Swansea City haven't really had a team that was this connected and united with the fans since the early Premier League days, but now their manager Steve Cooper has said that the city and the football club needs to be a collective.

Swans fans will be delighted with their manager's words, as they will be feeling that the bond between the current set of players and the fans couldn't be greater.

The group of Swansea players that Cooper has managed to put together during his first summer as manager at The Liberty Stadium, including bringing in the likes of Jake Bidwell and Sam Surridge, who have immediately struck up a connection with the fans not just because of their efforts on the pitch, but because of their efforts off it too.

All the first-team players at The Liberty appear to be on the same page when it comes to wanting to achieve Swansea's goal of giving the city a Premier League team again after dropping out of the top flight in 2018, and the fans recognise that the players are doing all within their power to deliver that goal.

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So for new manager Cooper, who only joined the club in the summer after a successful spell as England under-17s coach which included winning the under-17 World Cup. It is Cooper's first role in charge of a first-team after spells with the youth at Wrexham and Liverpool, and he has wasted no time in striking that bond up with the fans.

The 39-year-old really seems invested in giving the supporters what they crave and he appears to get what Swansea is all about, having carried on the same DNA and same identity from the last eight or nine years.

The former Liverpool academy manager has got his side playing some good football on the pitch, and off the pitch he always speaks well in front of the media and always appears to be approachable by fans.

Swansea fans have always wanted that connection between themselves and the players to come back, and Cooper finally appears to have been the man who wants to involve the fans going forward, as he believes they have an important part to play from the stands.

The supporters in South Wales will be keen and optimistic for the future to see how strong the bond between fan and player now becomes, and whether the positivity from the stands can feed onto the pitch and take Swansea back up to the top flight.