recruitment team the club overhauled in the summer. The Swans appointed former Crystal Palace man Ben Stevens as sporting director and promoted Jay Lefevre to head of recruitment.
Gorringe said: “Jamestown play a core part of that. That’s also supported by our own in-house data metrics, by our scouting team and then input from staff across the business.”
He added: “Once we get alignment from all of those groups that’s when we push the button.”
The club tells Jamestown what it is in the market for, and the firm comes back with “lists of players that they think are at the level that will improve the first team”, he said.
No danger from the new spending rules
Gorringe also says the Swans are in no danger of breaking the Championship’s new squad cost ratio rules. This season they replaced the old profit and sustainability rules.
Clubs outside European competition can now spend 85% of their revenue on their squad, plus a rolling allowance of up to 30% more. A club that goes over both faces a six-point deduction.
Gorringe said: “We operate within the headroom of the financial rules. We’ve got headroom within the previous regulations and the new ones.”
He said staying within them means the club has to keep driving revenue and “continue to trade players at certain times”.
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