A MESSAGE FROM
RUSSELL MARTIN G
ood afternoon and welcome back to the Swansea.com Stadium for our Championship fixture against Preston North End. It is fantastic to have you all b a c k w i t h u s i n t h e st a n d s this afternoon. We are really excited to be playing in front of you again. It has been a long time since we last played in front of you at home, and I c an tell you the impor t anc e of your return is something we have spoken about as a squad and a staff this week. It has been a difficult period for us with po stponement s e n s u r i n g we d i d n ot p l ay a league game for five weeks, and it can be so easy at times like that to feel disconnected from your team and club. But the outstanding support we received at Huddersfield last weekend – and from the first day we arrived at Swansea – underlines how strong that connection between the coaches, the staff, the players and you really is.
I hope you were all able to see how desperate the players are to succeed for you and the club, and to make you all proud. We want to be the team we know we can be, we have shown it on numerous occasions this season and we did it again in the last game. I was certainly proud of how the players performed after a nervous start. Huddersfield are a team who have been in good form and we ended up being a bit disappointed we had not taken all three points. We hope to use that as a springboard for the second half of the season, and we are very excited as a group about the games to come. We have also been able to add Andy Fisher, Cyrus Christie and Hannes Wolf to our squad so far this month, and we are delighted with all three of those additions. They all fit the profile we look for, of players who are hungry, ambitious and desperate for the opportunity to come here and be involved in what we are trying to do. I have every confidence they will be important players for us.
We have also seen some of our younger players head out on loan to gain more valuable senior experience, while Jake Bidwell has joined Coventry and departs with our best wishes. Jake is an outstanding professional, and we did not want to stand in his way if an opportunity came up that he felt suited him and his family. I am sure there will be more business before the end of the month, but our focus is very much on taking on Preston this afternoon. They have been doing well under Ryan Lowe, a coach I came up against last season and again at the start of this when he was at Plymouth. He did a fantastic job there, which has seen him having this opportunity and you can already see the impact he has had. We know it will be a tough test, but we are determined to try and make sure we mark your return to the Swansea.com Stadium with a positive performance and result. Enjoy the game, Russell
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