Swansea City head into the international break needing to recover from the defeat they suffered against rivals Cardiff City and bounce back to keep their automatic promotion hopes alive.

Steve Cooper’s side are still in a strong position and they still have an all-important game in hand left to play on Watford. That could help them to close the gap and put some pressure on the Hornets. However, were they to fail to get automatic promotion then they would still have the chance to go up through the play-offs and they have experience of that from last term.

The Welsh club have had to tighten their budget since being relegated from the Premier League, after making a number of signings that broke their transfer record while they were in the top-flight. They will hope they can get back to the top-flight and have the chance to strengthen the squad once again with some quality additions.

With that in mind, here we have put together a list of the club’s top ten most expensive signings and see where they are now…

Starting off the list of Swansea’s top ten most expensive ever signings is midfielder Ki Sung-yueng, who arrived at the Liberty Stadium for a then club-record £6 million in the summer of 2012 from Celtic.

The South Korea international managed to quickly establish himself as a crucial member of the Swansea side and made 38 appearances in all competitions during his first campaign. He also helped them to secure the League Cup and starting in the final as they beat Bradford City 5-0 at Wembley. However, the following season he was loaned out Sunderland.

On his return to the squad in 2014 Ki managed to enjoy a good season in front of goal managing to score eight goals in 34 appearances in all competitions in 2014/15. He was an important player for the next three seasons but could not help the club survive in the 2017/18 season and the midfielder was allowed to leave the club that summer.

The midfielder moved to Newcastle United on a free transfer and he made 19 appearances in all competitions for Rafa Bentiez’s side in 2018/19. However, following the arrival of Steve Bruce he found himself down the pecking order and eventually left in January 2020. He has since spent a brief spell in Spain with Mallorca and is currently back in his home country with FC Seoul.

Coming in at ninth place on this list is midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson who was signed by Swansea for a second time in the summer of 2014 after he had spent time with the club on loan in 2011/12. The Swans paid a reported £6.8 million to bring him in from Tottenham Hotspur.

Sigurdsson instantly became of the club’s most influential performers and he managed to register seven Premier League goals in 32 appearances in his first season back at the Liberty Stadium. The following campaign the Iceland international was once again a strong performer registering 11 league goals and three assists in the Premier League for the Swans.

The 2016/17 campaign would be his final one with the club and he managed to score ten goals in all competitions and played a crucial role in the club eventually beating the drop after a difficult campaign. Everton then made the move to sign him in a £45 million deal in the summer of 2017 as they looked to back Ronald Koeman in the transfer market.

The attacking midfielder is still a key member of the squad at Goodison Park and he managed to fire in 13 league goals in the 2018/19 season, his second-best ever career tally in a single season and best since the 2009/10 season in the Championship with Reading.

Coming in at eighth on this list is forward Alberto Paloschi, who only spent a brief time with the Swans in the Premier League, but did set the club back around £8 million when they signed him from Italian side Chievo in January 2016.

The forward penned a three-and-a-half-year deal at the Liberty Stadium but he was never able to last anywhere near that length of time with the club. He managed to score his first goal for the club during a 2-1 defeat away at Tottenham Hotspur and found the net one more time in his ten appearances for the club.

However, in the summer of 2016, he was allowed to leave the club just a few months after his arrival with Francesco Guidolin bringing in other options upfront instead. The forward returned to Italy and made a move to Atalanta. Paloschi though encountered a similar problem with his new club and lasted just one season there in which he failed to score in 13 league appearances.

In the summer of 2017, he made a loan move to newly-promoted SPAL and managed to score seven league goals in 36 appearances to help keep the club in Serie A. They then made his move permanent the following summer and he is still with the club at the moment, although he did spend some time out on loan with Cagliari in the second half of last term.

Swansea’s current seventh most expensive signing is defender Federico Fernandez, who was signed by the club in the summer of 2014 on a four-year deal from Napoli for around £8 million.

Fernandez swiftly became a key part of the Swans’ back four in the Premier League and he made a total of 28 Premier League appearances in the 2014/15 campaign. The following campaign he scored one goal and helped Swansea record eight clean sheets in his 32 league appearances. The Argentine was again a good performer for them in 2016/17, but could not help them survive the drop in 2017/18.

The defender made one appearance in the Championship at the start of the 2018/19 campaign, but he eventually made the move to Newcastle United for around £6 million. The defender remains with the Magpies at the moment and he has been a regular for them in the last three seasons making over 60 appearances for the club at the time of writing.

Coming in at sixth place on this list is midfielder Roque Mesa, whose move never really worked out at the Liberty Stadium despite the club paying a reported fee of around £11 million to Las Palmas for him in the summer of 2017.

Mesa made his debut during a 4-0 loss at home to Manchester United and that sort of summed the way that things would go for the midfielder throughout his time with the club. He was able to make just 11 Premier League appearances and a further five in cup competitions as he failed to establish himself in a side that were in a relegation battle.

