Swansea City struck gold with £400k Southampton transfer | OneFootball

Swansea City pulled off a bargain transfer when Nathan Dyer joined them on a permanent basis from Southampton in 2009.

Back in the summer of 2009, Swansea City decided to pursue a permanent deal for loanee Nathan Dyer from Southampton – they wouldn’t have expected that he would go on to become a cult hero with the Swans.

Trowbridge-born Dyer had come through the academy at Southampton, joining Saints at the age of eight, and becoming professional in 2005 but having loan spells out at Burnley and Sheffield United.

At the back end of the 2008/09 campaign, Dyer joined Swansea on loan and helped Roberto Martinez’s side to an impressive eighth-place finish following their promotion to the second-tier on the previous campaign.

For a fee believed to be in the region of around £400,000, Swansea opted to purchase Dyer on a permanent basis and, for such a low fee, they had secured someone who would become a key part of their future – and a key part of perhaps the best days of Swansea City supporters’ lives.

Nathan Dyer found his feet at Swansea City

Despite having been at Southampton for 14 years, Dyer was searching for a footballing home before his loan stint at Swansea, and the Liberty Stadium is where he truly began to thrive.

In his first couple of seasons with the club, Dyer became a crucial part of their ‘Swansealona’ style of football because, despite Roberto Martinez departing in the summer of 2009, the Jacks still sought to play a similar brand of football.

After a season under the management of Paulo Sousa, whereby they finished seventh, Dyer then played in every regular season and play-off match for Brendan Rodgers’ side as they gained promotion to the Premier League in 2011.

Dyer’s pace and ingenuity, as well as close control and general technical excellence provided a different dimension to the possession-based passing style of Rodgers’ Swansea.

Able to stretch the play, he was the point of difference for a side so content and comfortable controlling the ball and thus their opposition, with Dyer something of an x-factor and yet still adept at fitting in with the style.

He spent four successive seasons in the Premier League as a key man for Swansea as they continued to defy odds by punching above their weight in the top-flight under Rodgers and then Michael Laudrup, with whom Dyer was again a key man as Swansea won the 2012/13 League Cup and qualified for the UEFA Europa League as a result.

Nathan Dyer became a Premier League champion at Leicester City while still contracted to Swansea City

During the 2015/16 season, Dyer was deemed surplus to requirements at Swansea, quite surprisingly, by Garry Monk, and instead moved out on loan to Leicester City, who had narrowly escaped relegation the previous season.

Dyer made 14 appearances across all competitions for the Foxes as they pulled off one of the most surprising sporting achievements of all time by winning the Premier League title, with Dyer scoring a crucial goal towards the start of that campaign, an 89th minute winner in a dramatic late turnaround against Aston Villa, winning 3-2 from 2-0 down.

Dyer returned to Swansea and made a further 76 appearances for the club, but never quite hit the heights of what he had been able to achieve in the past.

However, he remains fondly remembered in south Wales and rightly so as, for a bargain fee, Swansea managed to bring in someone who would become a fulcrum of their so-called ‘glory days’ and someone who made nearly 350 appearances for the club – which is seriously good value.