Swansea City told there is "no guarantee" of player becoming £5m quality - Middlesbrough are lurking | OneFootball

FLW have spoken to our Swansea fan pundit over whether full-back Josh Key is worth the £5 million valuation that's been put on his head by the club.

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 had a disrupted 2024-25 season in the Championship, with the replacement of manager Luke Williams with Alan Sheehan bringing about changes in the way the team played mid-way through the campaign.

The Swans finished the season in 11th place in the table, and fans will be looking forward to seeing how they might improve with Sheehan having had a summer to drill his system into his squad.

One player who was extremely disrupted by this was their talented defender, Josh Key, who was switched around in terms of his position last season. He showed flashes of excellence, which persuaded Swansea to put a £5 million price on his head amid talk that Middlesbrough want to take him to the Riverside Stadium ahead of the new season.

"It's a tricky one"; Josh Key's value is in his potential, but consistency will help him out

With rumours that Middlesbrough are circling, Football League World have asked our fan pundit Will whether he believes Key to be worth Swansea's valuation. "I can't necessarily say yes or no," he replied. "If we were to base that value off what we've seen so far in a Swansea shirt I'd say no, but then if you look at the flip-side, there's the potential of him to be a very good player, and I'd say yes."

But Will certainly believes that Key has the potential to be one of the best full-backs in the Championship: "It's all potential. With Josh Key, he's got all the attributes to be a top-class player in the Championship, he could be one of the best right backs in the division, but there's no guarantee."

Will believes that Key has not been done any favours by being moved around on the pitch over the last couple of seasons, but that he has an opportunity to be more settled under Alan Sheehan: "The first half of last season he was being told to play almost as an inverted right-back, and even in that role you could still see his quality, but I thought he was hindered by the way he was told to play.

"But I think when Alan Sheehan came in, he just told him to be a right back, focus on his defending, and do what in my opinion full-backs should, which is bomb on the overlap rather than come inside, and that's where we saw the best of him."

Will is optimistic that there is more to see from Key: "I'll be excited to see him play more in his natural position, the way he wants to play. The first season he came in, he played left wing-back for the first couple of games, then he played right-back, then he got injured, and then he only came back towards the end of the season.

"Last season he was disrupted by being played in a position that didn't suit him. I'm looking forward to seeing Josh Key play a consistent role week in, week out this year, and we'll see whether I change my mind over his value once I've seen that."

Josh Key transfer rumours may run to the end of the summer transfer window

The time to discover Josh Key's potential will soon be coming to an end. At 25 years of age, the full-back has already made over 200 EFL appearances for Exeter City and Swansea City, and it is notable that the interest in him is coming from Middlesbrough, a club that Swansea may consider their contemporaries in the Championship, rather than a bigger, established, Premier League club.

If Swansea are to move Key on, they will have to take into account that they are selling to a direct rival for a place in the Championship's top six this season. If Key can get consistent game time in one position, then Swansea fans will truly get to see what he's capable of, but it's the inconsistency of the club over the last couple of seasons which have prevented this from happening.

Whether Key is worth £5 million or not is ultimately a subjective one that can only be answered by asking two further simultaneous questions: are Middlesbrough prepared to pay it? And are Swansea prepared to release him for that amount of money?

All indications are that the answers to these questions remain far from clear. By the end of the transfer window, by which time Swansea will have had the opportunity to see him perform after a summer of work with Alan Sheehan, all concerned should have a better idea. This could be a transfer story which runs right to the end of this summer's window.