Sevilla eventually signed the midfielder on loan in January 2018 in a deal that included an option to buy and after he made seven La Liga appearances in the second half of the 2017/18 campaign the club made the move a permanent one in the summer. Mesa did manage to score three goals in 49 appearances in all competitions for them in 2018/19.

However, he was sent out on loan to CD Leganés in the summer of 2019 and eventually by October his contact had been terminated with Sevilla. He went on to sign for Real Valladolid where he is still currently playing at the moment.

Coming in at fifth place on this list is forward Wilfried Bony, who will also appear in fourth place for his return to the club. This move focuses on his initial arrival in the Premier League back in the summer of 2013 with the Welsh club paying a then club-record £12 million to sign him from Vitesse.

Bony was an instant hit in the top-flight for Swansea and established himself as one of the best strikers outside of the Premier League’s biggest clubs. The Ivory Coast international managed to fire in 16 league goals in 34 appearances during the 2013/14 campaign to show what an excellent signing he had been for the club.

The following season saw Bony again hit the ground running and he had managed to fire in another nine goals in 20 appearances by the January transfer window. That caught the attentions of Manchester City who were looking for some back up to Sergio Aguero and decided to spent around £25 million to bring the forward to the club.

The striker was never able to really make a major impact for Man City or re-find his scoring form, although he did score two goals in 12 games in the second half of the 2014/15 campaign. However, after scoring eight times in 34 games during the 2015/16 season he was allowed to leave on loan for Stoke City, but he failed to impress with the Potters managing just two goals and 11 appearances.

Fourth place on the list covers Bony’s return to Swansea from Manchester City with the club paying £12 million once again to re-sign him in the summer of 2017.

The forward’s return was not a fairy tale one and he struggled to show the same sort of fitness and form in front of goal as he had done during his first spell at the Liberty Stadium. Bony could only manage to register two goals in 15 Premier League appearances and that was not good enough to help keep the club in the Premier League.

The following season saw Bony feature just seven times for them in the Championship, and they eventually made the decision to release him in the summer of 2019. He went on to train for a period with League Two Newport County before signing for Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad where he managed to score five goals in ten games. However, in November 2020 he announced he had left the club.

The forward is still without a club at the time of writing which shows how low his stock has fallen from his first spell with Swansea.

Coming in at number three on this list is forward Borja Bastón who was signed by Swansea in the summer of 2016 from Atletico Madrid for a then club-record fee of around £15.5 million.

Baston was meant to be Swansea’s go-to man for goals in the 2016/17 season but he struggled to adapt to life in English football and he managed to score just one goal for the club in 20 appearances in all competitions during his first campaign with the Swans. The following season saw the forward be loaned out to Malaga where he scored twice in 20 appearances.

He returned to Swansea the following summer when the club had been relegated from the top-flight and was once again sent out on loan this time to Alaves, where he did go on to score four times in 22 matches. He returned to the Welsh club ahead of last season and managed to score six goals in 19 games before he moved to Aston Villa in January 2020.

He made just two appearances for Villa and was allowed to leave the club at the end of the campaign. Last summer he made the move back to Leganes where he has managed to score two goals and provide two assists in ten league games this term at the time of writing.

In at number two here is the versatile and often underrated Sam Clucas, who makes this list having been signed by Swansea in the summer of 2017 from Hull City for a reported fee of around £16.5 million.

Clucas was not the most eye-catching signing they made that summer with the likes of Roque Mesa and Bony arriving as well as Renato Sanches. However, the former Hull player was arguably a much better performer than any of those three in the 2017/18 campaign and he managed to score three times in 29 Premier League appearances as the club were relegated.

The following summer Stoke City who had also just been relegated to the Championship decided to pay Swansea £6 million for Clucas and the Swans allowed him to leave the club as they were cutting costs. He has since gone on to make over 90 appearances for the Potters and scored 15 goals for the club at the time of writing. He has recently been out of action through injury though.

Another player on this list who has been signed twice by Swansea is Andre Ayew, who makes this list having been re-signed by the club for a record fee of £18 million rising to £20 million in January 2018.

Ayew was allowed to leave the club in the summer of 2016 for West Ham for a fee of around £20.5 million, and after just over two years with the Hammers, he had managed to score 12 times in 50 appearances. However, with the Swans desperately looking to improve their squad as they battled the drop they brought him back, but he failed to score in 12 matches as they were relegated.

The following summer Ayew was loaned out to Fenerbahçe and it seemed like his time with the Swans was already over with the club looking to cut costs. He managed to fire in five goals in 38 appearances in all competitions during his season out in Turkey.

The Ghana international returned in the summer of 2019 and was kept by the Swans and went on to play a pivotal role in them reaching the play-offs last term with 15 goals in 44 league appearances. To date, the forward has managed to score 14 goals already this term and will be hoping he can take Swansea back to the Premier League.