Swansea City manager Russell Martin has insisted that the Swans are going to work hard over the coming months to identify the right forward for them to sign in January to ease their scoring issues.

The Swans were held to a frustrating goalless draw by Derby County on Saturday in a match that summed up how their campaign is progressing in Martin’s first campaign in charge of the club.

There was a lot of things to admire about Swansea’s performance at Derby and they were dominant for most of the game with some excellent periods of possession-based football.

However, the Swans did not take advantage of some of the dangerous situations that they created in the final third and were unable to find the breakthrough that their football had deserved throughout the game.

The goalless draw means that Swansea have now managed to score just nine goals in their opening 11 Championship matches. Only Hull City, Derby County and Barnsley have scored fewer than that total so far this campaign in the English second tier.

 

 

Speaking to Wales Online following the Swans’ draw at Derby, Martin insisted that Swansea need some help in the final third of the field in January. While he also revealed that plans are in place to make sure the club are ready to bring in the right attacking player in the winter window.

He said: "I think we'll need a bit of help at the top end of the pitch, there's no doubt about it.

"These guys will definitely get better between now and then. I don't want to be disrespectful to the players we've got at the minute, they've been excellent.

"They're all taking on new ideas, there's been so much change and the way they've handled it has been incredible.

"You've seen it, the fact they can go and produce what they've produced over the last four or five games on the pitch, it makes me incredibly proud of them and makes me feel a lot of love for these guys.

"But every window brings opportunity around to try and improve the squad. By January I'll have a really clear idea of what we need.

"We are getting in positions regularly, and now someone needs to be the guy to really put the ball in the net.

"Me and Mark are working tirelessly to get ready for January, and Julian and the owners have showed their support in that.

"We'll keep identifying who suits us and what we are having now is a lot of agents calling up with a lot of players really interested in playing for us because of the way that we play, and they think that they'll enjoy it.

"We are really getting there. I feel that, so in January we'll assess where we need to improve."

The verdict

Martin is spot on here with everything that he says and it is a positive that he and the club have identified their major issue at the moment and are ready to move to address that in the January transfer window.

The Swans’ poor record in front of goal should probably have been expected this season after they allowed the bulk of their goals from last season to leave the club in the summer. That of course came with both Andre Ayew and Jamal Lowe moving on to other clubs.

Replacing them in the summer proved to be a very difficult task for the Swans, but they have now had enough time to look in the transfer market and see who they could potentially make a move for during the winter window.

Signing a reliable scorer in the January transfer window is arguably the most difficult thing to do in the winter window.

However, Swansea have time now to make sure that they find the right player and begin work on bringing into the club ahead of the window starting.