Your Swansea City headlines on Friday, February 3.
Kompany has no concerns over Obafemi attitude
Vincent Kompany says Burnley's decision to sign Michael Obafemi from Swansea came with "little risk".
The striker had been keen to join the Clarets in the summer and endured a poor run of form in the months that ultimately led to his switch to Turf Moor in the January transfer window.
READ MORE: Swansea City chiefs conduct shock interview and publicly apologise after shambolic transfer window
But Man City legend Kompany says the deal to take Obafemi from south Wales to Lancashire is a "smart" one for the Championship leaders.
"For me, the most important thing to check is, fundamentally is the person a good person or a bad person?" he said in a press conference, as quoted by our sister title LancsLive.
"Can they be told and coached and accept it? On that side I am not worried. The rest of it, everybody has to have an opportunity to grow and improve. We have done it (the deal) in a way that is smart for us as a club. There is a big upside and little risk."
Contract hopes outlined
Russell Martin has urged Swansea's owners to address the contract concerns looming over the club's playing squad.
Ryan Manning and Joel Latibeaudiere see their current deals expire in the summer while a host of key players including Joel Piroe, Jay Fulton, Joe Allen and Steven Benda will enter the final year of their existing deals in the summer.
And Martin has called for the club to learn from their mistakes and use the coming months to sort out the necessary deals that need doing in addition to working hard to line up moves for players who will become free agents.
"Out of all of this, whatever’s happened, we have a massive chance to do things right now and learn from this," said the head coach.
"Hopefully that’ll be the case and we’ve also got some important stuff to do between now and the end of the season and trying to get some of our players to sign new contracts.
"That’s the worry now, that this window will have repercussions moving forward for the summer window. The best way we can alleviate that is to commit some of our players to signing new contracts now, to maybe try and get some pre-contracts done for the summer with the free agents that are out there.
"We have some really important players out of contract, we have some really important players that have a year left in the summer. Let’s not wait, let’s get that done.
"Steven Benda, Ryan Manning, Joel Latibeaudiere, Jay Fulton has a year left in the summer, we have some young players that have done incredibly well that we need to protect ourselves on and also reward them if we're going to be the club we really want to be and play young players, they need rewarding when they do well, like Ollie Cooper has been."
Goalkeeper picture clarified
Russell Martin admits Swansea should have signed a goalkeeper in January given the news that Steven Benda will miss the rest of the season due to injury.
The Swans were exploring the option of recruiting a new shot stopper after discovering the full extent of Benda's knee injury and were pushing to conclude a deal on deadline day.
However, they were unable to make a signing, meaning Andy Fisher will be backed up by Lewis Webb for the foreseeable future.
"We should have done a goalkeeper. There's no hiding from that," he said.
"We had such bad luck, two goalkeepers (Benda and Archie Matthews) with ACL injuries in three days, it's unheard of. It's a big ask for Webby, he's been on loan at Aberystwyth and in the League of Ireland, to step up. But he's going to be our number two at the moment.
"It's a big opportunity for Fish again. We have real belief in Fish, we brought him in for MK. If we didn't believe in him we wouldn't have brought him in."
And when pressed on why a goalkeeper wasn't signed in January, Martin responded: "Again, it's just the nature of the ambiguity in the process really.
"We were clear that we needed to do it. We were also clear that there were other priorities that came before that.
"Again, I don't think we dealt with it very well. We tried here again to get a list of people, but, in the end, it was all a bit too late because of the ambiguity of what we might have to spend around it.
"It's something we'll need to discuss and review with the owners when we speak to them and make sure we avoid that again."
Swans v Birmingham team news
Joe Allen will miss Swansea's clash with Birmingham City due to injury.
The Wales international had a minor knock earlier in the week and will not be risked against the Blues.
Andy Fisher is set to start in goal in place of the injured Steven Benda who will undergo surgery on an ACL injury sustained in the 1-1 draw with Queens Park Rangers last time out. Lewis Webb is set to feature on the bench.
Morgan Whittaker will be included in the matchday squad, although there will be no place in the 18-man party for Jamie Paterson.
Liam Walsh remains unavailable, although the central midfielder is set to step up his recovery from a ruptured Achilles by featuring for the club's Under-21s.
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