"The ship may have sailed" - Swansea City transfer doubts cast as Carlos Corberan plots swoop | OneFootball

Swans face uphill battle as Valencia enter the race for O’Brien

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Swansea City’s hopes of re-signing Lewis O’Brien this summer may be hanging by a thread, with La Liga side Valencia reportedly joining the race for the Nottingham Forest midfielder.

O’Brien quickly became a fan favourite during his loan spell in South Wales earlier this year, starting every possible Championship match and playing an astonishing 99% of available minutes.

His tireless work rate, attacking intent, and tactical intelligence helped steady the Swans at a turbulent point in the season, and many hoped he would be back permanently.

However, with former boss Carlos Corberán now in charge at Valencia - and keen to reunite with O’Brien after their success together at Huddersfield Town - Swansea may struggle to compete, financially or otherwise.

Despite the recent arrival of Swedish midfielder Melker Widell, fans remain hopeful, but realistic that a deal for

Valencia interest could end Swansea’s hopes of Lewis O’Brien return

Football League World spoke to Swansea City fan pundit Will Hughes to get his take on whether the Swans had a chance in the battle for O’Brien’s signature.

“For me, potentially, I think the ship may have sailed now with Valencia being interested, especially with the fact it’s Carlos Coreberan who’s there.” Hughes told FLW.

“Of course, having worked with Lewis O’Brien in the past with Huddersfield Town, I think the pull would be too much for Swans to be able to deal with.

“Hope I’m wrong, you know, and I hope this is just a rumour, and nothing comes into it, Valencia offer too little for Forest to accept, and they keep a hold of him, and we come in later on with a fresh loan offer, and they decide to loan him to us.

“Who knows, but as I say I think it’s looking very bleak and very unlikely we’re gonna get O’Brien back any time soon, which is a shame because he’s been absolutely fantastic since he came in.

“Of course we didn’t know what direction the club was going to go in, obviously having lost Matt Grimes, the main cog of the team, the main player who had us playing the way that we wanted so we were all a bit nervous as to how we were going to move on and what we were going to do, obviously with the club being in free fall at the time as well, having lost a good number of games, falling down the league, manager under pressure, players under performing, then you then lose your captain and the main driving force in that midfield, if you would, that is the main, like I said, the main cog that has to play that way.”

“It was like he was all we knew since the relegation, he’s always been there, so for him to leave, O’Brien came in - obviously a very different kind of player and got us playing a different type of way - he’s a different player to Grimes, and he’s probably as creative in my opinion but obviously plays a different way.

“O’Brien is a lot more forward thinking, you’d have to say that, in terms of on the ball, he’s happy to drive at players, he gets in the box, he contributes defensively as well - he’s almost like a box-to-box type of player.

“He wasn’t really being played in the same position as Grimes, he was more of a 8 whereas Grimes would maybe play as more of a 6 and having O’Brien in that position with Franco next to him, and then having someone to play in that holding role like Jay Fulton or Joe Allen allowed O’Brien and Franco to be a bit more free.

“Having Grimes play there with Franco with a number 10 there when Luke Williams was in charge I think hindered us, because Franco would like to fly into these tackles further up the pitch and press, Grimes would start deep and then work his way slowly forward to try and create, and we’d have already a creative player there who wasn’t really given license to create, because obviously everything would have to go through Grimes.

“We’d lose a lot of battles on the transition then from attack to defence, so it’s one of them that I think Lewis O’Brien coming in was a key moment in the season for us.

“I’ve got a friend who thinks if we didn’t bring him in, we would have got relegated, so it’s a real shame that it’s looking unlikely.

“Obviously we’ve got a fantastic young talent coming in in Melker Widell, who plays very similarly to Lewis O’Brien, obviously he’s got a lot of potential, I think that was a clever bit of business in January to bring him in, whereas I think his stock is rising now, he’s hitting form, so I think he could fill that gap, definitely.

“Obviously, if there is an option to bring O’Brien back, I would 100% do that, just because the more strength you’ve got in that midfield the better, but I am excited to see Widell can bring, but ultimately I am gutted that O’Brien is looking unlikely to come back.”

Swansea still have midfield hope, even if O’Brien departs

Whether or not Lewis O’Brien does make a move to Spain, his short but significant time at Swansea left a lasting impression - his arrival helped to fill the void left by Matt Grimes and changed the complexion of the midfield almost overnight.

Yet football moves fast, and with Widell settling in and Franco continuing to grow, there’s reason to believe Swansea can move forward even if O’Brien’s next chapter takes place in sunnier surroundings.

That said, should the opportunity to bring him back arise - on loan or otherwise - few fans would turn it down.