Swansea City thought they signed a shoo-in in 2017 - "We definitely made the wrong decision" with club icon | OneFootball

Wilfried Bony signed for Swansea City for the first time in July 2013 and became a fan favourite at the club thanks to his goals

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…

Wilfried Bony signed for Swansea City for the first time in July 2013, but after 18 months of hitting the back of the net for fun in South Wales, the Ivorian left the club for Manchester City in January 2015, before returning to the Swans in August 2017.

In July 2013, Swansea broke their transfer record by signing Ivorian striker Wilfried Bony in a £12 million deal from Dutch outfit Vitesse.

Bony joined the likes of Jordi Amat, Jonjo Shelvey and Jonathan de Guzman to make the switch to the Liberty Stadium that summer, with Bony having scored 31 times and grabbed eight assists in 30 Eredivisie games the season prior.

The Ivorian joined the strike-force in South Wales with the likes of Michu, Wayne Routledge and Nathan Dyer surrounding him.

Michu had netted 22 times in all competitions the season prior, and with Bony joining, under the leadership of manager Michael Laudrup, the Swans were hopeful of another successful domestic and now European campaign, having qualified for the Europa League by winning the League Cup.

In his first season at the club, Bony netted 26 times and grabbed seven assists in all competitions for Swansea, cementing himself as a firm fan favourite and successfully replacing the output of Michu from the year prior.

He started where he left off in his second season, scoring nine times and grabbing two assists in 20 league games, but as January approached, interest in Bony was high, and Man City moved in to sign Bony for a reported fee of £28 million.

In truth, his switch to the Citizens was effectively Bony's downfall, as he struggled to break into the starting 11 ahead of Sergio Aguero, and a disappointing loan stint at Stoke City would further decrease his value. And by August 2017, he returned to Swansea, but he was never the same player as the one who left.

Swansea City 'definitely made the wrong decision' in the re-signing of Wilfried Bony from Manchester City

Football League World's Swansea fan pundit, Will, has shared his view on Swansea City signing Wilfried Bony for the second time, and whether it was the correct thing to do.

Will said: "I remember when he joined, there was excitement from myself, from a lot of fans over the fact that Wilf was coming back, because straight away we all thought of that year-and-a-half when he was first here, where he couldn't put a foot wrong.

"We were thinking, 'anything like that, then we should be fine', you know? That, coupled with the excitement of Renato Sanches coming in, I won't get too much into that, but we were thinking Bony coming back. Surely that's a shoo-in. Surely he will hit the ground running.

"He scored goals for us, surely he would be fine, he was more experienced now as well, he's more of a leader on the pitch, and it couldn't have gone any worse. I mean, looking back at it now, obviously hindsight is a great thing, he was just a lazy signing from the owners at the time, Steve Kaplan and Jason Leivien.

"You think that season as well, that January we signed Andre Ayew after selling him two years before.

"There wasn't a transfer strategy, it was just 'right, whoever is available, we will sign, and/or any ex-players, because we know they were good here before - well, no, you can't use that as a ploy to sign players.

"You can't just say, 'they were good for us before, so we will sign them this time'. There's no guarantee that that's going to be the case.

"Nevertheless, [I was] excited at the time, and you could see maybe he had lost a little bit of pace, he hadn't really been playing regular football after going to Man City, but then also you look at that, coupled with his loan move to Stoke, I want to say he played a quarter of the season there.

"I think our higher-ups didn't really look at the signing as one that was that good, really. I don't think our higher-ups really looked at the signing and thought, 'this could actually backfire on us', because they just saw the Wilfried Bony that I saw, really.

"I'm a fan, and they own the football club; they should be the experts in this, and obviously, he managed less than five goals, maybe, I'm not sure, not many goals at all, and then he did his ACL and was out for the rest of the season.

"That was just a freak accident that can't be helped, of course, but I think that just summed his return up, if I'm honest.

"I love Wilfried Bony, he's a cult hero for us, if I'm being honest. Think back to the goals he scored that year, scored his third goal against Cardiff as well, just an all-round great footballer, and having seen his energy around the club, a real great guy as well.

"You still see him following Swans on Instagram and Twitter, his son came through the academy with us, and sometimes I see him up at the local five-a-side pitches having a game.

"He still loves the place, it's just a shame that the second spell didn't work out, but as I say with hindsight, it was a very strange move, to pump that sort of money into a player that hadn't played regular football for probably two-and-a-half years and expect him to do a job the whole season, just poor all around.

"I think that just sums up how poor our recruitment strategy was at the time and just how out of their depth they were.

"To summarise, no, I don't think it was the right decision to bring him back. The amount of strikers that were available for us at the time we could have brought for that money could have been young, upcoming, or in their prime.

"We definitely made the wrong decision. Again, as I said, that goes back to the ownership and recruitment team, or lack of a recruitment team at the club at the time, and ultimately, that was our downfall from the Premier League to the Championship."

Wilfried Bony flopped upon his return to Swansea City - he was unable to hit the previous heights

On deadline day in the summer window of 2017, Swansea confirmed that they had re-signed Bony from Man City, and announced his return in sublime fashion via their social media, having him sing his own chant that Swansea fans sang for him just a couple of years before.

Much excitement surrounded his return, but the fairytale homecoming wasn't to be, as Bony struggled to re-find the form that made him so loved in South Wales, twinned with consistent injury issues, which ultimately saw Swansea relegated from the Premier League at the end of that season.

He'd make just seven appearances in the Championship the following season before heading on loan to Al-Arabi in Qatar, before being released by the club at the end of the season, spending his final professional years in Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, and Bolivia.

Bony scored just four times in 26 appearances upon his return, and was a far cry from the player he used to be, leaving Swansea with regrets over his re-signing, having never returned to the Premier League since.