Swansea return for Valencia winger to replace Man City-bound Sinclair

Swansea have seemingly accepted that Scott Sinclair will leave for Manchester City, but Michael Laudrup is not hanging around in chasing a replacement.

The Swans are still 5/2 to be relegated despite their opening-day 5-0 away win at QPR and their display at Loftus Road suggested that they could cope fine without Sinclair.

Laudrup opted for Nathan Dyer and Wayne Routledge in the wide berths and both heavily influenced the end result, while Sinclair sat on the bench.

However, this may have been to prevent injury as his anticipated £5m to the champions moves ever closer.

Sinclair’s history with Swansea is well known after a hat-trick in the play-off final to secure their Premier League promotion, while only Danny Graham scored more to keep them up last season.

But with his contract up at the end of the campaign and no immediate sign that he is interested in signing a fresh one, Laudrup has identified that selling Sinclair now is for the good of the club.

With Joe Allen also leaving for Liverpool this summer, Laudrup has some midfield vacancies to fill and two names have already cropped up as targets.

Swansea are at the front of the queue for Celtic’s Ki Sung-Yeung and a fee thought to be a club record £5m has reportedly already been agreed.

Ki could fit in centrally and Laudrup is preparing a second crack at Valencia for Pablo Hernandez in an effort to bring some more width to the squad.

It may take another club record to sign Hernandez given that a £5m bid has already proved unsuccessful, but Valencia are certainly willing to sell for the right price.

Valencia have been severely cash strapped for at least two seasons and given the current financial climate in Spain, bank rates are especially high.

Hernandez was also left out of the Valencia squad that drew 1-1 with Real Madrid in the first round of La Liga fixtures this season.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.