Dobbie - Why Did We Loan Him To Our Rival?

Stephen Dobbie scored again for Blackpool yesterday, which forces the question - why on earth did we loan him out to one of our nearest play-off rivals?

The former Queen of the South striker, who joined the Swans on a free transfer at the beginning of the season, helped the Seasiders to a 2-0 home win yesterday against Doncaster Rovers.

Ian Holloway's side are right on form lately and are pushing for a top 6 place as they currently sit in 7th, just 2 points away from us and a point adrift of Leicester City, who occupy 6th.

So they're providing plenty of late pressure as we look to maintain our top 6 finish.

Dobbie has found it difficult to fit in at the Liberty Stadium following a change of manager. He seemed very enthusiastic to play under former boss Roberto Martinez but he has struggled to feature in Paulo Sousa's first team plans.

The Scot scored a couple of goals in the Carling Cup, but after a poor performance in the League against QPR, Dobbie was just a regular spectator amongst the substitutes.

Some fans might have thought that the striker couldn't the handle the big jump in standard to the Championship, but he didn't take long to prove that he can score goals at this level, as he found the net on his debut for Blackpool. He came on as a substitute in a home game against West Brom to equalise at 2-2, but Dorrans scored the winner 3 minutes later.

3 days later though he scored again, but during another home defeat, this time against Leicester City.

He also got goals in 2-0 wins against Plymouth Argyle and Doncaster Rovers recently - giving him an impressive record of 4 goals in 6 starts - plus 6 sub appearances.

Swansea City are well known as being the lowest scorers in the division, so not only does it seem such a bad decision to loan out a good goalscorer, but it's even worse to let him join one of our big play-off rivals.

You could maybe argue against that first point about loaning him out in the first place. He had a very poor game against QPR, but it was his first and only start for us - with a bit more time with the squad he could have developed, adjusted to our style and scored goals regularly for us.

As to where Dobbie's future lies, nobody knows at this stage, but you do get the feeling that he's not suited to Sousa's style and he seems happy scoring consistently for Blackpool, but it would be a shame to lose a striker with goalscoring ability - something we hardly have in abundance at this club!

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.