Swansea City manager Steve Cooper says he was surprised QPR made Ryan Manning available this summer, following the full-back's move to The Liberty Stadium.

Manning, who was entering the final year of his contract at QPR, joined the Swans on three-year deal earlier this month, and made his debut for the club in their 2-0 win over Stoke on Tuesday night.

Now, it seems as though Cooper was not expecting to have Manning as part of his squad at all this season, with the Swansea boss admitting he did not expect the 24-year-old to be up for sale this summer.

Speaking about Manning ahead of the visit of Blackburn to the Liberty on Saturday afternoon, Cooper told Wales Online: "He’s a player we did a lot of due diligence on and one that we identified a while ago.

"We didn’t think he would be as available as what he might have been at QPR, with him not being there for so long."

Indeed, it does seem as though Cooper is pleased to have Manning with him at Swansea, as he went on to add: "He was definitely one that we had highlighted. He fitted the profile of player that we want here and then once there was an opportunity to bring him in, we tried to jump on it and that’s what we did.

"He was a player that was well known to us and we're delighted he's with us. We're looking forward to getting going with him."

In total, Manning made 96 appearances in all competitions for QPR, scoring nine goals for the club, after joining from Galway in 2016.

The Verdict

This is an interesting one.

Given Manning was entering the final year of his contract at QPR, and with no sign of a no one on the horizon, you can kind of understand why the club were willing to sell this summer.

That way, it meant they could still receive some sort of fee for him, rather than lose a talented player for nothing when his deal expired in the summer of 2021.

Even so, it seems as though Cooper still sees this as something of a coup for his side, and it will be interesting to see if that is something that pays off for Swansea - who have started the campaign in promising style - come the end of the season.