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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Ian Mitchelmore

Swansea City transfer news as key summer talks held with club 'clear' on targets they want to bring in

Your Swansea City headlines on Wednesday, March 15.

Key summer talks held

Russell Martin says Swansea City are already "clear" on the transfer targets they want to recruit in the summer.

The Swans failed to add a single player to their ranks in January, despite Michael Obafemi's switch to Burnley in addition to seeing the likes of Jordon Garrick, Armstrong Oko-Flex, Nathanael Ogbeta, Brandon Cooper and Fin Stevens leave.

READ MORE: Swansea City's ongoing dilemma as Russell Martin addresses Andy Fisher concerns after Millwall error

Martin held talks with co-owner Steve Kaplan on Tuesday ahead of his side's Championship clash with Millwall at The Den.

And having met the American face-to-face, Martin says the club are aligned from top to bottom when it comes to knowing which areas of the squad need strengthening during the close season.

"Steve is one of a number of directors, he'll obviously speak to Jason [Levien] and Jake [Silverstein] and those guys a lot," said the head coach.

"He's really clear on what I feel we need, I think he agrees with a lot of it. He's really supportive and he's trying really hard to make sure that we have the capability to do what the club needs in the summer. We'll just have to wait and see on the rest of it.

"We're really clear on what we need and we're really clear on who we would like, but we need to finish this season as well as possible to build some momentum ahead of that."

Bony in limbo after blunt admission

Wilfried Bony remains in limbo at new club Always Ready after his head coach claimed he arrived at the club overweight.

Bony had been without a permanent club since leaving Dutch outfit NEC Nijmegen last year but regularly trained with League Two side Newport County.

He made the switch to Bolivia earlier this year but has been unable to play in the league given that Always Ready had already fulfilled their quota of foreign-based players in their squad.

It meant the former Swansea City forward featured in his side's two Copa Libertadores defeats to Magallanes, although he is now unable to play until the summer.

And the former Ivory Coast international now faces an anxious wait after it was revealed the club will make a decision on his future in the summer.

“He will stay until July to acclimatise and then we will see what happens to him,” said club president Andrés Costa.

Speaking about Bony's situation, head coach Claudio Biaggio told DSports Radio: "Wilfred Bony arrived at the club somewhat overweight. He will be enabled to play the local championship starting in June."

Martin's Cooper hope

Russell Martin hopes Ollie Cooper will be available for Swansea City's Championship clash with Bristol City on Sunday.

The Welshman was withdrawn at half-time of the 3-1 defeat to Middlesbrough on Saturday after sustaining a knock and subsequently missed the loss to Millwall at The Den on Tuesday night.

However, Martin believes the 23-year-old - who earned his first call-up to the Wales squad this week ahead of their opening Euro 2024 qualifiers against Croatia and Latvia - has a chance of featuring against the Robins.

"His knock was a bit worse than we thought on Saturday so we took him off at half-time," said Martin.

"He was struggling and he just hasn't been able to get over that. It's just a bit of bone bruising.

"We hope to have him back on Sunday, we'll have to wait and see. It'll be good for him and us to get him in the squad ahead of him going away with Wales which he thoroughly deserves.

"I'm really pleased for him and really proud of him."

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Walsh pleased after long-awaited start

Liam Walsh believes Swansea City produced their best performance for some time at Millwall despite defeat against the Lions.

Indeed, the Swans bossed possession for long periods and ended the contest having had nine shots on target, although they were ultimately undone by two poor moments in their own box as Charlie Cresswell and Andreas Voglsammer netted prior to what proved to be a consolation effort from Ryan Manning.

Nevertheless, on what was only his second league start for the club since joining from next opponents and his former club Bristol City, Walsh believes the visitors deserved something for their efforts against a Millwall side who moved up to fifth in the table courtesy of their win over the Swans.

“The result comes first so it’s frustrating again, but I think that’s the best performance we’ve had in the last few weeks,” Walsh told the club website.

“We haven’t won again which is the main thing but something we can take away from this game is that we’re a strong side on our day.

“We’ve come to one of the toughest places in the league and put up a good fight and I thought we deserved something. We need to stop the sloppy goals; if we do that we’ll start putting points on the board.”

And on his own return to action, the 25-year-old commented: “It feels unbelievable to be back out there.

“It’s all I’ve been working towards to get fit and be back out there so on a personal level that’s a good thing.

“It felt good to be out there and playing with the lads. I want to build on that and stay in the team now."

Swansea round off the current block of fixtures against Bristol City on Sunday lunchtime.

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