By Graham Thomas
Blue Monday is supposedly the saddest day of the year, but not if you are a Swansea City fan.
For them it’s not just the third Monday each January – when Christmas bills hit the doormat and the weather is still grim – that brings on the gloom.
It’s the entire month of January, when the transfer window extracts their heart, lungs and most of their ambition, like a master butcher cleaving a carcass.
This January has seen the club already lose four players, if you include the soon-to-be confirmed departure of captain Matt Grimes.
Only one has arrived – Hannes Delcroix, a loan recruit from Burnley.
January is kryptonite to Swansea – it saps their power and leaves them weak and vulnerable.
Two years ago, the window “slammed shut” as Sky Sports like to put it, with six players leaving and no-one coming into the club to replace them.
It was not so much the window closing as the handle flying off its latch and poking former head coach Russell Martin painfully in the eye.
When his eyes re-opened, Martin could see the club as it really way – cautious and clumsy in its dealings with others, playing an amateurish game of bluff that others could see straight through.
Not for the first time under the American ownership, they left their wheeling and dealing to the last minute – trying to play hard ball – except their opponents refused to do the blinking.
Swansea City has accepted a bid from a Championship club for the transfer of Matt Grimes.
Following discussions, Matt Grimes expressed his desire to move on, and the club has respected his wishes. pic.twitter.com/FJ9qheeOZW
— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) January 30, 2025
The result was zero recruitment and the exit of a deeply frustrated Martin for Southampton soon after.
This season, Luke Williams – sent out to defend a transfer policy decided by others – looks just as dejected.
Williams has said the departure of Grimes was simply a matter of the player choosing Coventry City over staying at Swansea.
“We couldn’t agree anything here and he and his family made the decision that another option was better for him, for their own reasons,” Williams said.
“I am not in the correct position to talk about all the reasons – there are many I’m sure.”
The club itself issued a brief two sentence statement about Grimes’ departure on Thursday afternoon.
It read: “Swansea City has accepted a bid from a Championship club for the transfer of Matt Grimes.
“Following discussions, Matt Grimes expressed his desire to move on and the club has respected his wishes.”
All of which would make some sense if Grimes was out of contract and he had chosen to sign a new deal elsewhere – a situation expected to arise with centre-back Harry Darling at the end of the season.
But Grimes was not out of contract. He was very much in contract, having signed a new deal as recently as last August.
Matt Grimes Says Goodbye To Swansea City As January Crisis Repeats Again
The reason he is leaving is not because he has chosen another club. It is because Swansea have decided to sell him, for a fee understood to be between £3m and £4m.
That in itself is an indication of the club’s fall.
Seven years ago, the club sold its best player – Gylfi Sigurdsson – for £45m.
Five years ago, Oli McBurnie left for £18m and a year later it was Joe Rodon for £12m.
Now, the price to remove Swansea’s most important cog – the player around whom everything on the pitch tends to turn – is just a small fraction of those figures.
To rub salt into supporters’ wounds, Grimes could even make a debut for Coventry against the Swans this weekend, should his transfer be lodged in time.
The odds on Coventry – who are four points and five places above the Swans in the Championship table – winning in south Wales this Saturday look generous.
They are priced at 7/4 by DragonBet, even though they have won their last three matches, with the Swans seen as narrow favourites at 6/4, despite three successive defeats.
Cardiff City, on the other hand, are continuing to show impressive improvement and could even draw level on points with Swansea if they were to spring a massive surprise and win at Leeds United.
That will be a very tall order since Leeds have only lost once at home this season – to Burnley back in September – and are currently two points clear of Sheffield United at the top of the table.
But Omer Riza’s side are unbeaten in eight matches in all competitions and the Bluebirds manager admits their strategy will be to frustrate and then strike while the Elland Road crowd are hot and bothered.
“We know the crowd there – if they’re not happy with their own players they can get on top of them, so that’s for Leeds to deal with,” said Riza.
“ We just have to go there and work hard, like we have been, and try to get a result.
“We’re on a good run, the boys are in a good place. We’re coming up against one of the best teams in the league, who can cause you a lot of problems.
“But if you can do it against them, you can do it against anyone – that’s the mindset. That’s how we’ll be approaching the game.”
Cardiff are 9/1 outsiders to beat Leeds, with the home side priced 2/7 for the win and the draw at 9/2.
