by YorkshireRoyal99 »
27 May 2022 09:32
Stranded Too many people ready to discard Swift or downgrade what a good player he has been for us. 6 years is arguably too long to stay at a club these days.
We now need to not fixate or finding a player to replace him. What we need to do is find a style that fits the squad we are building so that we are overly reliant on one player so much. Lost count of the amount of times we've said "Stop Swift Stop Reading" or "We didn't play well today as Swift was off".
We need to find a way that shares his output across the midfield/attack making us more balanced and harder to play against.
So Swift leaving is a blow but expected but if recruitment is smart it doesn't need to hurt us - though it probably will.
Agree with that really - although a part of me did think that another 4/5 years here and he'd have gone down as a Reading legend rather than just a very good player we had on our books for a number of years. But he was never going to turn down a similar/better wage than what he was on with us as well as playing in a better team, potentially in the PL in a season or two.
In response to Drinkwater, I'd have him back on a reasonable wage. He did pretty well for us last season, you could see his quality on the ball and, towards the end of his loan spell, off the ball as well. He just needs to keep himself in good shape really and, if we could build his fitness, he would be a really good asset for us I think.