Swansea City

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It is now almost two months since the 2023-24 Championship season ended and Swansea City are yet to add a new signing to their squad.

There have been plenty of departures, with Nathan Wood and Jerry Yates set to add to the list of players heading through the exit door.

They follow the six loan players who said farewell at the end of last season, plus the likes of Liam Walsh and Nathanael Ogbeta, who were released.

Prezmyslaw Placheta has also seen his contract expire – although Luke Williams has suggested the Polish winger may yet have a future in Wales – while Jamie Paterson is now a free agent having given no definite answer on whether he will sign the new deal offered by Swansea at the end of last season.

With Yates going and Jamal Lowe gone, Swansea will be without their joint leading scorers from the last campaign – they each contributed nine goals - come the opening day of 2024-25.

Paterson, whose Swans future is in serious doubt as things stand, was next in last term’s scoring charts with eight.

A squad which was already short on firepower, therefore, looks even lighter on attacking options now.

Of course, the departures mean there are plenty of holes in Williams’ squad.

It is not just in attack that Swansea look short. They are yet to replace goalkeeper Carl Rushworth, while Wood’s imminent move to Southampton means central defensive options are thin given that Bashir Humphreys is another who has already gone.

Image source, Huw Evans Picture Agency

Williams is not overly blessed with resources at full-back, either, while a replacement for Walsh is needed in midfield.

The various vacancies mean an opportunity for another rebuild at Swansea.

After the mixed successes of the last summer transfer window, there is pressure on the club’s decision-makers to deliver this time around.

The suggestion is that new faces could start to arrive in the next few days, with a deal for forward Eom Ji-Sung, of K-League side Gwangju, in the pipeline.

The South Korean would be an intriguing addition, if something of a gamble given that he has never played in Europe before.

But Eom's arrival would only be the start.

Image source, Huw Evans Picture Agency

Swansea City's players have officially returned for the start of their pre-season preparations.

And former Wales midfielder Joe Allen was among those reporting back for duty with 40 days to go until the opening weekend of the Championship.

Allen, 34, missed the end of the last campaign with a toe injury sustained in the Easter Monday home loss against QPR.

It prompted fears the playmaker would not return to a Swansea shirt with his contract due to expire.

But Allen agreed a new one-year deal in May and says his recovery went well.

Captain Matt Grimes and long-serving defender Kyle Naughton - another who has agreed new terms - were also among those pictured , externalreturning to the club's Fairwood training base.

It is the first full pre-season of Luke Williams' reign, with the former Notts County boss having already had players report for fitness testing and assessments during their summer breaks.

Swansea open the new season away to Middlesbrough on 10 August, but are due to confirm their pre-season fixtures.

As Swansea City prepare to play next season in a new kit inspired by their famous 1964 FA Cup run, here is footage of club legend Herbie Williams talking about that semi-final defeat to Preston North End.

In this 1975 interview with BBC Wales reporter Idwal Robling, Williams reflects on his 18-year playing career at the Vetch Field.

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Swansea City will face Gillingham in the first round of the Carabao Cup.

The Swans have been drawn at home to the League Two side who finished 12th in the fourth-tier last season.

The teams last met in an FA Cup fourth-round fixture at the Swansea.com Stadium in January 2019.

Goals from Oli McBurnie, Barrie Mckay and Bersant Celina handed the Swans a 4-1 victory.

Carabao Cup first-round ties will be played in the week commencing August 12.

You can see the full draw here.

Image source, Swansea City AFC

Swansea City have released images of the new home kit which will be used for the 2024-25 season, inspired by the club's famous FA Cup run sixty years ago.

The orange trim on the white shirt pays homage to the club's run to the semi finals of the competition, where they lost to Preston North End in 1964.

The Swans beat Liverpool at Anfield during that cup run.

In addition to the new home shirts, the Championship side have reverted back to their former badge, first used in 1998, and a new black away strip.

Image source, Huw Evans

It is almost time for Swansea fans to start plotting journeys up and down the UK's motorway network as Luke Williams prepares for his first full season in charge.

The road ahead for the 2024-25 English Football League (EFL) season will become clear when the fixtures are released at 09:00 BST on Wednesday.

The regular season will begin on the weekend of 10-11 August and run until 3 May, 2025.

The 46 rounds of games in the Championship will be played across 33 weekends, nine midweek programmes and four bank holidays.

Swans fans will hope for a much better start than last season, when they failed to win any of their opening seven Championship matches under Michael Duff.

A 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on 23 September finally ended the long wait for a League win, followed by three victories in a row - something of a false dawn with an autumn dip in form leading to Duff's departure.

Williams eventually replaced Duff in January and led the Swans to a 14th-place finish after struggling to get the consistency he and the fans craved.

The former Notts County boss will hope to start the new campaign strongly after pledging to spend most of the summer at work, trying to bolster the squad rather than put his feet up and go on holiday.

Swansea will be joined in the Championship by relegated Premier League sides Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton along with promoted Portsmouth, Derby and Oxford.

The Wayne Rooney factor brings added intrigue - the England legend is back for his third spell managing in the EFL.

Rooney was appointed Plymouth Argyle boss after they narrowly avoided relegation last season and will hope to make a good start after his disastrous spell in charge of Birmingham City last season where he won just two of 15 matches.

