After Man City & Liverpool flops, Swansea City have taken another transfer risk | OneFootball

Swansea City will hope that Kaelan Casey fares better than some of their recent Premier League loanees

Swansea City begin their Championship campaign with a trip to Middlesbrough on Saturday, and their squad is set to be bolstered by the loan arrival of West Ham defender Kaelan Casey.

Casey's arrival will be a timely boost to Alan Sheehan, who is currently without three centre-backs, with Ben Cabango, Ricardo Santos and Filip Lissah all out injured, leaving summer signing Cameron Burgess as Swansea's only fit senior centre-back.

Given their injury concerns at the back, Casey could well come straight into the starting XI at the Riverside Stadium, a situation far from ideal, but needs must at the moment for Swansea.

Signing a central defender would have been low down on the list of Swansea's transfer priorities a couple of weeks ago, but injuries have forced their hand, and they'll hope that Casey is more successful than some of their recent loan signings.

Kaelan Casey deal is a risk for Swansea City

20-year-old Casey has played just three senior games for West Ham, and while he's impressed for their U21 side in Premier League 2, playing Championship football against seasoned professionals will be a much tougher ask.

Swansea have found out the hard way that signing young defenders from Premier League clubs doesn't always end well, and you only have to look at the way Rhys Williams and Finley Burns performed on loan from Liverpool and Manchester City during the 2021/22 season to understand why supporters are sceptical about Casey's arrival.

Both Williams and Burns were out of their depth at Championship level, with Williams seeing his loan deal end early and Burns playing just three games after joining in January 2022.

Of course, there are exceptions, with Marc Guehi enjoying a fruitful 18 months in SA1 as a youngster, which earned him a move to Crystal Palace, but even a player of his quality struggled to adapt to Championship football in his first couple of weeks at the club, and it's fair to suggest that Casey doesn't possess the quality that he does.

Swansea have a tough start to the season which could prove a real baptism of fire for Casey, but it's a chance for the West Ham loanee to show what he's capable of and force his way into Sheehan's plans as a genuine option when the likes of Cabango and Santos return.

Swansea City may regret not signing a more experienced centre-back on loan

Swansea need a centre-back who's capable of holding his own in the starting XI during the early weeks of the season, and supporters will question whether a more experienced defender would have been a better signing.

You only have to look at the difference in Swansea's two centre-back loans last season to see why a more experienced option is favoured by some supporters, with Nelson Abbey and Hannes Delcroix enduring very different spells in South Wales.

Youngster Abbey made just one appearance for the club and none in the Championship before being recalled by Olympiacos in January, while 26-year-old Burnley loanee Delcroix made 12 appearances and offered Swansea a genuine Championship-quality option.

While finances and availability would have surely played a part in their decision to sign Casey and not an experienced defender, it could well come back to haunt the Swans if Casey is not up to the task of Championship football.

The West Ham loanee looks set for regular football in the early weeks of the season, and he faces the biggest challenge of his career so far as he looks to prove to the Jack Army that he's not another Rhys Williams or Finley Burns type of signing.