All fixtures will be on the BBC Sport website and app as soon as they are announced.

The draw for the first round of the Carabao Cup will be held at 11:30 BST on Thursday.

A new £935m five-year deal between the EFL and Sky Sports means that 1,059 EFL matches are set to be broadcast - four times more than now.

Click here for more info on what to look out for in the Championship next season.

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It is June and that means it is speculation season.

Notts County's star striker Macaulay Langstaff continues to be linked with Swansea City and a reunion with former boss Luke Williams.

It may just be online gossip at this stage but there is no doubt Williams has made no secret of his admiration for his former player, who has scored 70 league goals across his two seasons with the League Two side.

"This is the king of Meadow Lane we’re talking about," Williams said in his first ever Swansea press conference.

"I love Macca as a guy. As a football player he’s a goalscoring machine, but I want to make sure he’s there to help them get promoted."

But when he was asked if he would like to sign the 27-year-old, he replied: "That’s a different question."

Whether Williams would be able to tempt Langstaff to the Swansea.com stadium remains to be seen, with the player having signed a four year contract after helping the Magpies win promotion to League Two in 2023 and by his own admission it would take something "incredible" to leave Meadow Lane.

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Luke Williams says Swansea City want fewer temporary signings next season after they ended the last campaign with six loan players in their squad.

Carl Rushworth, Swansea’s first-choice goalkeeper in 2023-24, was on a season-long loan from Brighton while 10-goal joint leading scorer Jamal Lowe was also on loan, from Bournemouth.

Newcastle United full-back Harrison Ashby, Chelsea defender Bashir Humphreys and Arsenal midfielder Charlie Patino were also recruited on year-long loan deals, while the January arrival of another young Gunner, Charles Sagoe Jr, made it half a dozen loanees at the Swansea.com Stadium.

Financial restrictions for clubs like Swansea, coupled with the number of young Premier League talents who are available for loan, mean it would be a shock should there be no loan players in Williams' 2024-25 squad.

But the Swansea head coach says the plan is to add more permanent signings during the current transfer window.

“The loan market is a wonderful thing at the right time,” Williams told BBC Sport Wales.

“I am certainly not going to say that there won’t be any loan players, but I think we will probably do our best to avoid having six loans again.

“Barring us being in a situation where we need to take more loans, I think we will have significantly less than last season.”

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Between them, Joe Allen and Kyle Naughton have clocked up more than 1,000 club appearances across a combined 33 years playing senior football.

But Luke Wiliams says the two veterans in his squad are like “really bright teenagers” after agreeing new Swansea City contracts during the close season.

Midfielder Allen, 34, and defender Naughton, 35, have signed deals keeping them at Swansea for the 2024-25 Championship campaign.

While the Swans are keen to recruit younger players with potential future transfer value this summer, Williams says the club also “understand about balance” when it comes to building a squad.

“Joe and Kyle are almost unique in terms of the depth of experience they have while still playing Championship football at such a good level,” Swansea’s head coach said.

“The levels both those players hit at the back-end of last season were undeniable.

“I had some brilliant conversations with both of them. It’s like talking to really bright teenagers, because they have the energy of teenagers but the words that come out are like a senior player.”

Allen - who has 556 club appearances to his name - and Naughton - who is on 534 club appearances - both missed the closing stages of 2023-24 with injury.

But they both played a part in Swansea's springtime improvement under Williams, who is convinced the duo can have significant roles come the new season.

“The key is going to be management from myself and the conditioning team and also from those guys, to be really honest and super professional,” he added.

“Trying to stop guys like Joe Allen or Kyle Naughton being competitive is impossible, but you have to try to encourage them to think about the greater good, and we can do that.

“Between us we have to manage them carefully so that we can get the best out of them and don’t lose them for periods.”

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Former Swansea City boss Steve Cooper is back in football having been unveiled as Leicester City's new manager.

Cooper, 44, had been out of work since leaving Nottingham Forest last December.

The Welshman was took his first head coach role at Swansea in 2019, and led the club to the Championship play-offs in successive seasons before leaving in 2021.

He then led Nottingham Forest to promotion to the Premier League in spectacular style, and is back in the top flight having agreed to succeed Enzo Maresca at the King Power Stadium.

The Foxes had been heavily linked with Cooper's predecessor at Swansea, Graham Potter, earlier this week.

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Former Swansea boss Steve Cooper is the leading contender to take the vacant managerial position at Leicester City.

The 44-year-old has been out of work since being sacked by Nottingham Forest in December but has held further talks with their East Midlands rivals.

Another former Swansea boss, ex-Chelsea and Brighton manager Graham Potter, had also been in talks with the Foxes.

At the start of the week Potter appeared to be the frontrunner in a fluid situation, but Cooper is now seen as the prime candidate.

Leicester had previously tried to tempt Potter to the King Power Stadium last April before their relegation from the Premier League, but he was not ready to return to management just days after being sacked by Chelsea having spent less than seven months in charge.

Leicester have been searching for a new boss after Enzo Maresca's departure to Chelsea at the start of the month.

Cooper guided England Under-17s to victory at their World Cup in 2017 and also spent two years at the Liberty Stadium, taking the Swans to the play-off final in 2021 where they lost to Brentford.